Building Democracy through Citizen Service

When Thomas Jefferson read the first draft of the United States constitution, he became alarmed. He wrote to the other Founding Fathers, “This constitution of yours worries me because it asks so little of its citizens. A democracy takes civic virtue and service above else to survive.” I think Jefferson had a point. He truly believed that without service, and without its goal of instilling civic virtue, social justice, and equity, we are at risk of losing everything that our founding fathers created and intended for generations to come.__Why is service the answer? Because service is the great equalizer--in the words of Dr. King, “anyone can be great because anyone can serve.” Service builds community among people, regardless of their race, gender, religion, or socio economic status. It allows us to participate in something bigger than ourselves and demonstrates that our commonalities as a people are greater than our individual differences. And those of us who have served know that in the act of transforming our communities for the better, we ended up transforming ourselves.__And now, more than ever, we need to expand opportunities for people to serve. Because we have serious issues to address: our education system is failing a significant percentage of our kids, hunger and homelessness run rampant in our communities, our parks, rivers, and open spaces need protection, and college has ceased to become affordable to most of us. Service can be a vehicle, to simultaneously address our most pressing unmet societal needs while providing money and access in a real way, to provide college education to the next generation.__National service, according to sociologist Charles Moskos is, “not a magic talisman, or a mystical means for transforming socially indifferent Americans into paragons of civic virtue.” No one would argue that it is the "magic bullet" that will solve all of our country's problems. But what service does do and can do when brought to scale, is set up long term and permanent structures in our society, which bring people together and instills the values of civics and service, while simultaneously addressing our unmet societal needs--and as an end result, truly rebuilding the democracy that our Founding Fathers envisioned.

Looking for leadership

In the past couple days, people have been calling Barack's speech on race "courageous." Why? Because a politician spoke to the masses in an intelligent way that showed the complexity of an issue. This courage may cost him the election, but it is the future of this country.__Everyday in New Orleans, I watch how the issues of race come to the forefront of almost every discussion. I have watched as race has divided the city and destroyed trust.__But it is not just race that keeps 12,000 New Orleanian's homeless all night. It is not just race that gives people the excuse to demolish a housing projects.__A lot of the disenfranchisement has to do with class. And until we find a way of allowing the people who are one paycheck away, to have adequate healthcare, education and housing, we will always be shocked when we hear the truth – when a politician is actually honest on television. Too many remain apathetic about the status quo and want to avoid the issues that will tip the scale.__When disaster strikes, there have been some politicians who have not pandered, and instead led. In 1995 in Kobe, Japan, a horrific earthquake displaced thousands of people. Not worried about what was politically advantageous or correct, the leaders of Kobe made decisions that were not popular.__They were not re-elected two years later, but now, Kobe is considered the model for a successful way of a city responding to disaster. While they explained complexities that not everyone wanted to deal with at the moment, they were very clear about their decisions and why.__One step towards a more equitable society, is a government that does not make broken promises. Once we are honest with what our government can not do, and our politicians are honest with us, we can strive for more accountable decisions that bring equality to a much larger group of people. This is the realist direction we need to be taking.__Nathan Rothstein is the co-founder and Executive Director of the New Orleans Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals Initiative (www.nolayurp.org). The organization works to create a support network to connect, retain and attract young people from diverse backgrounds for a sustainable New Orleans.

Turks in Germany and Black-White America

Earlier this week, an educator from Germany visited AJC offices as part of a trip investigating how we handle difference, given our country's long experience. She spoke of a very difficult situation in which the substantial Turkish population in Germany faces downward mobility: third generation Turks actually are often doing worse than their parents.__Her concern was that opportunities to address difference and to learn about the "other" were ignored. The example: 90% of day care programs in S. Germany are under church control, while 90% of the kids who go there are not Christian (usually Muslim). But ALL the teachers are Christian, and in general none have training in cross cultural understanding. Differences are simply ignored.__On a leadership level, there are few Turks in prominent positions who can be role models, and stereotypes that we would clearly label prejudice here, are far more widely tolerated.__We left the room feeling like the U.S., with all its problems, was still way ahead. I was tickled by the thought that my 3-year-old's learning about Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa was the first stage of enlightenment; and embattled concepts like political correctness seemed ingenious ways to deal with disparity.__Obama's speech on race, however -- the most serious contribution to the discussion in a long time and held on the very same day, reminds us that we would be very wrong to rest on our laurels. But what exactly are the steps we need to take now?