New Media Heroes; The Village Voice

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 05:49:00 -0500
>From: Art McGee <amcgee at blackradicalcongress.org>
>Subject: New Media Heroes; The Village Voice
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>This is a Press Release/Statement from the Black Radical Congress
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Warning! Shameless Self-Promotion Alert! ;-)
>
>Hi Folks,
>
>We're interrupting the normal flow of news and information
>to let you know about a couple of items, both of which are
>specifically about the Internet.
>
>First, the Black Radical Congress has been nominated for an
>AlterNet "New Media Heroes" award. This is an award given
>out by the Independent Media Institute/AlterNet, to honor
>those who have made a significant impact using New Media
>(The Internet, etc.) to foster social change.
>
>Second, the Black Radical Congress was recently featured
>in an article in the Village Voice, written by freelance
>journalist Donna Ladd. As with the New Media Heroes
>nomination, the article focuses on the BRC's use of
>the Internet.
>
>Attached below is the announcement from AlterNet about the
>New Media Heroes award, and following that is the article
>from the Village Voice.
>
>If you think the Black Radical Congress is doing a good job
>online, please vote for us. :-)
>
>If you're not already on our BRC-NEWS mailing list (the list
>described in the Village Voice article), just send us a note
>at blackradicalcongress at email.com with "subscribe brc-news"
>on the subject line, and we'll add you.
>
>Take care.
>
>Art McGee
>Internet Communications Coordinator,
>Black Radical Congress
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Vote for "New Media" Heroes
>
>http://www.alternet.org/heroes
>
>Dear Friend,
>
>The staff of AlterNet.org invites you to cast your vote for
>"New Media" Heroes -- for those media activists and issue
>advocates who are best using new technologies to make the
>world a better place.
>
>Since 1991, AlterNet has been presenting Media Hero awards,
>recognizing people who are combating the negative effects
>of media concentration and distorted media images. After a
>brief hiatus, we are presenting the awards again, but now
>for "new media" heroes.
>
>The award is based on the proposition that the Internet
>offers many creative and efficient ways of overcoming the
>incredibly high costs of producing traditional media, and
>also offers new models for reaching people with ideas and
>ways to organize around important issues. Some nominees are
>producers of new media content; others advocate policies to
>ensure the democratic potential of the Internet.
>
>Media activists who participated in AlterNet's portal beta
>test or who read the AlterNet column Media Mash selected
>most of the nominees. Based on our experience, the AlterNet
>staff also made several nominations. The final award winners
>will be chosen by you. In February, we will announce these
>top five New Media Heroes, and a number of runners-up, on
>AlterNet.org.
>
>Go to http://www.alternet.org/heroes to read a description
>of each nominee and get directions for casting your vote.
>
>Nominees
>
>John Aravosis, StopDrLaura.com
>Becky Bond, WorkingForChange.com
>Jeffrey Chester, Center for Media Education
>Farai Chideya, Pop and Politics
>James Garcia, Politico: The Magazine for Latino Politics and Culture
>Chip Giller and Lisa Hymas, Grist
>David Irons and Tom Schmitz, Ascribe the Public Interest Newswire
>Josh Karliner, CorpWatch
>Matt King, OpenVoice
>Josh Knauer, EnvironLink Network and Greenmarketplace.com
>Andrew Levy, Mediachannel.org
>Art McGee, Black Radical Congress
>Carrie McLaren, Stay Free! Magazine
>Nipun Mehta, CharityFocus
>Dan Merkle, Independent Media Centers
>John Moyers, TomPaine.com
>Bill Pease, Scorecard.org
>Amy Richards, Ask Amy @ Feminism.com
>Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
>Mark Rotenberg, Electronic Privacy Information Center (E.P.I.C.)
>Don Rojas, The Black World Today
>Sam Smith, Progressive Review
>Leif Utne, Utne Web Watch Daily
>Sasa Vucinic, New Media Development Fund
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>
>http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0102/ladd.shtml
>
>Village Voice
>
>January 10-16, 2001
>
>The Black Radical Congress Calls for Action
>
>Forty Acres and One Big Digital Mule
>
>By Donna Ladd <donna at shutup101.com>
>
>African American intellectual Frederick Douglass said in
>1857 that power will concede nothing without a fight: 'those
>who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation,
>are men who want crops without plowing up the ground,
>they want rain without thunder and lightning.'
>
>Since the Election Day assault on the rights of minority
>voters, the Black Radical Congress has been working overtime
>to plow the fields of online agitation, sending out an average
>of eight to 10 e-mails a day on its listserv. Make no mistake:
>This is not annoying spam. The group's e-mail collection
>comprises an anthology of what is arguably the best news and
>commentary about minority issues, particularly the election
>morass, to be found anywhere.
>
>On December 1, the group - based in an office near Columbia
>University - issued a statement that might have made the
>freed slave Douglass smile. "This should be seen as a cause
>for action in the streets, and in all facets of this society,"
>wrote co-chairman Bill Fletcher Jr. "Supporters of democracy
>need to be agitating about this situation."
>
>As the January 20 inauguration of George W. Bush approaches,
>the listserv has offered activists a first stop for news about
>political events and looming protests. It works much like a
>clipping service, with reporters and commentators submitting
>their articles to Internet communications coordinator Art
>McGee, who pores through dozens of submissions each day.
>The resulting posts help fill the void left by sporadic and
>often incomplete media coverage of minority issues. "We're
>not so much trying to recruit in the traditional sense as
>to educate," McGee says from Los Angeles. "We're putting the
>idea of radical politics back on the table." For him, being
>radical means tackling the root of the problem, not just
>acquiescing to today's capitalist order, settling for a
>minute change or two.
>
>The Black Radical Congress is less conservative than
>the Nation of Islam and even the NAACP and Jesse Jackson's
>Rainbow Push Coalition, McGee says. For one, the organization
>- a "united front" of individuals and groups, young and old,
>including academics, clerics, and laypeople - openly welcomes
>gays and lesbians. Race is indeed the coalition's bottom-
>line connector, but like the Green Party, the group takes
>a more socialist view of reform. It advocates for seemingly
>soft issues such as child care, living wages, and universal
>health care; it also is waging a war of words against the
>war on drugs, police brutality, and now the crippled
>electoral process.
>
>African Americans, McGee says, have been marginalized
>because the black left became weak as the original Black
>Panthers self-destructed and few leaders rose to replace
>them. He warns that the community must be careful: "There's
>a danger we can be co-opted by more liberal forces and
>satisfied with a few concessions."
>
>The academics who established the congress actually built
>its site, www.blackradicalcongress.org, before officially
>organizing the group on June 19, 1998 - a date also known
>as Juneteenth, the African American holiday celebrating the
>emancipation of slaves in Texas. McGee credits the founders
>for realizing the Internet's power at a time when most other
>minority groups had paid it scant attention. "It was
>considered high-priority," he says. "It couldn't be
>an afterthought."
>
>McGee says many African Americans came late to the Internet
>- but that they are there, especially in social settings,
>and just need to be organized. "There's an unevenness to
>the Internet from the [black] activist standpoint," he
>says. Now McGee hopes to pull the communities behind
>sites like BlackPlanet.com and BlackVoices.com toward
>progressive politics.
>
>The timing is certainly right to harness minority outrage
>over the election and the Supreme Court nod to Bush, McGee
>argues. "It's all out there in the open now," he says. "We
>don't even have to explain what the problem is, just how we
>go about changing it."
>
>Mr. Douglass, cue the thunder and lightning.
>
>--
>
>To subscribe to the BRC listserv, send e-mail to:
><blackradicalcongress at email.com>.
>
>Tell us what you think: <editor at villagevoice.com>.
>
>Copyright (c) 2001 Village Voice Media. All Rights Reserved.
>
>
>-30-
>
>Black Radical Congress
>National Office
>Columbia University Station
>P.O. Box 250791
>New York, NY 10025-1509
>Phone: (212) 969-0348
>Email: blackradicalcongress at email.com
>Web: http://www.blackradicalcongress.org
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>BRC-PRESS: Black Radical Congress - Official Press Releases/Statements
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Unsubscribe: <mailto:majordomo at tao.ca?body=unsubscribe%20brc-press>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Subscribe: <mailto:majordomo at tao.ca?body=subscribe%20brc-press>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Help: <mailto:worker-brc-press at lists.tao.ca?subject=brc-press>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Archive1: <http://www.mail-archive.com/brc-press@lists.tao.ca>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Archive2: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/brc-press>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Archive3: <http://archive.tao.ca>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
><www.blackradicalcongress.org>  | BRC |  <blackradicalcongress at email.com>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------