It is 2018 and when you listen to Malcolm X or The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. their words still hold true. Why is that? Because voting stops resistance and stifles change.
“If voting changed anything, it would be illegal.”
What’s illegal? Mass protests. You may say, “it’s not illegal, you can get a permit,” or “as long as it is peaceful and not disruptive.” Permits can be denied. Peaceful is subjective and if we don’t disrupt things, what is the purpose of a protest.
Black folk continue to walk into the voting booth like they walked into all of those white owned stores, proud that they now had the right to use the front doors to give white folk their money. Black businesses gone.
They fought and died for our humanity. Voting and equal access were the vehicles they thought would bring us humanity. If Malcolm X were alive today, do you think he would be sending you to the voting booths? The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would not STILL say “voting is the answer” after seeing decades of proof of that just not being true. He already feared that he was integrating his people into a burning house.
And here we are celebrating a victory, to vote, to participate in a society that rejects us on every level, still. No Thank You
The right to vote is the right to remain silent. MLK would not STILL say “voting is the answer” after seeing decades of proof of that just not being true. We have been given the opportunity to hurry up and wait. We have been given the opportunity to have others speak for us and determine which issues are important. This was not the dream. If EVERY person has to vote for my people to be equal, we have already lost
Voting serves to quell our anger. Voting serves to direct our reactions. Voting did not bring us freedom; fear of a revolution did.
ADRIAN MARIE JONES 