Harvard Law School graduate Diane Lucas and her friends caught Obama fever during the 2008 presidential campaign. They canvassed and campaigned, knocked on doors and lobbied their colleagues and social networks.
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They were an army of young, educated and ambitious men and women who'd mustered every dollar and every minute they could to the cause of getting Barack Obama elected president. And there were thousands of others just like them, doing the same thing.
"He was an underdog and it required all hands on deck," said Lucas. "We knew it was going to be a fight -- that if we didn't go hard and if we didn't tell every single person we knew to vote and tell people to rock the vote and go out and do voter registration and anything else that we could do, this man would have no chance."
Obama was elected on the wings of hope and promises of change. The voices of young and old, white and black from all corners of the country were heard. But there was a special satisfaction for African-Americans like Lucas, who helped usher into office the nation's first black president. That group came out in record numbers. Fifty-five percent of eligible blacks ages 18 to 24 voted on Election Day, and 65 percent of eligible blacks of all ages voted, according to the U.S. Census.
Roughly 96 percent of them voted for Obama.
But over a rough and tumble first term chock-full of congressional standoffs and economic crises, hurt feelings and disappointments, the fever some young black professionals caught four years ago seems to have broken into mild support at best, downright apathy at worst.
"Our generation, young professionals, especially young professionals of color who were a huge part of the force that mobilized the vote and were really active in getting Obama elected in '08, now are pretty much apathetic this election and that doesn't make any sense," said Lucas, 30, now a lawyer in New York City. "It's counter-intuitive for the same people who supported Obama with such zealousness, in 2012 to be like, 'Uh, yeah, I could have had a V8.'
"That is very frustrating and scary," Lucas said.
As the election rolls closer and Republican candidates battle for their party's nomination, Lucas and other young and upwardly mobile Obama die-hards in New York City are fighting to re-energize their peer groups at dinner parties and brunches and fru-fru cocktail parties in Harlem and Brooklyn -- the social orbit of fashionable, educated, ambitious young blacks -- where the Obama conversation can be stickiest.
They are diving into their massive Rolodexes and listserves and email lists and bombarding their peers with invitations to speech-watch parties, fundraisers and soirees with celebrity hosts and the hottest DJs. Some are teaming with club promoters and forming hosting committees, delivering opportunities to be politically active on a silver platter for a group with aspirant tastes -- all in the name of re-electing Obama.
"I try to make it so that its fun," said Brian Benjamin, 35, founder of Young Professionals United For Change, a group that organizes young professionals of color around political and civic issues. "It's meaningful, but they know that I'm going to have events at a venue that's hot," he said. "I just don't see why things that are meaningful have to be boring or in a community rec center basement or something."
Lucas said she is reaching out to her peers through online social networking and fundraising. She and three friends recently launched elevensixtwelve.com (11-6-12, the date of the presidential election), a website with a blog that also sells Obama T-shirts, with all profits going to the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party.
Source: The Huffington Post | Trymaine Lee
