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Author: Marc Lamont Hill is assistant professor of Urban Education and American Studies at Temple University. 

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Posted Friday, February 08, 2008 3:37 PM

Down from the Tower - Idol Politics [response]

lacewellm

Marc,

 

You are too young to be so old. You have to be at least 40 before you are allowed to decry the folly of youthful technology. YouTube is not the end of reasoned democratic deliberation. It may be just the beginning.

 

Meaningful political analysis is not the exclusive property of pundits and intellectuals. Insight and emotion are connected. I would never have made it through the Bush administration without The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Most days I think Chris Rock and Perez Hilton are more astute than Tavis Smiley and Charlie Rose.

 

Even American Idol is important. The show turned young people into voters. Yes, they were voting for off key singers with bad hair, but democracy requires practice. We have to learn to gather information, develop preferences, persuade others, build coalitions, and cast votes. It is not the radicalizing training ground of the Highlander Folk School, but it isn't meaningless.

 

YouTube may yet save us from the death grip of special interests and

527 Swiftboat influence. It levels the discursive playing field when black teenagers in Mississippi can invest a few hundred dollars and make an effective and memorable 3 minute video with instantaneous national distribution.

 

And that Mississippi rap video, "Representin' Obama"  has substantive content. These kids gave reasons why they are supporting Barack. They drectly challenge an establishment that says they don't care about their future or their country. Even the "yes we can" video is substantive because it reveals our deepest political yearning. We desperately want to live in Beloved Community. We are weary of our painful separations. We are sick of this disgusting, brutal war. We want to be heard by one another and by our government. We want to provide for our parents and for our kids. Didenfranchisement is painful to the human spirit.  When we lean into the computer screen and chant "yes we can" we revive our collective democratic soul.

 

Melissa

 

Melissa Harris-Lacewell is Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies Princeton University.
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Permalink: http://blogs.theroot.com/blogs/downfromthetower/archive/2008/02/08/down-from-the-tower-idol-politics-response.aspx
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Member Comments

Posted By: oguibe (February 8, 2008 at 7:19 PM)

Thank you, Melissa. One inherent problem with contrarianism is that in its determination to challenge and oppose, it often fails to avail itself of the facts. Marc has to oppose, challenge, take a "different" tack. But you wonder, is he sufficiently informed or is he simply doing what he must do, in spite of the facts? Even aliens from outer space must know by now that the speech that is reproduced in the will.i.am video is of Obama's concession in New Hampshire, but Marc refers to it as the "instant classic South Carolina speech". It may be an innocent slip; we all make mistakes, although South Carolina sounds nothing like New Hampshire. It could also indicate something more troubling; namely that we have a pundit who rushes to conclusion without paying attention to the information before him. We see them everywhere these days: the Rush (all pun intended) Limbaughs, the Anne Coulters, the Don Imuses who speak (or write) faster than they read the facts, often saying things that they end up apologying for, as Kanye West puts it. I would be truly surprised if deep within his heart Marc believes that the democratic access that YouTube and such other new information tools provide undermines serious discourse, but he has to take a contrarian view come what may. Such ram-headed approaches to opinion are, in my thinking, no more elevated than the pedestrianism that Professor Hill suggests might waterboard our democracy.

Olu Oguibe

University of Connecticut

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Posted By: mike (February 9, 2008 at 1:33 PM)

I'd hate to hang out with Marc.  He seem constantly down.  He need something 4 that depression. Now he getting mad at kids 4 getting optimistic.  He the black Bernie Goldberg that appears on Bill O Reilly.  Lighten up fellas.!!!

I think he just playing up a lil bit to be honest to spark debate, we know he gonna run to the poll booth to vote 4 Barack.

But seriously, are progressives really mad at Barack?  Well damn.  Cause I have seen other progressives practicisng ther version of the  "John Mcain hating"conservative " a lil bit on Mr.  Obama.

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Posted By: Dr. Marc Lamont Hill » Down From The Tower (February 11, 2008 at 12:08 PM)

PingBack from http://www.marclamonthill.com/mlhblog/?p=4889

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Posted By: http://blogs.theroot.com/blogs/downfromthetower/archive/2008/02/08/down-from-the-tower-idol-politics-response.aspx (March 25, 2008 at 4:16 AM)

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Posted By: Tramadol. (July 10, 2008 at 1:25 PM)

Tramadol.

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