I can talk about these issues until I’m blue in the face and do cartwheels, and I can’t get people to pay as much attention as she can. “What she’s able to do is get people to pay attention to these issues. “Whether or not it’s a huge financial gain, who knows?” Dr. Helene Gayle, the president of CARE, is optimistic. I don’t know whether a youthful musical audience can be easily deputized into a posse for social justice. She also hopes to bring other artists into the effort, and she has already reached out to some. The next steps, she says, will include petitions, rallies, protests and public awareness efforts, as well as fund-raising. “This is bothering us, so how can we take that to the next step and do something about that, as opposed to just being angry?” Many are frustrated about social inequities, she says, but feel helpless to make a difference. So what will her fans think of her advocating on hot-button issues like stricter gun laws? On the whole, she thinks her audiences welcome such direction. But her concerns far transcend race and gender.
Keys is biracial, the daughter of a white mother and black father, and she says she has black relatives and friends who have been unjustly imprisoned. Keys seems less inclined to lobby at Group of 8 summit meetings rather, she says, she wants to work with fans at the grass-roots level.Īs a theme for the effort, Keys released a new song, “ We Are Here.” She says that her songs henceforth will do more to address racism, injustice and poverty she aspires to be a moral voice as well as a musical one. There is, of course, a tradition of socially conscious musicians, and Bono has done as much as anybody to highlight the challenges of global poverty. To get the effort started, Keys is donating $1 million of her own money, to be divided among the 12 groups, and she hopes that her fans will make their own donations directly to the charities. and AIDS Moms Rising, which supports universal prekindergarten, maternal leaves and tighter gun laws Oxfam, which fights global poverty Partners in Health, which tackles disease worldwide the Trevor Project, which prevents suicide among gay and lesbian youths the Trayvon Martin Foundation, which fights racial profiling and War Child, which supports children in conflict areas. Keys says she will encourage her fans to support 12 specific groups: All Out, a gay rights organization CARE, the aid group Equal Justice Initiative, which combats racial inequity in the criminal justice system the Future Project, which empowers high school students in America Girl Rising, which supports girls’ education around the world Keep a Child Alive, which helps children affected by H.I.V. She plans to kick off the We Are Here Movement on Sunday at the Social Good Summit, a grass-roots version of the annual United Nations General Assembly. “People won’t be able to ignore this visual.” “It’s time to get people’s attention,” she said. Keys is expecting her second child in December - the movement arises partly from her concern about the world that the child will inherit - so she decided to be photographed nude with a peace sign on her belly as an image of amity to kick off the effort. She wants to galvanize that infantry of fans from feeling frustrated about the world to improving it. “I want to gather an army,” Keys told me.
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