If You Don’t Like Who’s In There…Vote ’Em Out

(Inspired by Willie Nelson’s call to action and reclaimed by you, me, and everyone else)

There was a time when we collectively knew what was at stake. When casting a ballot could cost you your home, your job, or your life. But our ancestors did it anyway. Fannie Lou Hamer stood trembling before the cameras and told America she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Medgar Evers died in his driveway for organizing voter registration in Mississippi. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were buried beneath Mississippi soil for daring to register Black citizens. John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge knowing that batons and bullets might meet him on the other side.

The right to vote was not handed to us. It was wrestled from the jaws of oppression by people who looked like us, prayed like us, and believed that freedom could be legislated only if it was first demanded. Their courage cracked open the doors of democracy, and yet, sixty years later, those same doors are quietly closing again. When the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, it stripped away one of the few protections our people bled to earn. And we must ask ourselves: Did we get too comfortable? Did we confuse progress with permanence?

Somewhere along the way, we started believing the lie that our vote doesn’t count. We watched the system bend and break and told ourselves that showing up didn’t matter. That lie became a lullaby, passed from one weary generation to the next, while those in elected seats counted on our absence. But they still know what we forget too easily: they cannot win without us. Every election season, they come to our cookouts, sit in our pews, hum our hymns, and perform concern until the ballots are cast. Then they vanish, leaving us to pick up the pieces of the promises they never meant to keep. Or worse, they stay very relevant in the chapters of our pain that are written as we live under their "leadership".

If you're from Colorado, you know that in Aurora, the city has experienced firsthand what failed leadership looks like. We’ve all watched Steve Sundberg, Danielle Jurinsky, and Amsalu Kassaw (current council members for the city of Aurora) use their positions not to protect, but to perpetuate harm. We’ve watched the city become a stage for injustice, where names like Kilyn Lewis, Rashaud Johnson, Kory Dillard, and Rajon Belt-Stubblefield were turned into more hashtags. Each of them was a son, a brother, a neighbor...a man! And none of them can vote. The system that stole their breath still decides who polices our streets, funds our schools, and shapes our future. So we cannot afford to stay silent.

Our vote is sacred. It is protest and prayer, strategy and salvation. It’s the voice of the ancestors whispering, Don’t you dare sit this one out. It’s how we honor the blood that paved the road from Selma to Aurora.

Ask yourself:

• Do I know who speaks for me when decisions are made behind closed doors?

• Have I done my part to teach my children that their vote is their power?

• Am I willing to stop waiting for saviors and start being the solution?

• And if I don’t like who’s in there, will I do what my ancestors did and vote ’em out?

  
  

Because November 4th is coming. And this election has proven to be one to watch in this timeline. Higher stakes are being realized, and it is shaking the core of those who were counting on our absence. In this election cycle, you can almost smell the desperation in the air. From stolen yard signs to illogical airplane ads, the "leaders" who have chosen to inflict pain on our people know that we understand the assignment. We know this is a fight for our very existence, particularly in Aurora. The ballot box is the new battleground, and our future depends on whether we show up.

They fought, bled, and died for this right. We owe them more than memory; we owe them movement.

In the hymn of Willie Nelson: If you don’t like who’s in there…vote ’em out. Vote like your life depends on it because someone’s does. I'm not here to tell you who to vote for. I just ask that you vote, and you vote your conscience!