Not on Our Watch (17 page)

At one point early on in mtvU’s Sudan campaign, Friedman met Francis Bok, a Sudanese refugee who was enslaved in Sudan for ten years. Bok escaped, and his dream was to go to college. Featuring Bok in mtvU’s PSAs helped make that dream a reality. Nate Wright, the co-founder of STAND, then approached Friedman about his STANDfast idea. Friedman decided to make the campaign national. ‘I wanted to shout about it on air, online.’ Eventually, over 170 schools committed to being a part of the campaign.

mtvU continued its involvement by giving major grants to student groups and doing commercial spots with Don. ‘College students are very pragmatic,’ notes Friedman. ‘They have also historically been the leaders of campaigns of change. Think about apartheid. They want to make change, and they want to do that through concrete action.’

Their efforts continued when mtvU sent three students to Darfur to create a documentary in March 2005. Friedman says that one of his greatest accomplishments on this campaign was ‘sending those students to Darfur. For a kid who may not know anything about it, it is a great, eye-opening experience. We did have Nate and Stephanie, but most important was Andrew Karlsruher, a student from Boston University. He was not an activist. Before he went, he said, “All I knew about Africa was
The Lion King
.” But there was a willingness to explore in him, and you need to give that a chance.’

In an ironic twist of innovation, Friedman learned that neo-Nazis are using video games to recruit new members, and he decided mtvU should do a video game against genocide. The game is called ‘Darfur Is Dying’ developed by Susana Ruiz, Ashley York, Mike Stein, Noah Keating, and Kellee Santiago of the University of Southern California. Anyone can play it for free on mtvU’s website. mtvU’s Alexis Hyder told us that the game has been played more than 2 million times, and tens of thousands have gone on to write letters to the White House, petition their representatives in Congress, or simply raise awareness by forwarding the game to a friend.

Friedman is inspired by a quote from Theodore Parker that Martin Luther King made famous: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.’ He says, ‘That’s something that everyone at mtvU believes in our hearts. In the end, if you have compassion, knowing that you can make change, making change in small increments fires you up. It’s the little things that get you to that point.’

For all kinds of activist tips, go to the ENOUGH Project website at www.enoughproject.org.

Darfur’s Other Champions

DON:

Several years ago my old friend JB Schramm asked me to appear as a speaker at a Youth Conference convened by former President Bill Clinton at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. JB is the mastermind behind an organisation called College Summit, whose mission it is to help low-income high school juniors prepare for their college admissions via a four-day intensive writing program. College Summit’s motto: working toward ensuring that every student who can make it into college makes it to college. Jeffrey Swartz, the president and CEO of the Timberland Company, is also scheduled to speak today and, like me, has found himself holed up in this small greenroom while we wait our turns, stressing over our speeches, confident that we will both undoubtedly be upstaged by President Clinton, also scheduled to appear.

‘There’s no way I’m going after him,’ Jeff tells me.

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll be batting cleanup.’

In addition to his role at Timberland, Jeffrey also sits on the board of City Year, an organisation dedicated to enriching the lives of young people by introducing them to civic strategies, specifically citizen service, civic leadership, and social entrepreneurship. Little did I know that this self-effacing ‘shoe guy’ as he called himself would factor in what would become a mission of mine.

Jeffrey and I kept in touch over the next year or so, e-mailing back and forth whenever he would see me in something he loved, hated, or felt indifferent to. I always looked forward to reading his words whatever his opinion; he had a poetic turn of phrase and a unique insight, being both a social activist and CEO of a major multinational corporation. After viewing
Hotel Rwanda
, Jeffrey wrote me a very long e-mail expressing how much it meant not only to him but also to his son, who convinced his junior high school to show the film and form discussion groups after the screening. I told Jeffrey about my learning of the Holocaust as a young man and wondered if our film would impact the students in the same way that the film
Night and Fog
had impacted me in my junior high school auditorium. Would we possibly one day see fruits from the influence of this modern depiction of genocide, many new activists joining the ranks in the not so distant future? Jeffrey assured me that he didn’t need to be drafted; he wanted to get the call first thing when and if the battle cry went out for whatever dragon I needed aid in slaying. I e-mailed him my thanks and we both got back to our busy lives.

Spring 2005, the movie Crash is in cinemas and the cast is making the rounds on all the television talk shows. Chris Bridges, Larenz Tate, and I do a turn on the BET program 106 & Park. In consideration of the company I’m keeping and the style of the show, I throw together a funky ensemble finished off at street level by my blue suede, seven-hole, Timberland boots.
Crash
, it turns out, is a hit, and apparently so is the airing of this episode because not two days later, I receive an e-mail from Jeffrey, with a photo attached of me sitting on the couch talking with the co-hosts of the show, AJ and Free, my legs crossed, and prominently featuring my footwear. Jeffrey wrote: ‘Great interview, footwear irrelevant. But I thought I would have gotten your design for a Darfur boot by now.’

I was shocked. Never had we spoken about the idea of doing something like that, but I was way into it. I wrote back immediately: ‘Watch my smoke,’ and grabbed a pencil and pad to sketch out some ideas. What an amazing opportunity this was. In my many discussions with John about outreach, ways to widen the circle of influence where Darfur was concerned, we had often broached the idea of ‘branding’ activism, tying in the spirit of social justice with an easily recognizable and perhaps even popular outward symbol of such. At first blush, it may sound counter-intuitive to combine the crisis of genocide in Darfur with the concept of being cool, but imagine the possibilities if such a marriage did exist. Remember the ‘Vote or Die!’ campaign? Activism and fashion needn’t be mutually exclusive, and in fact, if sporting a phat boot with a strong message can attract more young people and bring them into the fray, young people whose energy and drive this movement needs, young people who unfortunately may inherit this and other similar tragedies in years to come, why not take this opportunity to create a righteous blend? Besides, I’ve always rocked Timberlands and relished any excuse to stuff another pair into my shoe-heavy closet.

I played around with several boot ideas before shooting them off to Jeffrey, who put me in touch with his design team, which had already begun working on concepts. We went back and forth for the next couple of weeks tweaking our ideas for images and colour. I wanted the boot to have a tread cut into its sole that left behind the message ‘Stomp Out Genocide’ if the wearer were to walk on dry ground after traipsing through water, mud, or snow. Team Timberland was able to accommodate that, and every other design modification I requested. Shortly thereafter, they produced about 100 pairs of boots that we subsequently delivered to humanitarian activists, policy makers, journalists, and entertainment professionals who had raised awareness of and championed change in Darfur. In addition to the boot, Jeffrey directed the company to produce T-shirts with the words ‘What Footprint Will You Leave?’ emblazoned across the chest and ‘Save Darfur’ boot tags. Both were available for purchase to the general public, with proceeds going to AmeriCares, a longstanding partner of Timberland, providing life-saving aid in the Sudan. I have since worn the boots and shirt on many occasions, from television appearances to red carpet arrivals to just general day-to-day errands. Almost every outing, without fail, I am asked about the design, often by young people, giving me a natural segue into talk about Darfur, affording me the opportunity to make a potential convert. I have Jeffrey Swartz to thank for this.

Hollywood and Hip-Hop Meet Darfur

A number of celebrities have used their platform to further the cause of Darfur and other crises marked by crimes against humanity:

- Angelina Jolie has travelled to refugee camps in Chad for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. She and John went to Congo to document the human rights abuses being committed in the context of that conflict, particularly violence against women (see their photo exhibit online at www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/congojournal).

- George Clooney made a surprise visit with his father to Sudan and Chad in advance of the April 2006 Washington, DC, rally in order to maximise his awareness-raising impact. He appeared on
Oprah
and did a press conference with Senators Barack Obama and Sam Brownback. Later Clooney addressed the UN Security Council with Elie Wiesel. Both appealed to the UN to do much more to protect the defenceless in Darfur and challenged the world body to not stand idly by while genocide was unfolding.

- Mia Farrow has also made two trips to Darfur with her son Ronan on behalf of UNICEF, and both have written moving op-eds in a variety of publications. Mia and John have teamed up to speak at venues throughout the East Coast. She also visited eastern Chad with David Rubinsteen in November 2006 and raised the alarm bell about Darfur’s spillover effects in neighbouring countries.

- Mira Sorvino went to Capitol Hill to raise awareness of the plight of women subjected to sexual violence in Darfur, and she worked with Amnesty International to organise a concert in the summer of 2006 to raise awareness and funds for the region.

- Ryan Gosling went to eastern Chad and raised funds for the camps, and he has further plans to make a movie about Uganda.

- Russell Simmons participated in the April 2006 Save Darfur Coalition rally in Washington, DC, and has encouraged hip-hop artists to join the cause.

- Bradley Whitford is best known for portraying White House aide Josh Lyman on the television drama
The West Wing
, but when he was given the chance to get behind the camera and write an episode of the series, he used the opportunity to raise the issue of Darfur. Whitford learned about Darfur by reading about the efforts of Eric Reeves and attending a church where the genocide was discussed. He decided to write an episode in which an activist visits the White House and urges the staff to do something about the region.

- Bradley’s
West Wing
co-star Melissa Fitzgerald travelled to Uganda and has become an advocate for peace in northern Uganda. She spoke at a convocation sponsored by UGANDA-CAN and the Invisible Children project, which saw 700 students unleashed on Capitol Hill for two days of lobbying in October 2006.

- David Zabel is the executive producer and head writer of the hospital drama
ER
. He and his writers learned about Darfur by reading newspaper articles, looking for story ideas on issues related to health care in Africa. Because the show already had a character working for an aid organisation on the continent, they decided to send this character to work in a camp in Darfur. The episode looked at the experience of displaced persons, showing their daily crisis of trying to stay alive and healthy. It showed this struggle and explored how aid groups combat tuberculosis, malnutrition, dehydration, and malaria. They were able to focus the attention of the show’s 13–14 million viewers on the issue, and the episode coincided with the Save Darfur demonstration in Washington.

But you don’t have to be a celebrity, have a newspaper column, work in television, or start a mass-based organisation to have an impact. Every individual voice counts, as we shall see in the next chapter.

DON:

I got the call from my managers. ‘Don, I know we get a ton of these requests, but I think this is one you should really consider. The students from STAND, the ones you and John spoke with earlier this year, are going to be participating in a rally this week at the UCLA campus with the Darfur Action Committee to try and get the University of California regents to consider divesting their interests from Sudan. They only need you to show up at the beginning. They have some media coming and want to maximise …’

‘I got it. What time and where do I park?’

I was interested in helping these kids. John had talked them up a lot—how committed they were and how they had seeded a real movement that was already starting to make some real noise in colleges around the country. John and I had always remarked about how it consistently had been the students in most social movements, not only in this country but also around the globe, that ultimately made a difference. Even though the best outcome we could hope for today would be the regents voting to simply ‘consider’ the question of divestment, with the much larger decision to do it or not occurring later, I was honoured that I had been asked to lend my voice. What was bumming me out about the whole thing was my leg. I had undergone knee surgery earlier that year, and though my rehab was coming along, I couldn’t always swing spending extended periods of time on my feet. But given that they’d only need me for the beginning of the event, for a rousing kick-off speech and some face time for the cameras, I figured I could pull it off, no problem.

Traffic in LA is a buzz-kill, and sitting in this smog soup on rally day is grinding away at my enthusiasm. I am supposed to show up at 11am, but from where I am now, crawling along on Wilshire Boulevard, it doesn’t seem possible. I call my manager and ask that she let the folks know that I am doing the best I can to get there but have fallen victim to the vicissitudes of an LA commute, everybody scrambling, getting nowhere fast. When I finally arrive, I am more than a half an hour late and my head is throbbing in sympathy with my knee. Damned activism. I am met at the garage by a bright-eyed, young DAC rep, and her enthusiasm momentarily quiets my aches and pains—momentarily, that is, until she explains that we need to walk a short way to get to the hall where the press conference will be held.