Fri May 18, 2012
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President Clinton Joins Pop Stars to Promote Social Activism
By Emily Feder, New York – October 2007
If you are reading this article, you are most likely socially active; you probably do not need celebrities to pique your interest in civil society or youth activism.
It turns out, as reflected by Giving: Live at the Apollo—a concluding event to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) conferences (Sept. 26-28) that raised an historic number of member commitments that will impact millions of lives around the world with President Clinton, Bono, Chris Rock, Alicia Keys, Shakira, and Wyclef Jean—many young people do require high profile encouragement.
Giving: Live at the Apollo, co-sponsored by MTV, featured this star-studded group that participated in a panel discussion moderated by MTV News correspondent, Sway, and was attended by Harry Belafonte, Chelsea Clinton, Kate Hudson, Val Kilmer and others who joined a mostly student audience from the New York and greater metropolitan area. The stage for this exclusive event was non-other than the legendary Apollo Theater on 125th Street in New York City where many of the world’s most famous music legends were born.
Intended to kick off a revolution in youth activism and make it “cool” for young people to want to effect positive change around the world, this event also featured live performances by Alicia Keys, Shakira, and Wyclef Jean. It is expected that hundreds of thousands of young people will watch MTV’s broadcast of Giving: Live at the Apollo on October 12th at 8:00 p.m. or may have already done so through live streaming over Think.MTV.com—MTV’s new socially aware website intended to spark youth activism.
During the panel discussion, in which Bono introduced his ONE Campaign to end global poverty and preventable disease, and Shakira spoke about poverty in her native Columbia, college students were selected from the audience to ask questions of the panelists.
One female student from New York University (NYU) bridged a point I imagine many of us were contemplating at such a classy event: how can the disenfranchised, minorities, or first generation immigrants become involved in helping others when they are already fighting many of their own battles?
From a glance around the Apollo Theater, it was clear that the majority of the audience had some level of privilege. In fact, there were a great many empty seats on the upper balcony. This seemed a shame at such an important event at the renowned Apollo Theater, which has a long history of promoting diversity in Harlem and greater New York City.
Alicia Keys answered with her own experience of growing up in poverty in Hell’s Kitchen—once a notoriously crime-ridden neighborhood in New York City—and then returning as a successful, well-traveled singer to sit on the stoops lining her block with people who had never left. She said that giving can be about convincing people that there will always be someone worse off than they are.
Keys talked about spending long hours talking to people who never strayed from the five square blocks where they had grown up, and who struggled everyday. For Alicia Keys, an active supporter of “Keep a Child Alive,” which provides life-saving AIDS medicines directly to children and families with HIV/AIDS in Africa, it is simply a matter of informing people, and then asking them to help in small ways.
When another student volunteered that he just does not have time in his schedule to volunteer (this despite the fact that he was able to devote four hours of his time to attend an event with Shakira and other stars), Chris Rock yelled “If you had AIDS, you might just be able to find the time!”
But after the laughter in the audience calmed, Bill Clinton characteristically joined his fingers together and explained that in all seriousness, this is a real problem for college students. He was ashamed to say that there were years of his life when he did nothing to help others.
Sasha Kapadia, a senior at NYU who recently started her own organization to help children in third world countries, was sitting next to me. When I asked her if she felt that such a famous group of people could make students more active, she said that some students would continue to “exist in their own small bubbles without glossy images.” This, though sad, sounded accurate. Clearly President Clinton and Bono thought so. Sasha said she believed the vast majority of people who are spurred to action after watching a star-studded panel discuss world issues and perform will soon forget about their new interest, but, she felt that “some will become genuinely engaged.”
But celebrity encouragement was definitely an integral part of the evening’s program. “We have a lot of celebrities [at the Apollo] and a lot of students sitting next to celebrities,” said MTV’s Sway during his introduction. At times, this even seemed to be the main point of the event.
Giving: Live at the Apollo was a nonpartisan event that was intended to appeal to the very mainstream in America. When President Clinton mentioned that Tzipi Lipi, the innovative and forward thinking Foreign Minister of Israel, was in the audience, cheers of recognition came from only a few people. There was an air of nonchalance and a lack of astuteness on behalf of some who attended the event especially when Chris Rock descended into describing at length how overjoyed his children were to see photos of their hand-me-downs on African children.
But I was genuinely moved by the remarks of both Shakira and President Clinton. Pop singers are not always great orators, but Shakira, in her own passionate and openly friendly way appealed to Americans who have more than they realize, to think about their unique citizenship in a global society. She reminded the audience that Americans have freedom of speech, they can advocate for others, and they can access media outlets to learn about the world and make choices. For Shakira, even small acts of volunteerism have meant a great deal in her community.
President Clinton kept his points basic, but refreshingly intelligent. “There is no place on earth where there isn’t a gap between where we are and where we want to be,” he said. “[And] young people today have more power to change the world than at any other time in history. They are connected through the internet, they can create change at a grassroots level, and they are also more socially active than they have been in the past.”
For President Clinton, each person has a responsibility to be a civil servant—“a giver”—and to be an intelligent, active voter. Even an hour once a week or once a month can make a difference in the life of another human being.
Perhaps most importantly, President Clinton used the event to promote CGI-U, which will be modeled after the successful structure of the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting, a conference held each September in New York City that brings together more than one thousand world leaders, business executives, heads of nonprofits, academics and media personalities. The first CGI-U meeting is planned for early next year at Tulane University in New Orleans.
In fact, all the stars involved in Giving – Live at the Apollo have made a significant personal contribution to civil society. Bono founded ONE to end world poverty, Alicia Keys is an active supporter of “Keep a Child Alive,” which provides AIDS medication to children and families in Africa; Shakira backs ALAS (”Wings”), a coalition of artists, intellectuals and entrepreneurs dedicated to improving the health and education of Latin American children; and Wyclef founded Yéle Haiti, which provides resources and inspiration to help improve education, health, environment and community development in Haiti.
Oh, and the music was great.
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Giving – Live at the Apollo premieres October 12th at 8pm on MTV and is available on demand at Think.MTV.com
The Clinton Global Initiative is a non-partisan catalyst for action bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
ThinkMTV is the umbrella for MTV’s on-air, off-air and online pro-social campaigns that engage, educate and encourage young people to take action on some of the biggest challenges facing their generation. The backbone for MTV’s pro-social efforts is Think.MTV.com, a new online community where young people, their friends and some of the biggest names in pop culture come together to effect positive social change.
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