Women of Color Are Right to Be Jaded About Voting. But That Doesn't Mean We Should Stop Doing It.
Over the past few months, I’ve been more than troubled by this election cycle’s get out the vote strategy. As we creep closer to election day, the narrative across the country has ranged from "Vote like your life depends on it," to "Vote or shut up."
And while it's great that people are doing work to get out the vote, there seems to be something missing from these statements. This is the first major election since November 2016, and people are afraid of a repeat. We’ve witnessed two years of racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, and transphobia. Immigrant children have been put in cages and taken away from their parents, entire countries have been banned from traveling to the U.S., and we’ve seen a sitting president encourage outright violence against communities of color in a way very reminiscent of the Jim Crow Era.