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Political Gumbo: Vote

Published on Monday, November 7, 2022 | 5:00 am
 

Hopefully by now many of you have voted.

I like the live experience of standing in line to make my voice heard. 

Not criticizing anybody who mails it in. You do what you have to do, but for me there is something strong about showing up in line and voting. It’s like a public declaration of where you stand on the issues.

Although, I never publicly proclaim how I’m voting while in line.

Even during the last presidential election, I stood silent, but I had my thoughts about the incumbent while waiting to vote. 

I aired my grievances at work for four years in that case.

I posted a Shaft poster on the wall next to my desk at the PW for the ad reps who were cheering after their candidate took the oath of office. 

Richard Roundtree standing in his defiance said it all. 

“Obama may be out of office, but the Brothers are still in town.”

If you don’t know who Shaft is, well hell, I can’t help you.

But PUSD you must do better, every student should know who Shaft is.

Glad there isn’t much time left in the elections or that line would end up on a mailer in one of the races. 

Either way, this isn’t about the dark years immediately following Obama or the greatest detective movie ever made. 

Instead, this one is about the greatest right we are afforded.

The right to vote. 

The Fifthteenth was ratified in 1870, and guarantees US citizens the right to vote no matter race or color. 

When I had to learn the Bill of Rights all in high school, I called it the Shaft Amendment, nuff said. 

Maybe this is about Shaft after all. 

Of course once again, folks were playing loose and fast with the right to vote and women did not officially receive the right to have their voice heard at the ballot until 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified.

I call that one the Mom Amendment, as my mom would always say “I was born with every one of my damn rights. They were just too stupid to recognize it.”

Of course these rights intertwine with the First Amendment, which guarantees us the right to be heard on issues without government interference among other things.

People died for those rights. In other instances, people were denied their rights under trickery at the polls during Jim Crow. 

Others were threatened and intimidated into walking away without their voice being heard. 

And once again the vote is under attack, this time by people pushing baseless conspiracy theories, who don’t want all the votes counted. 

Stand tall, Pasadena.

Vote. 

You have the right. 

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