Rock-Ing the Vote

For a long time I advocated a negative view of voting and the voting process, and the unfortunate events of the 2000 presidential election did not help to change this view much. However, I have modified my views toward voting, and because I am on public record as saying and asking, Would Jesus vote? And Whether you vote for the lesser of two evils, you vote for evil, I feel that it is only right to clarify and even modify my position on the voting process now that I espouse a more thought-out view. Having grown up in the low-income sections of the Bronx, Harlem, and Brooklyn, New York, I’ve seen, heard, and felt the corruption, the scams, the lies and the outright uselessness of the local elected official in affecting real and tangible results beneficial to my well-being. It was not that I initially refused to vote, it was the whole political process (candidates, elected officials, and their results) that showed the American people (myself included) how useless the voting process was in solving the country’s real challenges. I mean those issues that directly affect the lives of most Americans— race relations, justice, the economy, and education. Some may include health care, but I’ll stick with these four. People who are not born into a voting family are motivated to vote by the vision of achieving a desired goal. People simply want results or at least progress, and the political leadership of the United States has not provided such progress, achievement, or result that is beneficial and comprehensible to the common citizen.

Yeah . . . there’s been a change here and some progress there, but with regard to race relations, justice, the economy, and education, there really hasn’t been any consistent and successful leadership in over forty years! In addition to such lack of charismatic political leadership that the common person can feel and comprehend, every other month there is news of some political scandal or controversy that further erodes the public trust in politicians and their ability to make things better. Every time the American people see or hear of another police brutality incident, or some controversy in the White House, or another empty promise from a political candidate that they see once or twice during election time on television, they lose faith in their own system of government and they lose trust in elected officials. This is why many people—some 40 million—simply do not vote. They regard the whole United States political system as a tool of multinational corporate interest. They may not articulate it quite like this, but basically, it is common knowledge among the American people that our government has been bought and that politicians are for sale. Whether this is true or not, this is the general opinion most people have of the United States government and their elected officials, and this is why most people don’t vote!

I was one of those people that could not possibly see how my vote could change anything because all the candidates represented my continued oppression. Whether I voted or not, I was still oppressed. Racial profiling oppressed me. Poor education, inadequate housing, and institutionalized racism still oppressed me. I could not see how my vote could possibly make a difference. What needed to be changed had nothing to do with voting. The type of relief that I and many others were looking for seemed to be achievable only through a change in the human heart. Things like fairness, honesty, respect, and wisdom seemed to be inconceivable as goals to be attained by voting. Yet without these virtues, how could there be any real change? I believed that it was not the public office that was inefficient, it was the incompetence and insecurity of the elected official that rendered his/her public office inefficient and ultimately useless. Issues like hate, jealousy, greed, lust, deceit, depression, ignorance, selfishness, etc., are not only the causes of political incompetence, but such vices are the very reasons we need leaders and laws to protect us from ourselves and each other. For me, and for many others, the way to effectively progress and develop a nation is to positively influence its collective consciousness with memorable acts of righteousness and citizenship. Such acts should be praised and rewarded by the United States government, where each year the top 100 grassroots organizations are congratulated and empowered in some way by the President for their work in the area of righteousness and citizenship. Such an event would give people a reason to do good things. At the least, it would stimulate more common people to join in the political process through programs that led to social reform. But if politicians continue to ignore the concerns of over half of the United States citizenship, I cannot see any real and tangible changes happening in the political participation of younger and smarter voters.

Many people feel that there is simply no need to vote, because in today’s high-tech business world, you get nothing in return for a vote. It seems like it doesn’t matter who gets elected—the rich get richer while the poor get poorer! It seems like whether it be a Democrat or a Republican in office, race relations, justice, the economy, and education remain neglected. Sure, everybody’s talking, but still the problems remain! Money is being spent, but still the problems remain! People get elected, but still the problems remain! Where is the motivation to vote? My time and energy were better spent doing charity work, mentoring, protesting, debating, and basically being the type of citizen I would want all citizens to be—informed, involved, concerned, and patriotic.

But then I grew up and I realized through years of work with a variety of grassroots organizations, churches, student groups, and urban programs that everybody simply wants what everybody wants, for only themselves, right now! And we do things to achieve our goals right now, with no specific regard for whom it might negatively affect now or in the future. Politicians come from us, the people. So if we do not like a specific politician, it is actually the character and ideas of some people that we really do not like. The truth is, some people are trying to achieve their collective goals through politics with no regard for how I may be affected. Nothing personal, just business. I realized that as unfortunate as it may sound, more people from low-income areas should vote, not to get something to happen, but to prevent other things from happening. I realized that voting does not help me, it protects me. It is a privilege. A form of empowerment. More than being a right, it is literally our power to stop the agendas of other citizens who wish to exploit us and our resources through their active participation in the whole political process. I have realized that voting is a citizen thing to do. If you consider yourself a citizen of the United States, then what is your duty as a citizen? What are some of the things citizens do? Citizens vote! Citizens protest! Citizens volunteer! Citizens organize! Citizens participate in the direction of their nation. The question became, am I or am I not an American citizen?

After I took voting out of the assistance (how it can help me) category and placed it in the resistance (power to prevent) category, I realized that I and many others had been living a one-sided approach to the voting process. We were raised to believe that one man, one vote was the solution to race relations, justice, the economy, and education. It was not. At one time people believed that if a member of their race, or ethnicity, or gender got elected to public office, life would be better for them. It was not. We grew up believing that the highest form of civilized decision-making among a group of people was a majority vote. This too turned out not to be true. I realized that for years I placed voting on a high pedestal and assumed that such a high privilege as voting surely had more power to change things than it was actually showing at the polls. But it didn’t, and my position regarding politics in America was one of hopelessness. Voting sucks! Politics is money! Candidates are for sale! America is lost! The sad thing for me was that I expected more out of the United States. Trapped in a do for me and how can it assist me mentality, I expected to receive from the United States what the United States already gave me, the power to receive for myself. I expected more from the voting process, until I realized that it was the voting process, and politics in general, that expected more out of me! As a citizen, my right to vote was really connected to my political right to act upon and affect my government.

In reality, the underlying idea of affecting one’s government is what voting is really all about. As a tool of democracy, voting is not the most a citizen can do to affect his/her government, it is the least. There are many other ways, from lobbying to volunteering, from donating to strategizing, in which any average citizen can affect his/her government in the United States. As mentioned in Urban Inspirational Metaphysics, the problem is that most people, politicians included, have vices, insecurities, depressions, and hatreds. And we bring these sicknesses to our professional lives. Such sicknesses taint our political views and cloud our judgements. It is not the system that is corrupt, it is us! It is not the candidate that cannot be trusted, it is us! Our elected officials are no better than the people they come from. Those people are us! I have realized that America is about checks and balances, and my right to vote is connected to my larger citizenship to check and balance the affairs of my government. If I do not actively check and balance my government, by my own default, I make my government imbalanced. And such an imbalance manifests in my life as injustice, neglect, and exploitation. The whole realization rests in the meaning of citizenship, which was laid out by President John F. Kennedy when he said, Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. With this realization I have ceased to believe that voting can do anything for me, and I now believe that there’s a whole lot I can do to improve the results of the voting process. The issue rests in whether you are willing to lend a hand in trying to make things better, or if you are content with criticizing the decisions of some citizens that got themselves together and used the same political system you have access to, to affect change in their lives. The American system of politics is there to be used for the good of the citi-zen.

But like a car, or a house, or a tool, etc., political systems must be taken care of. They must be repaired, oiled, and tuned up every once in a while. They must be engaged and regularly used if the effectiveness of such systems, rights, and duties are to be productive, strong, and longlasting in one’s community. It is true that there are more effective ways than voting for citizens to come together in a shared decision for political progress. But what if 20 million of those 40 million non-voters did vote and did have a voice in mainstream political discourse? What new opportunities shall arise for everyone if as a united group, the Hiphop community (as an example) actually rocked the vote? My views on voting are begining to change. To be continued . . .