[Pttv-announce] May 11: A Public Conversation on Youth and Military Recruitment

[pttv-announce at lists.mayfirst.org]

The Adco Foundation and the Continuing Education & Public Programs at 
the Graduate Center, City University of New York are pleased to sponsor:


Covering Our Bases: A Public Conversation on Youth and Military Recruitment

Thursday, May 11, 2006
Graduate Center, City University of New York
  365 Fifth Avenue
Rooms C201-C202
6:30pm

Speakers:         Representatives from El Puente, New York Civil 
Liberties Union, Paper Tiger TV, The Dominican Women’s Development 
Center, Uptown Youth for Peace and Justice and Peace Action New York State

Facilitators:       Leith Mullings, Presidential Professor of 
Anthropology, the Graduate Center, CUNY
Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Urban 
Education, the
Graduate Center CUNY

Professors Mullings and Fine will facilitate/moderate a conversation 
with community activists and legal advocates about the politics and 
practices of military recruitment of youth, particularly low income 
youth of color.

The U.S. military is increasingly facing person-power shortfalls, and 
cannot depend solely on volunteers during sustained conflict. There is 
evidence that this has led to stronger and less ethical recruitment 
practices. The determined efforts to expand the ranks of the military 
have included offering enticing bonuses to recruits, especially young 
women, Latinos and people of African-descent.

Public schools are the frequent targets of advertising, but recruitment 
also happens at colleges, malls, in classroom presentations, in JROTC 
classes or other youth leadership programs run by the military. Although 
recruitment may be directed to young children and to those who have 
completed school, recruitment efforts are most often directed to 16 and 
17 year olds. Further, the No Child Left Behind Act guarantees 
recruiters the right to private contact information for all secondary 
school students, so that students may also be contacted at home. The 
'volunteer' army is disproportionately composed of people of color with 
estimates that 20% are young people of color. For example although 
blacks make up about 13 percent of the total U.S. population, they make 
up about 23% of today's active-duty army. Those with limited options are 
prime targets. However, young people and their parents are increasingly 
challenging recruitment initiatives.

Throughout the nation, and NYC in particular, a number of organizations 
are engaged in raising awareness about military recruitment through 
organizing, education, media campaigns and the development of long-term 
alternatives to military service.  This panel will discuss the nature of 
and geography of these intensive recruitment practices as well as the 
national, city wide and school specific organizing of parents and youth 
designed to raise awareness of these concerns.

To register/R.S.V.P.
To R.S.V.P. or for more information call 212 817-8215 or 
continuinged at gc.cuny.edu and check http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cepp for 
hundreds of other programs.