Civil Rights Movement – Digital Style!
November 4 marked the introduction of a new president-elect for our nation. It also marked the end of equality in California as defined by the act of marriage for both heterosexuals and homosexuals. The campaign funding for both opponents and proponents raised $35 million for proponents and $37 million for the opposition to Prop 8. Close gap for funding. The vote was close as well: 52% voted yes for Prop 8 and 48% voted no.
Whether you are for Proposition 8 or against it doesn’t matter here. This message is about the rise of a civil rights movement under our noses but using the technology to connect nationwide. I ran a search on Facebook this morning and found over 108 groups already setup to join members of Facebook to petition against “Proposition H8″. Over 500 with the use of the words “Proposition 8″ and another 500 using the phrase “Prop 8″. I ran a Google search on these titles and found many wikis, blogs, websites, and videos for and against Proposition 8. I also found sites that were actively recruiting for future planned events for protesting these causes as well.
This past weekend, major cities (and some smaller ones as well) had protesters at their capital buildings voicing opposition to California’s reversal of marriage rights. How did all these protesters organize? And what’ next for them?
They organized using the same tools we are using in education – Web 2.0, social networking, social streaming. They too are part of the “Human Network” as Cisco calls it in their commercials.
Without listing different sites and all different perspectives here, just know that there is a network supporting or protesting the movement for same-sex marriage nationwide. There is a civil movement taking place around us. And they are planning more events and more ways to spread the message using these social networks and social impact resources.
Imagine 1955 if Rosa Parks had a wiki or a Twitter about her day on a bus. What if the Million Man march in Washington was advocated on a NING, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.? How would the anti-war demonstrations of the Vietnam war gone if they had Web 2.0 tools?
Beyond just this current movement, our president-elect has plans on his site to deliver a weekly video state of the union address using YouTube embedded videos. He already used Twitter to cover his movements in the campaign. Now, he is embracing change using the technology tools.
Now is the time to get our teachers and administrators onboard. The world is passing all of us by when we are limiting the access to these tools to our students and teachers. The world is connecting around us and we are still in the “one-room schoolhouse” mentality. A civil-rights movement is underfoot here in the US of A. What better time to introduce the idea of collaborative network environments than with the movement of civil action? Now is the time to share about “Personal Learning Communities” as these protesting communities are developing and working together world-wide.
Now is the time for our teachers, administrators, students, etc. to connect to connecting.
