Common sense and song lyrics tell us that the children are our future, but the leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union know something your average progressive activists don't: The future needs to be engaged in politics on its own terms, and in its own language. Last weekend's ACLU conference here in Washington featured a spoken-word performance from the cast of Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam and dancing to the sonic artistry of D.C. duo Thievery Corporation. More importantly, it gave young people a chance to talk to one another -- about issues, such as school segregation, that resonate in their own lives but are too often ignored by politicians -- rather than get lectured to by adults. Indeed, the ACLU conference provided a model for how activist groups dominated by adults can engage young people and their ideas -- and do so in the language of a new generation.
During its annual conference, from June 11-14, the ACLU sponsored four official youth gatherings, including an orientation, a two-part strategy summit and a closing celebration. The strategy sessions provided a youth-organized, youth-run separate space in which it became clear that the ACLU views its under-27 wing as more than a mere token or vague long-term investment. At the intergenerational closing ceremony, ACLU President Nadine Strossen voiced the confidence that permeated the conference, saying, "I'm not worried about the future of the ACLU. In fact, I think John Ashcroft should be worried about the future of the ACLU."
At least at this conference, the group seemed to have rejected the conventional practice of socializing young recruits into the fold through menial tasks and dogmatic speeches from their elders. Instead, ACLU leaders are putting youth in positions of influence now, awarding them scholarships, encouraging them to develop their own political agenda -- and, on the last evening of the conference, even dancing to their music.
The Democratic Party and its presidential hopefuls would do well to emulate the ACLU model. A recent Harvard University study suggests that 86 percent of the 9.5 million 18-24 year-olds currently attending college plan to vote in 2004. Many of them do not affiliate with either major party and have yet to pick a candidate. Young people, like the soccer moms of yore, are poised to swing the election. This is bad news for most politicians, who have barely detected the existence of young voters, let alone learned to engage them.
"I just cannot picture any politicians talking to youth," said Danielle Strandburg-Peshkin, a 17 year-old from Evanston, Ill., who participates in her high school's feminist group and an organization called Youth for Social Action. Strandburg-Peshkin is typical of the millions of young people who have leaped wholeheartedly into social activism and community service but remain disenchanted with electoral politics. She spoke enthusiastically about the ACLU youth activities, praising especially the "amazing" spoken-word poetry that opened the youth summit. And she noted that, unlike many activist gatherings in Washington, the conference was by no means a sea of white faces.
John Hoff, 19, also expressed disappointment with politics in general and the Democrats in particular, calling them "sheep" and a "different set of Republicans." Hoff looked rather roguish as he smiled and said he'd heard that the Green Party was stepping up its activities. While all of the students interviewed said they would prefer to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate, many of them mentioned that they would vote for a third party if that was where their values led them.
At the youth summit portion of the conference, Meredith Curtis, a staffer at the ACLU's Maryland chapter, sat with a table of high-school students hashing out their ideas about what issues the ACLU should prioritize. "All the ideas we're generating here really are going to go somewhere," she told the teenagers, and the teenagers repaid her sincerity with an open and honest discussion -- a feat too rarely duplicated within high-school walls.
Matthew Erard, 18, knows what position he wants to see the ACLU adopt: health care as a civil right. Kevin Brown, 17, nodded vigorously at this suggestion, adding that when his cousin was shot, a relative had to remove the bullet because they couldn't afford health insurance.
"My school is segregated," said Quatia Barksdale, 16, describing a widespread phenomenon that, since Brown v. the Board of Education, many politicians have glossed over or simply ignored. Barksdale wants to become a lawyer and is enrolled in the public-policy program at her Maryland high school. She may not yet know much about the intricacies of Washington lobbying and legislating, but she does know what should change, and how. She comments on the suspension policy at her school, which can't afford in-school supervision and so sends its children home as a means of punishment. Barksdale notes that for all politicians' talk about the importance of education, they keep her school direly underfunded; as a result, school officials are "just always putting us out instead of keeping us in."
In addition to giving youth the chance to air their concerns, the ACLU displayed an impressive grasp of the way that young people talk about politics and ideas. Hip-hop is the unofficial language of both mainstream youth culture and grass-roots youth activism; including it and spoken-word poetry in the conference program sent a signal that the ACLU is willing to speak that language. Many adults associate hip-hop solely with a destructive side of youth culture, but they fail to appreciate the genre's multicultural and interclass appeal.
Young people respond to hip-hop because it articulates their issues in direct and poetic ways. When poet Muhibb Dyer spoke at the conference about hearing a shot from a .38-caliber pistol, Barksdale nodded to herself and said quietly, "I know that sound." The poets of Def Poetry Jam crammed their performance with wry observations about what's wrong with America. Steve Colman told a cheering audience, "When Enron and Congress fuck, everyone gets screwed." Suheir Hammad spoke of painting the White House brown and writing "America a Dear John letter / I ain't leaving but things got to get better."
Of course, no middle-aged white guy is going to convince teenagers that he is "dope," but young people aren't necessarily looking for a candidate who quotes their movies or shows up on MTV. Politicians can speak the young tongue merely by abandoning lies and doublespeak, pandering and placation, and instead simply telling it like it is. "Keeping it real" is something even the squarest old fogy can do.
The ACLU recipe for youth engagement -- one part straight talk, one part respect, one part independent leadership and a dash of culture -- would work for the Democratic Party as well. As Strandburg-Peshkin said, "If the Democratic Party were to have a convention like this, that'd be pretty great."
Miriam Markowitz is a TAP Online intern and a rising senior at Brown University.
