Ennis forwarded me a tip [via Boing Boing] which is a perfect follow-up to my post about Mayor Harvinder Anand. A new student-run effort called the News21 Initiative has been created with the following goals:
A national initiative led by five of America’s leading research universities with the support of two major foundations will advance the U.S. news business by helping revitalize schools of journalism.
The universities will take advantage of the riches of their institutions by integrating the schools of journalism more closely with the entire campus in an effort to better teach, challenge and prepare the next generation of news industry leaders for an increasingly complex world. The initiative will experiment with curriculum and hands-on experience with the hope of creating a national conversation with other schools across the country. [Link]
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p>One of their first “hand-on” efforts is an interactive GoogleMaps project titled “Minorities Representing Majorities,” that is introduced as follows:
Many American politicians tout their Judeo-Christian heritage. Many tell stories of the immigrant experience of their parents. But a precious few are immigrants themselves. And even a smaller number belong to minority faiths, such as Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism.
News21 has identified more than 40 such politicians who are, in effect, minorities representing majorities. Below, you will find an interactive map with detailed snapshots of each. Plus, for a closer look at seven of them, click to view the video profiles at right. [Link]
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p>Not only do the students provide an interactive map of where these politicians serve (regrettably no minorities represent majorities near our world blogging headquarters in North Dakota), but they also include video clips interviewing them to hear about their perspectives and experiences. The best part is that we can expect much more from these students in the future:
We plan to go about this exploration by undertaking a series of reports and interactive, multimedia projects on new American immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Our prism, however, will not be geography but faith. We will look at Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and Buddhists, as well as Christians and Jews. We will begin with our home base of New York and then expand to American and foreign cities that best tell the stories of the new immigrants. We will look at how they are being changed and how, in the process, they are changing America. [Link]
Rahul, I wasn’t born when Morning in America happened.
Just kidding! In addition to hating morning, I hate evening, the afternoon, and most midnights. I also hate puppies, children, freedom, and America. =)
Abhi! Intern! I’m sorry, I posted on the wrong thread.
For this topic, I was going to say their web site is really cool, and I like the interactive feature. This is definitely an interesting way to revision the concept of minority representation. I wonder if they’ll also start sorting by level of office (e.g. city, county, state, federal).
This is great! Love the site, and the time is certainly ripe for acknowledging/learning about the role of non-Judeo-Christian faiths. One thing, though, I’ve never liked the use of the word “minority”, because although it signifies numbers/ pop size, it also carries the secondary meaning of someone insufficiently prepared to make decisions of public or private import.
Interesting that support for this effort comes from Knight-Ridder as well as Carnegie Foundation money.
wutz in a word? are jews no longer minorities? rather, they are often some grand unified ‘judeo-christian’ religion? 😉 what about episcopalians, who have always been overrepresented in politics despite their small numbers because of their reputation as the denomination of record for the elites? the recent emergence of muslims, hindus, sikhs, buddhists, etc., has partly to do with the fact that these groups have become far more numerous since 1965, and even since 1990.
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/images/aris14.jpg
1990 vs. 2001
muslim: 527,000 vs. 1,104,000 buddhist: 401,000 vs. 1,082,000 hindu: 227,000 vs. 766,000
I can’t wait for John Gibson to cover this heartening development in a fair and balanced manner!
Razib Wrote: – “wutz in a word? are jews no longer minorities?”
Were they really ever? 🙂
Razib Wrote: – “rather, they are often some grand unified ‘judeo-christian’ religion? ;-)”
Seems to be going that way…
Please tell me you’re joking.