A lot has been said, written, and reported on about non-voters; people who have never voted, those who have given up on the political process, and folk who simply don’t see the point.
Every election season, but especially this one, all the stats are rolled out about the number of people who don’t vote in cities, counties, and states often outnumbering those who took the time to cast their ballots.
A crazy fact regarding this voting/non-voting reality is, that just about every policy, law, initiative, and program Black people want, we could actually have if the percentage of us who voted improved.
But what happens is:
- We vote
- More of us don’t vote than vote
- Our power to get what we want is diluted
- We interpret this reality as “our votes don’t make a difference.”
The perfect example: we voted like crazy to elect President Barack Obama in 2008 but went back to not voting during those 2010 midterms, opening the door for anti-Obama folk to control the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. This blocked his ability to get things done. We interpreted that as 1) our votes don’t matter and/or 2) it doesn’t matter who we put in office because “they’re all the same.”
We then complained that Obama didn’t do anything while in office. That’s not true. Just ask the millions who have enjoyed healthcare coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act which is so beloved by folk of all races they don’t even call it Obamacare anymore. But he could have done so much more had we voted like it mattered during every election. But instead of interpreting that reality that way, we determined that our votes didn’t make a difference.
Anyway, please share with any non-voters in your circles the following reasons their vote matters.
Gives Voice to Your Voice
Even with all that’s wrong with the current electoral system/process, your vote still allows you to do one of the most powerful things we humans can do—speak truth to power. Surely, you’ve heard the saying “Your vote is your voice.” It may sound corny, but it’s true. Giving “voice” to your “voice” (your issues, wants, concerns, ideas, etc.) is an act of power. You empower yourself when you’re willing to speak your truth.
And when you speak your truth, you give people the courage and permission to speak theirs as well. This is how the rebellions against U.S. white domestic terrorism (also known as the Civil Rights and Black Power movements) were born… one voice voiced at a time.
Mose Wright, Emmett Till’s uncle, put his life on the line when he testified in court, stood up, and pointed at the men who kidnapped and killed his nephew. Wright voiced his disgust with the racist, white “supremacist” U.S. paradigm, and his act emboldened others to do the same.
Black folks across the South who fought and died for the right to vote, voted, even knowing they were grossly outnumbered. But their voices via their votes set in motion societal changes we enjoy to this day.
If there is something important to you, some issue policy, or goal, say it with your whole chest. Vote.
Sets the Local and National Agenda
Not all politicians are money-grubbing, power-seeking scumbags. But whether they are or they aren’t, all politicians are impacted by the way people vote… and the issues they vote for and against.
The only reason America has remained a democracy is because of the Black vote over the decades and generations. In 1939, there was a Nazi rally in New York City (Madison Square Garden). Over 20,000 white nationalists showed up to support Hitler’s global anti-Black movement.
The Nazis knew America was fertile soil for their racist message for several reasons, one of them being, just a few years prior, in 1926, the KKK had their version of a March on Washington that saw over 30,000 white men, women and children come hooded up to the nation’s capital and spread their gospel that God created America to be a white nation.
There’s also the fact that the Nazis based their entire anti-Jewish (i.e., anti-Black) agenda on U.S. segregation and were in awe that a country could have perpetrated hundreds of years of slavery, Jim Crow, 200-plus years of lynching and racial terror, the destruction of Indigenous populations, etc., yet still, be viewed as a democracy.
There has always existed a strong anti-democracy, anti-equality “contingent” in this country. Even after WWII, that contingent fought to maintain their privilege. But Blackfolk, with our fight, protests, rebellions and eventually our votes, have time and again put that madness in check.
Even when “we” didn’t win elections, our votes, our voices were loud enough to alter local, state and federal agendas to bend to our will.
Whatever rights we have today are because we set this nation on a path different (albeit slightly) than other apartheid states. This nation doesn’t exist and have the global influence it currently enjoys without the Black vote, and politicians who were able to read the “signs of the times” and get with our program… at least partially.
You Become the Boss
Voting is a reminder of who’s really in charge—the voter, not the politician. We are the bosses here. Elected officials are the employees. Dark Money (look it up) muddles up this reality and has our employees thinking that they work for lobbyists, global corporations, and other nefarious entities with long dollars.
But there are countless examples (especially on the local and state level) where people, voters, remembered who they were, who they are, and then acted like it.
In Texas, a small but insanely wealthy group has been pushing for vouchers (a tool to take public education tax dollars to pay for wealthy people to send their kids to school). However, their push keeps getting pushed back and slapped down because voters have said “Hell no” time and time again.
We can make this same “boss” move on any other issue we believe is worth fighting for or against… by voting.
Helps Movements Move
MLK’s strategy is not fully appreciated. His marches and protests were not just for marching and protesting’s sake. He sought to move the political needle, first to help Blackfolk secure the vote and then to direct U.S. votes to help bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.
MLK knew that changing policy via Black and Brown and human-friendly legislation helped movements to keep on moving. MLK knew it was votes for those humanistic policies that would allow for society’s forward movement.
Exercises Agency
Voting allows you the exercise that thing that people who hate you and your kind (race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, place of origin, etc.) don’t want you to exercise—your agency. Agency is the power and ability you possess to make a difference in your life and the world. Voting is one of the purest forms of exercising your agency.
