Every decade, people in the United States are inundated with media reports that make accusations and decry instances of political gerrymandering at the federal, state, and local levels of government. Gerrymandering involves redrawing legislative boundaries to create built-in electoral advantages for the people in power. Through gerrymandering, these map drawers — who are usually the very legislators whose districts are being redrawn — make it easier for them and their allies to hold onto and expand power and more difficult for their opponents to win power. In that sense, gerrymandering is a mechanism for institutionalizing inequality in society. Yet gerrymandering takes shape in the broader process of redistricting, which is meant to advance equality by ensuring that all legislative districts in a jurisdiction contain approximately the same number of people, thereby protecting the American democratic principle of “one person, one vote.”
This Keynote draws on material from a newly launched eCornell certificate in Equitable Community Change to show how and why a process that is outwardly committed to equality and democracy (redistricting) repeatedly gives way to antidemocratic actions that create and exacerbate social inequality (gerrymandering). Situated in the broader Equitable Community Change curriculum, the discussion will unpack the ongoing case of local redistricting in Buffalo, NY, to demonstrate how grassroots community coalitions can organize not only against gerrymandering but as proponents for alternative visions generated and refined through democratic, participatory processes. The Buffalo case reveals broad insights into the steps and work needed to build people power capable of designing and implementing programs for equitable community change in an unequal world.
RESOURCES / NEXT STEPSEQUITABLE COMMUNITY CHANGE Cornell Certificate ProgramShrinking Cities: Understanding Urban Decline in the United StatesJackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, MississippiHow Civil Wars Start And How to Stop Them By Barbara F. WalterTarget Analysis ChartIssue Identification Outline
