Freedom is on the 2024 ballot: Top to the bottom
29th July 2024 · 0 Comments
Traditionally, Black voter turnout has been highest during a presidential election. But let’s not limit our power to just one ballot. When we vote in every election in record numbers, we have the potential to shape our future and get what we need.
For decades we’ve been bamboozled, hoodwinked and shaken out of equal representation at all levels of state and congressional offices. It’s one thing to be apathetic when it comes to voting, but cutting off our noses to spite our faces is straight stupid. This happens when we don’t go to the polls in sufficient numbers.
“Too busy.” “I don’t care.” “Nothing is going to change.” “Voting doesn’t help put food on the table or gas in my car.” To those pronouncements, we refer to the old saying, “All excuses are lies.”
Looks like we need to remind ourselves of the old civic lessons…. again.
First, electing a president is not the sole answer to our public service needs. A president can only do so much; President Biden can bear witness to that. Indeed, he accomplished a lot with his executive orders, but the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act still await passage.
Why? Because there are not enough votes in the Senate to make them law.
Congress members – House and Senate members – can create laws that level the playing field. The slim Democratic majority in the Senate and the slim Republican majority in the House have led to single members stopping the passage of legislation that benefits us all, not just a few.
So, if we are not voting down the ballot in record numbers, we are screwing ourselves out of the diversity, equality, and inclusion we need to secure freedom and move toward that perfect union.
Down-ballot voting is essential.
From the top down, we need to do much more than elect a president during Louisiana’s statewide primary on November 5. The U.S. president leads the nation and lobbies for a nationwide agenda, but a president can’t accomplish much without elected House and Senate majorities.
As such, if freedom is to be won – freedom to learn, freedom to compete for opportunities, freedom to achieve the American dream; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – we must vote for and hold accountable people who share our agenda.
This year, for the first time in decades, Black Louisianans have a chance to send two people to Congress, to the House of Representatives, from New Orleans and East Baton Rouge, who understand our struggles and challenges.
Let’s be clear: We live in a country where there are those who want to erase and impede our progress. They seek to turn diversity, equality, and inclusion into dirty words and weaponize DEI as hate speech.
Yes, electing a president is critical, but electing people to serve us at the local, state and regional levels is as essential, if not more.
Louisiana’s ballot includes elections for the state Supreme Court, appellate courts, school boards, all six congressional seats, constables, the clerk of city court, city court judges, civil district court judges, and all seven Orleans Parish school board seats.
Our vote is our power. Our vote is our freedom. Black Louisianans comprise 32.2 percent of the state population. Black New Orleanians are 59.2 percent of the city’s population. There is enough to secure our various freedoms if everyone votes up and down the ballot.
We must vote down ballots in record numbers to exercise our civic duty successfully. Voting was never a luxury but a necessity for Black America’s progress.
We must vote wisely. Name recognition and friends of a friend can’t be determinant factors for whom we cast votes. The willingness to serve, lobby for funding that improves citizens’ quality of life, secure basic constitutional and democratic freedoms are required from candidates running for public office.
But voting is just the first step. Elected officials must be held accountable for doing the people’s will and carrying out an agenda of the people, by the people, and for the people.
This article originally published in the July 29, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
