Political Boot Camp at Brown University

Political Boot Camp at Brown University

About 80 college students and other aspiring political activists got a crash course in Rhode Island politics at a conference held at Brown University over the weekend.

The first-ever RI Student Political Boot Camp was organized by a Brown University student group, Democracy Matters. Grant Gilles, one of the organizers, said the conference was an effort by Brown students to become more connected to the Rhode Island political community. “There’s … a lot of criticism that we come from out of state and we don’t have a long-term investment (in Rhode Island),” Gilles told GoLocalProv.

Gilles said that the long-term goal of the program was to create a youth movement for political change in Rhode Island. Students at the conference represented most local colleges - Providence College, Rhode Island College, the University of Rhode Island, and the Community College of Rhode Island.

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From the raw data of get-out-the-vote operations to how campaign ads subconsciously appeal to people’s prejudices—attendees got a quick how-to lesson on the nuts and bolts of politics. They also heard from some of the biggest names of election 2010—including Providence Mayor-elect Angel Taveras, Congressman-elect David Cicilline, Treasurer-elect Gina Raimondo, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

Panel offers inside look at diversity

One panel, on diversity in Rhode Island politics, offered a rare and candid inside look at the issue from state leaders. Former state Rep. Ray Rickman, who is African-American, told attendees that race continues to be one of the biggest dividing lines of America—he noted ruefully that as a general rule no Democratic candidate has won 51 percent of the white vote since the civil rights reforms of the 1960s.

In Rhode Island, he warned that the effort to abolish straight-ticket voting was a way to reduce the turnout of less educated voters who might be predisposed to support Democratic candidates. “It’s a trick and yet we let it become a good government trick,” Rickman said.

Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts, the second panelist, said it was one of the “funny things” about American and Rhode Island politics that a woman can be on a diversity panel—when women constitute roughly half of the population. She said young women have to stop dwelling on all the barriers to their involvement in politics. “There are so many barriers,” Roberts said. “You just have to get past all the barriers. You could put up a million barriers.”

The third panelist, Congressman-elect David Cicilline, came to the discussion not as only as Rhode Island’s soon-to-be first Jewish and first Italian U.S. rep—but as the first to be openly gay. Running as a candidate and identifying with a certain minority group, he said, had two benefits.

In the first place, he said it helps that particular community gain more representation in government. But beyond that, he said “it’s a powerful way to educate” the public about “breaking down barriers of discrimination.”

Cicilline recalled one anecdote from his mayoral campaign, when an African-American preacher asked what he should tell his conservative congregation about Cicilline’s sexual orientation. “I said, ‘You should tell your congregation this is how God created me and they should respect the creation of God,’” Cicilline recalled.

Pictured above left is Brown University Professor Barbara Tannenbaum, one of the speakers at the event.