Vote for Our Ancestors and Our Future

Save the date: November 3rd. The day of the Presidential Election.

Election Day means so much to so many, and this is the year more than ever that we cannot sit by the sidelines. These last four years have been tumultuous, and we deserve to return to some type of normalcy, or at least some sort of decency from the person who is leading the country.

Tonald Drump is a sorry excuse of a man, let alone a leader of this melting pot of a country. This country declares that it is the land of the free, the land of many nations, where opportunities know no bounds. These last four years have been traumatizing. The 45th president has changed the country in seemingly irreparable ways.

In these last four years, the course of the world as we know it has been affected, and in our lifetime, it may never be the same. According to Pew Research Center, 194 federal judges (85% of them being white) have been appointed by the current president. Our justice system has been red-washed, leaving minorities and the underprivileged distraught for decades to come, with the expectation that our rights and liberties will be as solid as melted ice.

According to the Time, approximately 5,500 children were separated from their families by the current administration. Children are being taken away from their parents, being left in cages to be sexually abused, tormented, sold, killed, and disposed of. The governmental flaws in their tracking systems leaves families with no peace of mind of their children’s whereabouts, no communication with their loved ones, and now have to pay to even attempt to have them returned.

Natural disasters and world pandemics are something that a president should be prepared for, and unfortunately there are 175,000 people who were faced with death because of the administration’s failure to take ownership of its response, and quite frankly the stance that COVID-19 was not a serious matter. This correlates to the same lack of leadership in the county’s economic downfall, with an official unemployment rate of 11.1%, worse since the Great Depression… this left families unable to provide for their families, people being evicted from their homes, and the fear that the job market will never return to the standards we have become accustomed to.

We are living in times where we need our leaders to speak out against violence against minorities. With this civil rights movement, re-sparked by the murder of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and the countless other Black and brown people, we mustn’t forget that the president is not on our side. The president’s response to the neo-Nazi “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, which turned deadly, proved that loud and clear. According to the president, despite a thug driving into a crowd of people, killing one and leaving others injured, Donald thought they were “very fine people”, missing the mark to condemn racism and white supremacist violence.

This sentiment hasn’t changed today with the continual protests to end police violence, and he doesn’t seem to agree that Black Lives Matter. In fact, he said, “please don’t be too nice” in regards to how law enforcement conducts themselves back in 2017. It is clear where his loyalty lies and it isn’t which those who are in the greatest need.

There is no wonder this president is the 3rd to ever be impeached.

The next leader of this country has to truly value each life in which he serves. And that’s where we come in. This year, our ancestors are counting on us more than ever.

Only 55 years have passed since Black people were granted the right to vote. And in that time, we’ve had our first – and to most, our forever – Black President. While things weren’t perfect, as nothing ever is, we had hope for the future. He had empathy for the working class, he was a model family man, and he made good on his promises. He understood what The People needed and worked towards it.

The hope we once had has been overcome with fear and what we originally thought would happen is being a disheartening reality. Dictatorship is surfacing, fascism is showing its nasty head, and the respect for the United States has been transformed to utter shame.

Our time is coming. On November 3rd, we must as a collective vote in this year’s presidential election. We are in need of compassion, competency, and class. We haven't experienced this in four long years... And now the future is in our hands.

Just really quickly, take a moment to say to yourself

“if my vote didn’t matter, they wouldn’t try to suppress it”.

Remember that.

While the 15th Amendment extended the right to vote to Black men, Jim Crow laws made it practically impossible to vote. There were literacy tests, mandated voter taxes to cast a ballot (knowing the African American didn’t have the funds), and requirements to get a white person to vouch for them (even though it had only been a short time since the last slave was freed, leaving traces of hostility towards the Black person). It wasn’t until 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was passed, removing discriminatory barriers that kept Black people from voting.

There is power in the Black vote. There is power in the numbers, so let’s get into it. We have proof that when we unite as one, things change F.U.B.U. According to Pew Research Center, the black voter turnout rate declined for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, falling to 59.6% in 2016 after reaching a record-high 66.6% in 2012.

Was this because we knew our Forever President left gigantic shoes to fill and we had no hope that things would continue to progress? Was this because of the systemic lack of accessibility to the polls? It could be a few things, but don’t get deterred from the ballot – keep fighting. We cannot have another four years with this person sitting in the White House.

I know my ancestors wouldn’t vote for someone who has ever had the audacity to be quoted saying, “grab ‘em by the pussy” and neither will I.

Love,

Autumn

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If you are looking for more information on the upcoming election and where and how you can vote, click here.