The Powerful Bullet in Your Arsenal

Early voting is going on in Chicago this week for the primary. It began Monday, March 3rd and continues through Saturday, March 15th from 9am to 5pm. In addition to the usual suspects, there are judges and several very important referendum including one about domestic violence shelters, banning guns in pubs, limiting the size of clips on an automatic weapon and raising the minimum wage. There are some serious issues here and yet we have yet to get 100 voters a day. Why? Because people are listening to the pundits declare voter turnout will be low and voters decide they must be right and don't vote.

People often complain there are no good candidates in the general election. If you want great candidates for the general election, they must be voted for in the primary. If they don't win the primary, that incompetent incumbent will be on the ballot once again. They complain they never seen that incumbent until election time but if he knows he's going to win the primary which means he will absolutely win the general election, why would he do better? The challenger, the person who might just unseat that wasteful politician is on the primary ballot. If you don’t vote, a better candidate has lost before he ever had a chance. If you want to see change, do something to make change. Voting in the primary is of the best ways to do that.

As a Black person in America, I recognize that some of the most important people on the ballot are judges. Young Black people, especially males, are disproportionally part of the criminal justice system for both misdemeanors and felonies. Yet because we routinely disregard voting in the primary, we miss the opportunity of removing less than fair judges from the bench. We often wonder why there are often such blatant miscarriages of justice when part of the real problem is that we fail to look at the records of judges and vote accordingly.

It’s easy to complain. It’s easy to sign a petition. It’s easy to join a rally. You can complain every day, sign every petition and join every rally. But sound without action is noise. We’ve made plenty of noise over the years. Don’t you think it’s time to turn that noise into action? Then vote. If you don’t, then don’t complain about the useless incumbent on the ballot again in November. The fault of that is no one’s but your own.

In other words, if you don't vote, sit down and shut the f*** up. You deserve exactly who you voted for.