I've been going to Netroots Nation for four years and each time I've gone, I've noticed how few people of color are present. Yet the Netroots Nation board and others have repeatedly tried to recruit. I think we haven't understood the problem.
"The key to winning the Pepsi Refresh grant is accumulating daily voters. Netroots Nation has agreed to help us organize to win this grant. Sign up at this link to receive an email once a day providing you links to vote. Once the contest is over, win or lose, the email list will be deleted and your email won't be shared with anyone. So please help us recruit all the daily voters you can, and we can do this."
Most of our efforts to diversify netroots have involved attempts to bring bloggers from communities of color to our conferences. But the communities we want to recruit live behind the digital divide. Their schools don't have paper, books or desks let alone computers. They don't have access to the tools that brought us together. Shouting our invitations to them from the Information Highways is like shouting into the void.
They have no On Ramp.
They can't hear us.
We have to find a different way to get them here.
That's why I have teamed up with Communities Joined in Action to write a Pepsi Refresh grant, to bring activists, already working successfully with Community Coalitons, to Netroots Nation to learn to use online tools in their organizing process.
These folks already know how to organize. They are already working to make their neighborhoods safe, healthy and nutritious. Think of how much they could do if they had access to the tools we have learned to use!
Think of how much help we could get from them with our GOTV campaigns.
Here's what I need from you. Every day in December, go to the Pepsi Refresh site and vote for our grant. We are now at 78. We need to move up to the top 10 to win.
As Raven Brooks, CEO of Netroots Nation said:
"The key to winning the Pepsi Refresh grant is accumulating daily voters. Netroots Nation has agreed to help us organize to win this grant. Sign up at this link to receive an email once a day providing you links to vote. Once the contest is over, win or lose, the email list will be deleted and your email won't be shared with anyone. So please help us recruit all the daily voters you can, and we can do this."