Technology and Civic Engagement - Part II

The upcoming presidential election may be, what some have labeled, the election of a century. Record primary voting, floods of new registrations, more small campaign donors and highly rated political conventions show that people are intensely interested in the 2008 election. People perceive that their vote will help determine big issues of peace and prosperity.

As we discussed earlier in part 1 of Technology and Civic Engagement, few developments have had broader consequences for the public sector than the introduction of the Internet and digital technology. In its boldest formulation, technology is seen as a tool for long-term system transformation.

In the last election, more than 20 million 18-29 year-olds voted for president, an increase of 4.6 million voters up from the year 2000. 2004 was the highest level of national youth voter participation in over a decade. Much of the voter increase can be attributed to efforts on the part of young activists and organizers to galvanize the youth vote using the power and influence of hip-hop, the pop youth culture of our time. The 2008 presidential election promises to be an electrifying race for young people where their vote is expected to have a major impact.

Young voter participation has increased dramatically in the primaries, taking place among college students. There are 13 million 18 to 25 year olds, who never attended college and of this group, only 20 percent have voted so far. This group is comprised of youth who come from  lower-income backgrounds and African American and Latino communities, and they stand to gain the most from more political power and resources.

Together, these new voters represent a huge, untapped potential voter base, of which close to half live in clustered, urban areas in some of the most likely swing states. This demographic is equally crucial beyond elections for pushing universal healthcare, education reform, and urgent climate change policies on the national agenda.

This year, Hip hop has impacted politics like never before. From Jay-Z shouting out candidates during his live shows, to Lil Wayne and Nas' dialogues with national heads of news networks, to artists throughout the country encouraging young people to vote, there's been an active call to connect the world's affairs with the Hip hop generation.

We invite you to learn more about our community partners involved in working with the hip hop generation.

Generation Vote, a national alliance of 18 youth organizations, looked for a low-cost, high impact way to harness the growing power of hip hop culture and new media technologies to engage more young people in politics in 2008. That’s what led to the creation of the VoteHipHop contest. Currently, no other national effort exists to make political work culturally relevant to the Hip Hop community.

With Vote HipHop young people are asked to creatively express which election issues are important to them and their communities and why. Vote HipHop provides a venue for young people to share their creative vision with each other and project their voices to audiences they would not otherwise have access to. Additionally, the contest is inspiring the development of and consolidating content to give young people a reason to vote.

Visit VoteHipHop.com for more information.

Rap Sessions

For the last three years, Rap Sessions, the first national tour of its kind, brought townhall style meetings to scores of cities across the country. In 2008, Rap Sessions continues its commitment to engaging the most difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop generation. Rap Sessions: Community Dialogues on Hip-Hop serves as a virtual community center where we will debate issues of vital concern to the hip-hop generation. The goal of these discussions is to assist existing social change efforts. By coming together as a community, they identify solutions to the crises of our time. This year they are exploring the significance of the hip-hop vote, with the theme Hip-Hop and the Presidential Election of 2008.

If any one can claim to be an authority on whether hip hop will affect the 2008 Presidential election, it’s surely Bakari Kitwana. So states an article written on Kitwana for the University of Chicago.

The former editor of The Source magazine, the author of The Hip-Hop Generation and Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop, Kitwana is undeniably one of the country’s best-known “hip hop” intellectuals. And he’s the 2007-2008 Artist-in-Residence at the University of Chicago's Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture.

Kitwana believes that hip hop is an emerging political force. In fact, he believes that the pundits and political analysts have the Obama phenomenon backward. It’s not the campaign of Sen. Obama that’s driving the youth voters to polls in record numbers. “Young voters have already been mobilizing. Obama just happens to be the beneficiary.”

Kitwana believes that people of the “hip hop generation” have a different world view. “They’re born in a post-segregation America,” he says, of the hip hop generation. “And their idea of the American dream is radically different from previous generations of Americans.”

The Hip Hop Congress is a 501 (c) 3 Non Profit Corporation. The Hip Hop Congress provides the Hip Hop Generation and the Post Hip Hop Generation with the tools, resources and opportunities to make social, economic and political change on a local, regional and national level. Hip Hop Congress is the product of a merger of artists and students, music and community.

Hip Hop Congress (HHC) is working to transform Hip hop’s current informal artist-driven network into a powerful social change agent. HHC will create a technology-based enterprise that will empower its membership to actively change their communities and improve their lives.