A Democracy is a form of government in which the people have the authority to choose their governing legislation. Therefore, in order to have a say in what the legislation we live with we have to vote. It wasn’t until August 6, 1965 during the height of the Civil Rights Movement that the Voting Rights Act was signed by Lyndon B. Johnson prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.
Up until that point black and white folks were killed in this country fighting for the simple rights of black to be able to vote and choose legislation that would benefit their communities. Notice that I said black and white folks. There have always been white folks helping us. The earliest were called Abolitionists and there are still some out there today.
It took 346 years for black folks in this country to gain the right to have the opportunity to vote without being discriminated against. Before the Voting Rights Act was signed there were games being openly played to keep us from voting like having to count the number of jelly beans in a jar.
Why? Because the racist that wanted to keep black folks in a subservient role in America knew that it was in their best interest to keep them from voting and choosing legislation.
It’s sad that 55 years after the Voting Rights Act was signed there are still young folks that refuse to vote because they’re listening to ignorant people tell them that voting doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change anything because you don’t vote.
Let me put it where the goats can get it. Not voting allows those that do vote to choose who the local prosecutors and judges are that keep sending your homeboys to jail giving them 25 to life and their white counterparts that did the same crimes get probation.
Not voting allows those that do vote to vote their homeboys in to pass legislation that isn’t concerned about what’s happening in your neighborhood.
You listening to people tell you that voting wasn’t important allowed a reality TV star to become President of the United States. He didn’t even understand that there are three forms of government as he tries to run the country like a dictatorship.
You not voting has allowed the office of the president to become an office that divides the country more than it brings it together. Voting is right that EVERY American has to contribute to the democracy that this country was founded upon.
Sure, for more than 401 years we’ve been fighting for real freedom but you not voting doesn’t help us get to where we’re trying to go. This country was supposedly founded for the people by the people and yes I know at the time it was founded we were considered three-fifths of a man. Therefore, it didn’t have us in mind.
However, our ancestors fought the good fight for all of us to become respected as the whole-man (Man as in Mankind) that God intended for us to be. We’ve survived slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement only for you to say that it makes no sense to use the very voice that millions have died trying to attain?
In case you didn’t know, at least 2 million Africans died during the Middle Passage in route to America. Then millions more died at the hands of slave masters while even more died trying to escape the horror of slavery.
We stopped counting the lynching that still continue to happen to this day. You do realize that we all just watched George Floyd get lynched on camera not to mention Ahmaud Arbery’s death by lynching just months before. Prosecutors, who are voted in, literally hesitated to charge these folks with crimes until the outpouring of support and outrage was too much.
Our power is in our voices that are fueled by our vote. Not voting is like giving the people that care nothing about you the opportunity to freely abuse you. That’s not called being woke. It’s called being sound asleep. Wake up and become a part of the democratic society known as America.
