“Yes We Can” and The Politics of Transformation
By Jacqueline Hidalgo | June 13th, 2008 | Category: Issue 0, On Religious Life | No Comments »One small viral video likewise typifies this longing for transformation, the will.i.am music video, “Yes We Can.” This musical alteration of Barack Obama’s speech, itself a riff on Dolores Huerta’s classic “Sí se puede,” promises change in the moment that we move to the ballot box and vote for Senator Obama. Parts fascism and Internet youth culture, the video moves us to conflate the solitary moment of a vote cast with instantaneous transformation into the change we seek.
