"My short presentation focused on how wealth-building through entrepreneurship must be rooted in leveraging and bolstering community assets.
To request a copy of my presentation, please join my e-newsletter by adding your e-mail address in the box at the upper right-hand corner of this site.
To pre-order Invisible Capital, click on the book cover to the right.
When Fox News’ Glenn Beck called President Barack Obama a racist this past July, the online advocacy group ColorOfChange.org launched a campaign
to convince advertisers to boycott the show. To date, some 280,000
people have joined the effort, and more than 60 companies have pulled
their ads.
CNN parted ways with Lou Dobbs last month after civil rights groups and Presente.org mobilized thousands of Latinos online to call on CNN to dump the talk show host for spewing hate against immigrants for years.
None
of this — not these advocacy efforts, not countless small business
success stories, not even the election of President Barack Obama —
would have happened without a free and open Internet.
For communities of color, the Internet provides us with a unique
opportunity to speak for ourselves without first seeking the approval
of gatekeepers or having to secure major funds to do so. But the big
telecommunications companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast want to
create an effectively segregated online community where they will act
as our gatekeepers.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
is now considering new rules that could protect the fundamental
principle of “Network Neutrality” once and for all. Net Neutrality
prohibits Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking,
discriminating against or deterring Internet users from accessing
online content and applications of their choice — such as
e-newsletters, blogs, social networking sites, online videos, podcasts
and smart-phone apps.
It is not that network owners are secretly
plotting to stifle free speech – at least not usually. But they have
an undeniable, rational interest in creating a pay-for-play model for
the treatment of communication on the Internet. Commercial websites
that pay will get speed and quality and the non-commercial uses of the
Net will be collateral damage – relegated to the slow lane. It’s not
necessarily that they want to block our speech for political reasons;
it’s that our speech is not important to them because it’s not going to
make them money.
Many of the most valuable things we do online
are non-commercial; they
exist because the Internet is
the first mass media system with no
gatekeepers
to dole out privilege to the highest bidder.
The
Internet provides our communities with a medium to access services,
find jobs, connect to friends, make inexpensive international phone
calls to family members, and to advocate for social change. Many of
the most valuable things we do online are non-commercial; they exist
because the Internet is the first mass media system with no gatekeepers
to dole out privilege to the highest bidder. That freedom and openness
is what makes the Internet different from broadcasting and cable. It
makes it valuable to our communities. We can’t allow Comcast,
AT&T, Verizon and other broadband providers to deliver substandard
Internet service to our communities.
Telecom Companies Want to Create Second-Class “Netizens”
But
the big phone and cable companies want to get rid of Net Neutrality and
control how the public accesses the Internet. These companies want to
charge websites extra tolls to secure the fastest speeds online, while
favoring their own content and services over their competition’s. Those
unable to pay will be banished to the slow lane online, becoming
second-class “netizens” without the same freedoms given to those with more money and influence.
This threat to Internet freedom isn’t hypothetical. Verizon got
caught blocking text messages sent by the pro-choice group NARAL to its
own members – though they backed down immediately under public
pressure. Comcast has also illegally interfered with file-sharing on
its network, a practice that earned them a rebuke from the FCC.
Even though President Obama pledged
he would “take a back seat to no one” on Net Neutrality, the big phone
and cable companies are pulling out all the stops to derail it,
including deploying Karl Rove¬–style scare tactics within our
communities and using their massive resources to block Obama’s agenda.
In the first nine months of 2009, they employed nearly 500 lobbyists and spent some $74 million to influence Congress and the FCC. Their misinformation has even convinced Glenn Beck that Net Neutrality is an attempt by President Obama to take over the Internet.
Who will protect the online rights of marginalized communities
against the raw profit motive of big business? We urge leaders in our
community not to yield to the underhanded scare tactics that
corporations like AT&T have used on our communities.
We Must Reject a Separate but Unequal Online World
One
of those scare tactics is the claim, pushed by phone and cable
companies, that Network Neutrality poses a threat to digital inclusion.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only does Net Neutrality
expand media diversity and access by ensuring fairness and
nondiscrimination by big corporations, it will prevent the kind of
media consolidation that has happened in the broadcast industry by
helping our communities develop a diversity of civic and commercial
online enterprises on a scale that represents our growing online
numbers.
It’s not necessarily that they want to block
our speech for political
reasons;
it’s that our speech is not important to them
because it’s not
going to make them money.
A primary reason for the digital divide
is that the cost of fully engaging in the online world is just too
expensive for many in our community. Broadband in the United States is
among the slowest but most expensive of any industrialized nation.
After years of consolidation, the largest telecom companies have gotten
away with price-gouging our communities because of a lack of
competition in the broadband market. More choices for broadband service
– not permitting more discrimination – are the key to bringing down
costs. Scrapping Net Neutrality in order to consolidate
control over the Internet by cable and phone companies is not the
answer. More market control won’t give them more incentive to sell
low-cost high-quality services to low-income communities. Our
communities will still be subject to the same business case that have
marginalized us in the first place –households that don’t have a lot of
money to spend. Shareholders aren’t charities, and we are foolish to
expect otherwise.
But more importantly, we should not be sacrificing an open Internet to bribe phone and cable companies not to practice forms of red-lining. The answer to the digital divide cannot be to deliver a second-class, closed Internet to our communities.
The historic fight against discrimination by groups like the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens
has led to great societal change, laying the groundwork for the
election of a president of color. We urge our colleagues in the civil
rights community to fight with us to ensure that telecom and cable
companies are not allowed to discriminate against our communities or
interfere with our capacity to speak for ourselves without first asking
AT&T, Verizon or Comcast for permission.
We
are living through a critical moment in our nation’s history. The FCC
is going to decide whether the Internet will remain an open platform
that allows for the greatest number of voices to participate in our
democratic society, or whether it will be a closed network controlled
by the big telecom companies.
We are
concerned about the dire consequences of living without Internet
freedom. It would create a separate but unequal online world where our
communities are unable to use the Internet to compete or to advocate
for justice when we have been wronged.
We need
civil rights, media justice, community-oriented and grassroots
organizations to stand together to make sure effective Net Neutrality
regulation will protect our communities from the predatory practices of
the phone and cable industries.
[L]iving without Internet freedom . . . would
create a separate but unequal
online world
where our communities are unable to use
the Internet to
compete
or to advocate for justice
when we have been wronged.
As
with past civil rights struggles that successfully expanded access,
thwarted discrimination, destroyed legalized segregation, and created
broad opportunity, so too will the cause for Internet freedom.
Malkia Cyril is the executive director of the Center for Media Justice.
Chris Rabb is the founder of the online community Afro-Netizen and is a
visiting researcher at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs at Princeton University. Joseph Torres is the
government relations manager of Free Press and former deputy director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Demos is is a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization
founded in 2000. Headquartered in New York City, Demos works with
advocates and policymakers around the country in pursuit of four
overarching goals:
a more equitable economy with widely shared prosperity and opportunity;
a vibrant and inclusive democracy with high levels of voting and civic engagement;
an empowered public sector that works for the common good;
and responsible U.S. engagement in an interdependent world.
The Fellows Program supports scholars and writers
whose innovative work influences the public debate about crucial
national and global issues. The program offers an intellectual home and
communications platform for more than 20 fellows from diverse
backgrounds: emerging public intellectuals, journalists, distinguished
public figures, and academics whose research can be used to inform the
policy world.
My efforts will focus on completion of my book, Invisible Capital: How Unseen Forces Shape Entrepreneurial Opportunity, to be released in the Fall 2010 by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. I will also be working on initiatives that promote progressive entrepreneurial policies as well as crafting and advocating for innovative economic development programs on local, state, regional and national levels.
I am proud to announce that I have joined the board of directors of the Applied Research Center (ARC) based in Oakland, California.
I have been an admirer of ARC's work for a number of years and am excited about new service in the role as a director of this wonderful organization committed to "racial justice through media, research and activism".
