“You vote once in four years and that’s your political responsibility? That’s the height of bourgeois propaganda, making the people politically irresponsible. Thinking their responsibility is limited to a one-day vote. Politics is every day.” These were words spoken by the revolutionary Pan-Africanist thinker Kwame Ture, also known as Stokely Carmichael, who was one of the first Freedom Riders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He also was a predominant voting rights activist in Alabama and Mississippi and worked to register Black people to vote. It is with that in mind that I look at this quote. Voting is not the beginning or the end of political action, and it is most definitely not a radical act. It is simply one way and one piece of political contribution for those who choose to engage in it. The idea that that is the only place our political responsibility and power lies is an incredible disgrace to ourselves, our agency, and the horrors this country has inflicted on millions of people.
The fact that we are asked to go to the polls every four years and vote for whether or not we deserve rights is a problem. The looming threat of fascism over all our political decisions is a problem. It is a problem because it makes us numb to the fact that these things are already very present. They are ingrained in the fabric of what America has been from its inception and what it continues to be. We are afraid of the loss of our right to vote, but there are only two states in this country where you can vote regardless of criminal conviction. We are afraid of the loss of reproductive healthcare, but maternal mortality rates are two to four times higher for Black women than white women. We are afraid of the possibility of mass death, but we have watched a supposedly “progressive” administration aid and abet the genocide of Palestinians for the past 13 months; the genocide of Congolese people in the name of profit, comfort, and corporate interests; the genocide of Indigenous peoples and Africans in the formation of this country and to this day. This is what this country does, this is what this country represents. Voting will never save us from that, and that is what we have to fight.
This is not a piece about whether or not you should have voted in Tuesday’s election, who you should have voted for, or what decisions you should have made. We are in a different moment now, yet in many ways, it is the same. It is different in that a new president will take office in January, assuming the highest leadership position in one of the most powerful countries in the world. It is the same because what that country represents, what it stands for, and what it does to people both within its borders and outside of them stays the same. The United States, with all its military power and international sway, will maintain its place on a global and internal scale as an imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist nation that is in opposition to all people’s liberation movements. The work that is required is the same. That is what I want to focus on and encourage us to collectively turn our attention toward.
Organizing is not just marches and rallies and visible representations of dissent. It is also about building systems of care and community that make the larger systems that subjugate and kill us and our kin obsolete. It is the way we come together to prevent those we care about from being further harmed or doing harm. Not everyone needs to be an organizer, but everyone needs to be involved. We all have things we can contribute, and more importantly, community needs all of us and we all need community.
So what are other actions we can all take?
1. Start locally. Oberlin Community Services or other local community organizations like Serve the People Akron are great spaces to tap into the needs of the community and build connections.
2. Donate your time and learn a skill! Street medicine, self-defense, carpentry, gardening — things that can help yourself and others and make us less dependent on systems that criminalize and exploit all of us, especially those most marginalized and subjugated.
3. Make art and spread information, both for yourself and others. This can look like zines, posters, forms of public art, teach-ins, and so many other options. Continue to read and learn from those doing community care and protection work.
4. Engage in mutual aid and fundraising. This can range from organizing a full fundraising event to committing to give a percentage of each paycheck you receive toward mutual aid funds. This is a way we keep each other fed, cared for, out of the carceral system, and alive, and it is critical in building community and reframing our commitment to one another.
5. Get involved in networks of support and care that are important to you. Whether that’s abortion funds and helping those who need reproductive care travel to receive it, learning about DIY hormone replacement therapy and how to get it to those who need it, joining autonomous action groups that disrupt the churning of the machine, or being involved in political theory and awareness groups, there is room for it all.
6. Be compelled into action. There are so many forms that can take, so many people who have written about and fought for their communities we can turn to for guidance, and so many needs to be met. The system will continue to churn, demanding those we love and care about as its fodder, and it is up to us to stop that by whatever means necessary.
We must use our grief, our fear, and our rage to fuel us. There is so much of it, and it is easy and understandable to feel like you are drowning in it. That is part of why we need one another. We need community to pick us up when we feel that and remind us of why we are committed to believing in and building something better. We are all we have, and I am choosing to see that as hopeful. We need one another, and we need action urgently. Let this galvanize you into movement. It feels like a daunting task, and I will not say it isn’t but none of us are in it alone. We have community that we build, piece by piece, and histories of people enduring, surviving, organizing, and revolting against empire. We have done it before, and we will do it again until we free us.
“So, personally, I don’t rely on the American elections to make any difference. In my opinion, both parties praise and support Zionism and the Zionist project in the Palestinian lands, which is the Israeli occupation. I rely on the free people of the world and the Palestinian people to make this change and to stop this genocide.” –Bisan Owda, Palestinian journalist.
