Dr. Rosalyn | So You Only Vote for One Issue?

 

I will try not to make this one as long as the last one but I can't promise that right now.  And remember I warned you last week that you may get upset with me.  If I do make you upset enough to unfollow or unfriend me I'm sorry but I have to finish sharing my thoughts.  And believe me this is not the last go round on commentary.  It just may be the most pointed.  Now let's begin.

I have had friends throughout my life that vote differently than I do.  And I have had people confuse my positions on voting because of my public stances on lots of things.  I was in a group yesterday that said students shouldn't know how we vote because we're indoctrinating them and I am still wondering how I get to indoctrinate anyone when I cannot reliably get them to check email, read message boards or announcements or even come to class.  I think our refusal to discuss the political system is a disservice to our students as they try to navigate a confusing and messy system on their own--especially if someone in their family tells them they only vote for one reason.  If you are one of those one issue voters again I apologize but buckle up.

I got off track in my last paragraph but I have known folks my entire life who have only voted for one position and no matter what they are going to stick with that position forever.  I used to be able to respect that because at least they were engaged in the whole political process.  I used to be able to and just keep it pushing until 2016.  Then I heard way too much about how they just couldn't vote for one candidate because of the (in no particular order): babies, guns, gender, their husband's behavior, alleged sex ring, Bengahzi or dear Lord and sweet baby Jesus her emails.  Despite the third party candidate not being a realistic option people voted for them and that was the margin of victory in some of the swing states.  And still others bit back all the other things they found distasteful about the other candidate because because of the (in no particular order): babies, guns, gender, their husband's behavior, alleged sex ring, Bengahzi or dear Lord and sweet baby Jesus her emails and voted for them.  No matter his lack of experience, multiple marriages and infidelities, bankruptcies, pending and past fraud cases, pending and past sexual assault allegations, hush money paid to porn stars and repeated racist and inflammatory statements their one issue was enough to give that person support.  

I realized last week that being able to be a one issue voter is an immense privilege.  It likely means the rest of your life is mostly secure so that attacks on "safety net" programs or police reform or voter disenfranchisement don't impact you much if at all.  Probably not you are people that are terribly close to you either.  Don't get me wrong, I like babies, don't want your guns taken, have a huge problem with abuse of minors on any level (just ask my students) and have issues with people who cannot secure data in multiple ways.  However, I have to care about the safety net because it can impact both my home life and my work life.  I have to care about police and justice system reform because it has been repeatedly demonstrated that if you are Black and brown in this country then the justice system works differently for you.  I have to care about my ability to vote because I haven't always had it as a woman or a Black person and because ever since portions of the Voting Rights Act were stricken in 2013 there has been a mad dash to limit the votes of the elderly, poor, minorities, and students.  People who are not likely to be one issue voters.  I'm also worried about my LGBTQ friends who may have their hard  fought and only recently won battles overturned.  I'm concerned about women being able to control our bodies with the already ridiculous oversight that is in place currently.  I'm worried about my students being able to pursue their educational dreams when people from outside the education community keep trying to regulate what we teach, how we teach it and to promise a return on investment before they let us proceed.  

At the end of our webinar, I asked that people consider voting for someone else.  Vote for your grandmother so her social security doesn't get cut by someone who wants to extend the payroll tax holiday.  Great for those making a certain amount of money, not great for those who need social security now or who will in the not so distant future.  Vote for your friends who are in the DACA program and have literally never known another country beyond the one that keeps trying to expel them and call them illegal in the process.  Vote for the kids still locked in cages who may never see their parents again because no system was kept in place to link them.  Abortion isn't ideal but this news may help you.  We are in a historic low on the number of abortions given annually mostly because we have better birth control access not because of the super crazy laws that keep getting introduced and costing states a ton of money to litigate and have struck down.  And overturning Roe V Wade won't do anything but bring back illegal or dangerous self-abortions.  And if your one issue is abortion can you still vote for the other folks because if the kids are all born then we need the safety net programs, better education funding (not school choice which just makes poor schools poorer when they lose students), better job training and opportunities for their parents or to make adoption much freaking cheaper.  Vote for people who look like me who do not want to become another hashtag that receives no justice because as of right now there doesn't seem to be many place Black and brown bodies can be that are free from the expectation of assault and character assassination that comes when we find out the perpetrator was wholly and totally wrong.  Vote to end the grotesque and overt racism, greed, and corruption of the last few years.  No matter how you feel about your one issue you cannot seriously be okay with what is happening right now  Vote for the 200K and counting people who never can again.

This isn't about conservative versus liberal even though that's what the sound bites reduce it to.  We all want to live healthy and functional lives and what that looks like is different for all of us.  But I know what it doesn't look like is what has been happening lately.  We're so tired of saying WTF that we aren't always keeping up with the news and stories that come out which would have cratered any other presidency are just so commonplace we don't even know how to file it away now.  I disagreed with previous administrations on both sides of the political spectrum but I have legitimately never been terrified of what my future will hold the way I have been recently.  I doubt my fear will sway folks dramatically from their one issue but I am immensely jealous you get to have just the one concern.  Just do me a favor and if things happen that back up my fears figure out how to protect the versions of me in your life.  We're going to need it.