Why We Can’t Stop Now

We MUST keep voting to save our democracy.

By Keith A. Owens

Don’t just get mad, get justice.

A few months ago, right at the beginning of the new year on January 25, Jonathan Capehart, who happens to be a favorite journalist of mine, wrote an excellent piece for the Washington Post entitled “Black voters are frustrated. But We Can’t Afford to sit out elections.”

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Capehart could have actually ended his oped right there because the headline says it all. Well, except for the ‘why’ part of it, which is pretty crucial. So Capehart shares this story:

Recently, a young Black woman told me that her peers are frustrated.

Young Black people, she said, are angry that no new voting rights bills have become law, and that they once again will have to get their relatives to stand in line for hours to vote for the Democrats to whom they gave the White House, the House and the Senate and got no ballot protections in return. Democrats’ renewed calls to out-organize and outvote fall flat.

The disappointment is real and measurable: President Biden’s job approval rating among Black people, the most loyal Democratic voting bloc, is at 64 percent in a new NBC News poll, a 19-point drop since April.

The poll plummet is no mystery. You can’t tell Black voters, “You’ve always had my back, and I’ll have yours,” as Biden did, and expect them to hang on as legislative priority after priority fails to become law. Trust me, Black folks are tired of always having to save this country from itself and then being ignored once the winner of their vote is in office. But the rage of the ancestors roiled within me when I heard this young woman say that some of her peers are talking about sitting out future elections. 

If this generation gives up, the resulting damage to our democracy will be as much their doing as it is the Republican perpetrators’.

A more recent article in Vice News, published exactly two months later on March 25, is headlined as follows: 

“Your Right to Film the Police Is Under Attack”

Over the last few months, Republicans in several states have introduced legislation—and in some cases, passed it—that could ultimately punish people for recording or publishing images or video of the police.

Lawmakers told VICE News the bills and laws are meant to protect officers' safety and privacy—not infringe on civilians’ rights. But experts still worry the efforts will be used to crack down on people’s ability to use their cellphones to hold police accountable.

You remember the George Floyd incident, right? So then maybe you remember Darnella Frazier too? She is the young woman who was only 17 years old when she captured the murder of George Floyd entirely on her cell phone. It was Frazier’s video that sparked the largest civil rights protest in history, a flash fire of rage that literally spread around the entire globe as people of all races and cultures took to the streets demanding justice.

It was Frazier’s video that resulted in the conviction of  Derek Chauvin, the police officer who murdered him - and the other officers who stood by and did nothing. It was Frazier's cell phone video that was sent to the (now retired) Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, and it was based on that video that Arradondo recognized the actual horror of what had happened because no other video camera in the area was able to capture what happened.

So of course Republicans, in what they view as some form of twisted support for the police, figure it’s best to make sure that the next time a Derek Chauvin murders a young Black man in plain sight, those who witness the murder won’t be able to record what happened. Bystanders won’t be able to participate in protecting their own neighborhood from rogue police officers who feel entitled to destroy Black bodies.

Which brings me back to Capehart’s op-ed and why we cannot stop voting and why we cannot stop fighting. It is because we need to face the unfortunate fact that this struggle will never be over. We need to face the uncomfortable fact that the only way we make progress is to never, ever stop fighting – and that when we stop fighting (and voting) is when we lose it all. 

It would be nice if there really was a Promised Land on this side of the sky where we could all sit down and rest after the battle is won. But so long as there are demons-on-call like the January 6 insurrectionists – and all the Republican legislators and others who supported them (including the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginni Thomas), then we need to accept the truth that they will never sleep. So neither can we.

Where we are standing right now is ankle-deep in the blood of those who fought for us to make it this far. The way forward may not be as bloody, but it will without question be as violent. And if you think standing still offers you protection? Yeah, well. Keep standing there and find out.