More than 6.5 million Americans under the age of 30 voted in the 2008 presidential primaries. Time Magazine and other prominent publications dubbed 2008 "The Year of the Youth Vote." Political commentators and analysts have argued that the surge in the youth vote and its virtually unwavering support for Barack Obama was a key factor behind the Senator's ascent to prominence and his ultimate victory in securing his spot as the Democratic nominee for president. However, it remains unclear as to whether or not the youth voting bloc will be as powerful during the general election.

http://www.bilerico.com/2008/07/speaking_youth_to_power.php

One thing that can be said about the current generation of young gays is that they are a smart and ambitious lot. Eugene Resnick, an openly gay candidate for National Membership Director of the College Democrats, definitely fits that mold. He's focused, savvy and "cliched as it sounds" committed to making a difference.

I had the chance to ask Eugene some questions about being openly gay, youth political involvement and why being a "gay Russian Jew from Brooklyn" can be an asset.

MC: There is more than a little hand-wringing from some older people over what they see as a lack of political involvement from younger people. You are clearly not living up to that image.

ER: I hope that I can make a difference in our society as cliché as that sounds. I want to raise the voice of those who have no voice. I understand what its like to be the one that's counted out. I see many young people who are very engaged and very much care about the society we live in and the changes we need enacted. Our generation understands the complexities ahead and the deep institutional problems that this country has faced.

For us, race, gender and sexuality don't really matter anymore as a factor in judgment of one's character. We are for the most part the first generation that transcends such superficial human traits and sees everyone on the same playing field. I hope to remain active, continue on by earning a higher education in law and public policy, and eventually serve the public by running for office. In the meantime, I hope to do whatever I can to engage my fellow young people in the political process so that they can be active members of our thriving democracy.

What Makes Eugene Run?

MC: Is that why you want to be National Membership Director for the College Democrats?

ER: I am running because I believe I have the foresight, experience, and passion needed to be successful in this position. The National Membership Director position requires an individual with an ability to build coalitions between groups and establish friendships and contacts with people that are not usual coalition partners.

With an election year this year that has so much Democratic enthusiasm for our candidate, Barack Obama, there is so much potential for massive growth in terms of membership in College Democrats organizations throughout the country. We can expand into all 50 states, forming local and state chapters at schools that have never had a College Democrats organization. There are many students across the country who feel ostracized for being a Democrat especially in more conservative regions, and this must end.

At a time with so much enthusiasm for change, there is much potential to be tapped into in terms of youth activism and involvement in politics that has not been seen since the 1960s. The role of the National Membership Director is to spearhead new chapters, get more students involved in College Democrats, and outreach to individuals of all backgrounds to ensure the Democratic Party grows and further diversifies. I believe I can help make that happen.

MC: What are some of the skills and experiences that make you qualified for that role?

ER: I served as Minority and Women's Affairs Coordinator at the University Democrats at the University of Virginia reaching out to various Black, Latino, Asian, LGBT and Women's groups on campus to get them more politically involved and have a voice within the Democratic Party. I formed the first ever statewide College Democrats organization in Virginia bringing together students from across the state to bring to the forefront the voice of college students in the Commonwealth.

My tenure as President of the statewide organization resulted in the recent merger with the Virginia Young Democrats forming a massive young Democratic organization in Virginia poised to register large amounts of new young voters, have their voices heard by getting them to the polls, but mostly importantly have young people engaged in the American political discourse. I currently am interning in Washington, DC with the National Stonewall Democrats specifically working on field operations across the country, helping chapters build membership and outreach along with helping them target certain races this election cycle.

Being Gay Not What it Used to Be

MC: Has been openly gay hurt or helped you in taking on leadership roles with the College Democrats?

ER: Being openly gay has helped me in taking on leadership roles with the College Democrats. My first election was when I ran for Minority and Women's Affairs Coordinator at the University Democrats at the University of Virginia. I ran on the platform of not only being a fresh face, but also by taking ownership of my multiple minority identity. I was the "gay Russian Jew from Brooklyn" running in a race in a majority white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, institution in the South.

One might think I was tokenized into the minority leadership role, but I stood up as a voice for the LGBT community at the University on the Board of Directors. Now I have risen up the ladder into leadership statewide. I have a large network of friends and colleagues with whom I am politically and academically involved who serve as my support system. I have never felt hindered being openly gay and that is a reflection of how our generation is so vastly different from any other in American history.

MC: What do you say to other young people to help them realize their political power?

ER: Facebook is a powerful tool and it has proven to be an extremely effective way of mobilizing people to become involved in a cause. I tell other young people I meet who may be cynical or wary of politics if at all interested is that that they have a stake in society. Young people today are vastly different from generations before and there are a multitude of problems that this country is facing today that need to be fixed and we are the generation to make it happen. We are over the race divisions of the 50s and 60s and the gay baiting of the 80s and 90s. We grew up with gay Student Body Presidents, blacks and whites, Latinos and Asians sitting at the same table, and females occupying a majority of the education system. We are Generation Y.

I let people know that there must be an issue that affects them whether its outrageous gas prices, denial of their civil rights as gay or black or Latino or an immigrant, predatory student loans that haunt students for years to come, high college costs, difficulty getting health insurance as a young independent person, or having their friends or family member die for a war that was poorly executed and under false pretenses. I tell them that they have a stake in this election and in the future with all these issues that impact them one way or another.

Critics of young Americans like to argue that we are too wrapped up in ourselves to care about politics, that we're too busy obsessing over our Facebook profiles to get up out of our seats and attend a political rally or vote. David Von Drehle's article in Time magazine should help those critics finally put that tired old stereotype to rest. Today’s young people do care about politics, but despite increased youth voting in 2004 and 2006, politicians still acted like we didn’t matter. No one really reached out and asked us for our support. But, as Von Drehle points out, Illinois Senator Barack Obama did in the run up to the 2008 primaries, and young people responded.

There's no doubt that Obama has lit a fire under young Americans, but it would be a mistake to view young people's interest in Obama solely as a response to his personal narrative. As Von Drehle correctly points out, Obama's success has as much to do with his organization and strategy as it has to do with his message:

Obama's support among youth is not just a matter of mood; it is a product of effort and organization, of finding his supporters and getting them to the polls. … Obama's outreach to students didn't spring from some starry-eyed principle. It started as a specific element of his early strategy in Iowa. The first-in-the-nation caucuses allow 17-year-olds to vote if they are going to turn 18 before the general election, which means most high school seniors are eligible. To win those kids, Obama did something unusual in politics: he made them a genuine priority. After his rallies in towns across the state, he met backstage with student leaders from the area — a privilege most campaigns reserve for local VIPs and fund raisers.  

So when it comes down to it, young people today aren't really lazy or indifferent; we're just human. In general, people don't get excited about politics (or anything else) unless they know their voices are valued, that they can actually make a difference. Early in his campaign, Obama bet that if he told us we matter, we'd be more likely to support his candidacy. And his bet paid off.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a good story about some of the obstacles students face getting to the polls. They also explore some of the great youth voter registration efforts going on right now.

The most egregious problem:

Many students who go away to college want to register to vote where they are in school. In some states it is relatively easy. Minnesota and Wisconsin, both of which allow voters to register on Election Day, had the top two youth turnouts in the 2004 presidential election: 69 percent and 63 percent, respectively.

In some other states, voters must prove an "intent to stay." Election law in Ohio has specific provisions about students, who may vote, it says, if they intend "to reside permanently in the Ohio county in which the school residence address is located."

At least there is a good, student-led group challenging barriers to the ballot box (or screen): Student Association for Voter Empowerment.

If you aren’t registered yet – click here.

Forget those far too rare moments of Sorkin-esque eloquence, C-SPAN footage may soon resemble a cinematic mish-mash of Animal House and Garden State. 

Hyperbole? Maybe. But don’t skip over this Hill article on a new youth wave that may just crash the Capitol Hill baby-boomer bash:

From early favorites like 26-year-old Aaron Schock (R) in Illinois to hopefuls like 29-year-old Bill McCamley (D) in New Mexico, the odds on their candidacies differ. But their numbers are as high as ever before, and many are running in some of the most competitive districts in the country.

Scott Kleeb, a 32-year-old Democrat who ran a spirited campaign in a dark-red Nebraska House district in 2006, is weighing a Senate bid this year. He argues that the Sept. 11 attacks helped galvanize a generation of young people to believe in public service again, and those young people are now running for federal office.

Campus Progress's own Erica Williams (our Issue Campaigns Manager) gave her perspective on youth activism at the Clinton Global Initiative's new youth movement.

Bono, Shakira, Alicia Keys, and others got together to launch the campaign and to inspire youth acitivsts to get involved with a variety of causes. A lot of what was said ties in closely with what we do here at Campus Progress, especially the key message about youth mobilization.

While flyering for the Clean My Ride campaign, our fellow interns ran into some people from the Republican Youth Majority. It's not a clone of Young America's Fascists...er, Foundation, but rather has three main positions: pro-choice, pro-environment, and fiscally conservative. Board members include some of moderate Republicanism's greatest hits: Pete Wilson, Bill Cohen, William Weld, and so on. 

What to make of this? The not-surprising part is that there is a group like this; many young people (and plenty of older ones) are sick of the litmus tests in politics, and young people(even with evangelical Republicans) are almost always to the left of their parties - though the Iraq War is a notable exception to this rule. The surprising part is their choice of issues. More in extended.

For decades, Tipper Gore has told parents how to raise their children. In her book Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society, she shamed parents who dare allow their children access to youth culture. She insisted that following her example of selecting your children’s music and TV programs for them, of chaperoning your teenaged children at concerts, etc. was the only way to ensure children would grow up right and become adults who make the right choices.

We recently saw the results of Tipper Gore-style parenting. The son Tipper Gore raised, Al Gore III, was caught endangering people’s lives by driving 100 mph on a public highway. When police pulled him over, they found in his car several illegal drugs. This was not Al Gore III’s first such experience, of course. In 2003, he was stopped for driving at night with his headlights off and police found drugs then, too. Not only has Tipper Gore raised a junkie who endangers other people’s lives, but she has raised a son who can’t even figure out that when you have a stash in your car, you don’t drive 100 mph.

Now that we’ve seen the results of Tipper Gore parenting, hopefully parents will stop emulating her example. Because Al Gore III is not the only victim.

Surrounded by about a thousand young progressives at the Campus Progress National Student Conference today, it would be easy for me to assume my generation leans to the left. That assumption, based on a skewed sample population, would be biased enough to make my statistics professor cringe. But it turns out that assumption might be right.

Politico’s Laurie Werner gives a mixed review to Daniel Brook’s new book chronicling the foreclosure of idealism for Generation X.

The Trap paints an America hijacked by corporatist and short-sighted economic policies that now prohibit its youth from landing the meaningful occupations they crave.

Even a post-industrial American dream still needs matériel to survive.  

So aspiring world-changers, are we all screwed? Is this anything new? And what can be done?

"The white people have theirs, and the black people have theirs. It's nothing racial at all."

Mindy Bryan; Ashburn, Georgia 

Segregation is often seen as a default, a natural order, the way things just sort of fall into place when people with differences exist near to one another.  Ms Bryan’s sentiments are often echoed in defenses of segregation—it doesn’t come from racism or any maliciousness, but it’s just sort of the way things are, because they’re the way things have been for so long.  But this ignores inequity and inequality, the main reason that “separate but equal” was found to be a myth in Brown v. Board of Education. 

Turner County High School, in southern Georgia, just held its first-ever school-sponsored integrated prom.  For decades, parents had been organizing their own proms for the kids, one which Black students attended, and one which white students attended.  From the article, it seems that the impetus behind the integrated prom came from the student government, which is encouraging—the change came from the students themselves, rather than being thrust upon the student body by adults. The prom was generally regarded as a positive step, but there were some who were skeptical or downright hostile to the idea.  A parent, Valerie McKellar, said "'That's just like you're cooking a half-baked cake, putting the icing on it, and when you cut the cake, the cake ain't no good. That's how this prom is.'”  Additionally, one student said that some of her friends’ parents “didn’t agree with” the idea of an integrated prom.

An innovative proposal to fight youth delinquency rates was terminated by the British government earlier today.

 From The Register:

Known as the youth opportunity card, it was introduced as one of a raft of measures designed to help wayward kids back on the straight and narrow, as part of the government's Respect Action Plan and Every Child Matters programmes.

It was supposed to give them access to sports and recreational services with electronic pocket money that would be given or taken away according to how well behaved they were. Disadvantaged children were to have their cards topped up with a government subsidy.

Apparently the requisite computer system’s cost outweighed the benefits of this aborted policy.

Gosh, the world is strange this morning. Five psychologists have got themselves twisted up in knots because today's college students are like, totally narcissistic. They answer in the affirmative statements such as:

1. If I ruled the world, it would be a better place.
   
2. I think I am a special person.
   
3. I can live my life any way I want to.

Apparently, it's all Facebook's fault.  But really, let's look at these questions.

If I ruled the world, would we spend half a trillion dollars war-making in Iraq while cutting the budget of the Children's Health Insurance Program? NO. Would that make the world a better place? YES.

Do I think I--and every other individual--is special enough to deserve health care and a living wage? YES.

Do I believe I can live my life with the sexual, gender, and political identity I choose, no matter what the dominant norms of my society? YES.

Tell me again why young people are so immoral?

Back in September of last year, a Hmong youth, Chonburi Xiong, was shot and killed by police in the city of Warren, Michigan.  Reminiscent of the murder of Sean Bell in December, but receiving much less coverage, Xiong was killed when officers fired 27 shots into his body.  The immediate question is of course, police brutality?  Xiong had earlier fired a gun into the air (this is why the police were called), and according to police reports pointed a loaded gun at the officers.  Whether or not this was a case of police brutality, the community response is inspiring because action was initiated by the Hmong youth of Warren.  The Detroit Asian Youth Project (D.A.Y. Project) is a youth-led organization created as a response to the lack of safe spaces for young Asians and Asian-Americans in the metro-Detroit area.  Having had the privilege of volunteering with D.A.Y. Project myself, I can say that the young people and adult coordinators of the group are truly remarkable.  The D.A.Y. Project recently organized a vigil and rally in Xiong's memory, and continues to work against the racism, police brutality, and inadequate opportunity that the community faces in metro Detroit.

 There is very little money, very little resources for most communities in Detroit, particularly for people who have the experience of being refugees or the descendents of refugees.  But the youth of Detroit continue to refuse to accept apathy.