Thinking about not voting? Think again.
Voting has been the catalyst for ensuring human rights and liberties in the United States. There are no voting situations that are unimportant. School boards vote on books and curriculum your child is exposed to, and you vote to install school board members. Public municipalities determine taxes, fines, and availability of needed services. You vote for these representatives locally and even nationally where the vote determines the system of life in the U.S.
Even in our Muslim community, the body of the believers vote and decide on masjid/Islamic board members and hold votes of confidence (Bayah) for the religious head, the Imam.
The voting process in America is not to be taken lightly. When citizens do not vote out of apathy, fear, intimidation, or even policies of prevention, then people suffer. Voting is the only way to effectively combat deliberate misperceptions that produce unjust or ineffective laws.
Voting stops a lie. A politician who perpetually deceives his constituents is voted out of office for their lack of integrity. A law that is harmful or unjust is only overturned by the people voting for principled legislation.
Take the example of children being executed in America. It took the power of the vote to finally change it in 2005.
How Executions Of Children Under 15 Ended Through Voting
In America, when people do not have or face extreme opposition to exercise their right to vote, inhuman, egregious crimes have been committed against its citizens. It was not until March 2005 that the United States Supreme Court decided to ban executions of children under the age of 15. Still, 19 states have laws permitting the execution of persons who committed crimes at sixteen or seventeen. The cruelty of childhood execution is epitomized by George Stinney Jr., an African-American boy who was executed at age 14. He was so small that they had to place him in a booster seat. His execution was so merciless that even his parents were not allowed to be present to comfort him or themselves. They were under a lynching threat.
It took years of litigation and civic engagement to change the brutality of indifference by the American public. It took citizens voting in court justices who were concerned about human rights abuses against children more than upholding harsh laws or complying to historical fabricated prejudice against ethnic minorities.
The precipice for unlawful acts by the state like executing a George Stinney Jr. who was a child in age and size, was the myth that a Black male, any Black male was a threat, especially to White women. Thus, any Black child could be brutalized under the system because the American people didn’t vote for representatives and court justices that would find such behavior repugnant and barbaric.
A Brief Racial History Of Racism And Voter Intimidation
It wasn’t until March 2022 that the Emmitt Till anti-lynching bill was passed. Here, another child was tormented and murdered through the pure evil intent of the perpetrators. The reality is and remains that White fear of retaliation for the horrors of slavery and injustice drives these brutal acts.
America justifies injustice with a “story” that is spun about each minority ethnic group so theWwhite public will remain indifferent to atrocious acts against fellow citizens.
Unfortunately, America has a long history of allowing myth to shape its culture, politics and laws.
The “Lost Cause of the Confederacy” was a perspective held by members of the Confederacy that the Civil War was not fought because of slavery, but rather a heroic fight to maintain Southern gentility. There was a collective and deliberate dampening of the horrors of slavery and the true culture of the Deep South. From this lie, groups like the Ku Klux Klan developed, along with systemic injustice and brutality against African-Americans that persists even until the present.
After the Civil War, members of the Confederate States of America certainly expected to be jailed for treason. The leaders of the Confederacy were briefly imprisoned. But the appetite in the American public for revenge was not as strong as the appetite for reconciliation. Thus, by the early 1900’s, Americans were even building monuments to those members of the Confederacy who had taken up arms against their brothers.
Too many people were apathetic or ignored their civic duty to ensure domestic peace, and thus the myth and lies of 1864 became pervasive in American culture. Racism was the law of the land and to maintain the racism, voting intimidation and impediments were put in place so that ethnic and religious minorities were not able to change the laws themselves.
But that fact is not something relegated to America’s past.
“The Big Lie” And Voter Intimidation
In 2020, the “Big Lie” was a perspective that the then-president was not representative of white supremacy and xenophobia, but rather was protecting a republic by undermining the existing democracy that was “flawed”.
This Big Lie led to Jan 6 insurrection. This Big Lie prompted Republican legislators and public officials to take redistricting efforts to state Supreme Courts and put in place new voting regulations and checks and balances that were not only ineffective, but also lent credibility to the Big Lie.
There were no investigations from the U.S. government offices or U.S. Attorney General’s office that indicated that there was widespread voter fraud in 2020. That reality only existed in the 2016 election, when Russian bots influenced and drove the election. This fact was confirmed by over a dozen U.S. agencies investigating the voter interference of 2016.
But the Big Lie continues to undermine the U.S. voting system and is a deliberate effort to subvert human rights and confuse the public.
A vote against a lie deprives it of its power. Vote out political liars and those who support the Big Lie When we don’t vote the individual rights of citizens can be trampled and demoralized. We have seen from America’s past how a lie can be the catalyst for some of the most malicious and merciless acts forced upon this society’s minorities, even defenseless children. That’s not who we are or want to be as Americans.
Vote for truth and integrity.
Add new comment