On the ground in pre-election America

It’s an anxious time in United States politics, but it’s also a time of enormous civic engagement. From October 9 to 14, with the midterms around the corner, a group of 27 youth leaders (including 20 Ryerson students) traveled to Chicago to experience United States political life.

Organized by the Ryerson Leadership Lab (external link)  (via Karim Bardeesy, distinguished visiting professor/special advisor to the president at Ryerson) and the Democratic Engagement Exchange (via John Beebe, senior advisor, Democratic Engagement at Ryerson’s Faculty of Arts), CanStudyUs was a hands-on experiment for students to experience democratic engagement, outreach, and policy development up-close.

The whirlwind trip included meetings with former Obama strategist David Axelrod, Gold Star father Khizr Khan, Consul General John Cruikshank, and former Illinois governor Pat Quinn, and various journalists, political operatives, strategists, scholars, policy-makers, and front-line community organizers. Students visited the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial campaign headquarters; took organizing/marshalling roles in the 2018 Chicago Women’s March; and engaged with perspectives from across the political spectrum. “The Sun-Times columnist came in right after the Republican advisor. The students get one story, and then the journalist just rips it to shreds with his story,” said Bardeesy.

Students also saw the political life of Chicago outside the corridors of power. They met with a primarily Latino community group that was devoted to fighting gentrification in their neighbourhood. “We were in a room with 20 people, and there were young people—15, 16-year-olds—explaining the power dynamics that led to gentrification: how the ward aldermen and the developers worked hand in hand. Our students were just blown away. The students were seeing what hard-core organizing and real, meaningful engagement looks like,” said Beebe.

“I’ve always been interested in local political activism, and Chicago has always been a hotbed for that,” said student Kaitlyn Hundt (Urban and Regional Planning). “I was really concerned with the recent Toronto ward boundaries changes—from 47 wards to 25—and how that would impact local representation. So, I was interested in how Chicago has gone about its system.”

The students even visited a Sunday service at Salem Baptist Church on Chicago’s South Side. “The congregation was 99 per cent Black at least, and you could see that this was a community that had created its own power and own set of institutions away from the established institutions,” said Bardeesy.

In the final days, students worked with organizations on voter outreach strategies, allowing them to put their lessons about civic engagement into action. “We wanted students to start to see how they could bring meaningful change through all these different venues,” said Beebe. “We had at least four people who said they wanted to run for office.”

The experience allowed students to put a human face on political combatants, and see how many citizens don’t fit in a tidy “Democrat” or “Republican” box. It also gave students an eye-opening view of Chicago—a diverse city that is also starkly segregated.

“Different cultures don’t engage with each other on a daily basis,” said student Kaleb Zewdineh. “White people live in white communities in the suburbs; Black people might be living on the South Side; Latino communities might have their own communities. What is building resentment among people is the fact that they’re not able to exchange ideas. The purpose of our trip was the exchange of ideas, and speaking to different people.”

“It made me see that the way we talk about diversity can be one-dimensional,” said Hundt. “In Toronto, we talk about diversity in terms of race, but not in terms of lived experiences—which could be your income level, or the tribulations that you’ve gone through. I feel like we’re still not getting it right when we’re talking about diversity.”

How can the United States heal its divides? “People are segregated through neighbourhoods, through educational systems, through employment,” said Zewdineh. “I believe that would come from a platform where everybody can meet up with each other—and that would be through having the kinds of workshops that we had.

“To be honest, I would never have talked to a business student from the Ted Rogers School if it wasn’t for this event, because I don’t have a friend in Ted Rogers. But having a platform or a workshop or an event that allows me to meet different kinds of people, we would be able to explain our differences while at the same time acknowledging our similarities.”

How does it feel to be undertaking an experiment like this when the president is Donald Trump? “Our two countries are incredibly close, and there are things we can do to bring us closer together,” said Bardeesy.

“We’re hoping to build on the success of this initiative,” said Beebe. “We’d like to create other ways to continue this kind of experience so that Ryerson students can be up at 3 a.m. engaging on controversial issues. They’re not just reading about it—they’re experiencing it.”

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The trip was made possible by support from the U.S. Consulate, Elections Canada, Ryerson International, Ryerson board member Mohammad Al Zaibak, and Ryerson student societies and faculties (The Ryerson Students' Union, Ryerson Liberal Arts Society, Ted Rogers Students' Society, the Faculty of Communication and Design, the Yeates School of Graduate Studies, and the Ryerson Communication and Design Society.