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Showing posts from June 21, 2004
Peace! That's the greeting of choice among the hundreds of young folks who attended this week's National Hip Hop Political Convention in Newark, New Jersey. But don't mistake them for passive peaceniks. These are highly motivated folks who are plenty pissed off--about the war, about the "prison-industrial complex", about lack of economic opportunity, about the predatory practices of street-level check-cashing outfits and credit scams. In order to participate as delegates to the convention, attendees had to have registered 50 people to vote in the November election. Delegates put together an issues agenda to which they plan to hold the presidential candidates accountable. For the first time in a long time, your aging blogger felt a glimmer of hope for the future. To find so many smart, funny, thoughtful, angry, we're-gonna-do-somethin'-aboudit kind of twentysomethings--well, it reminded one of a generation that stopped a war. Let's h