When Can We Start Working Together Again?

“American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.”

-James Baldwin

Leading progressive organizations were noticeably absent from the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council’s Second Annual Broadband and Social Justice Summit in Washington, D.C. today.  Organizations including Free Press, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Public Knowledge, Media and Democracy Coalition, Color of Change, Consumers Union, and other organizations were simply not in the audience, or on the panels, in any meaningful or significant way.  

Why is this?  The conversation around social justice and civil rights has split into two camps, and it has been due to a single debate: net neutrality.  The larger, nationally-based civil rights organizations including the National Urban League, Asian American Justice Center, LULAC, NAACP, and NCLR have simply entertained the notion that regulating ISPs’ network management could harm the interests of minorities.  On the other hand, the influential organizations listed above, among others, vigorously advocated in favor of robust net neutrality rules.  The debate is certainly not over, and it has begun to work its way through the judicial system, but we are long overdue for a discussion as to when we can start working together again.

Now that the FCC has released its net neutrality order, it is time to step back, let these issues work their way through the judicial system, and work together on the issues that directly impact our communities:

• The need for media ownership diversity
• The need for improved EEO enforcement
• The need for a look at hate speech and its effects
• USF Reform
• Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education
• Lowering the Costs of Broadband for the Poor
• Privacy
• Spectrum Reform

The net neutrality debate has made enemies of natural allies.  We must work together with all stakeholders toward more meaningful outcomes for millions of Americans who remain untapped as both consumers and producers.  This is not rhetoric. This is not paid for by so-and-so.  This is real.