A False Teaching of Voting Rights, and What a Better Understanding Could Help Address

There are few things that continue to frustrate me more than the false history that we are taught in public schools. The ideas of universal voting through years of activism, from the suffragettes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, through to the heroes of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s in America, were in and of themselves high reaching. We are taught as if the high reaching goals of those movements were proven out in reality, with no further challenges into the future. The atrocious legislation that has been introduced in statehouses across the country over the course of the past three months, and the passing of some, has proven that what we are taught is wrong.

This is not to say that the activists in these movements were completely unsuccessful — in many ways they had positive impact and have morally proven to excel in the minds of many — it is more to say that the American public does not understand the pressures that racism, classism and sexism play within our society. Although there were great victories through the 19th amendment and through the Voting Rights Act, those were substantially chipped away through acts of anti-government thought in the 1980s and 90s, ultimately creating a virtuosic “individualism” which would not support, and devalued the incentive to protect voting. Ultimately, we have gotten to the point where one political party sees the value in taking away the vote, and have decided to push all of their chips to the middle of the table to maintain their power.
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Why the mention of false teaching? The false teaching of outright victories has created an illusion that we are done here. That there is no more to do to fight racism, to fight our internal biases, to fight for the right to vote no matter who you are in America. No, there will always be more to do. The false teaching, not necessarily on the part of teachers, but more as a systematic choice by educational districts, along with the false understanding that government can do no good, has allowed for complacency, and control by groups that do not deserve it. They have not earned the vote, they have systematically attempted to take it away, and convince you and I both through our education and through their lack of governmental action that there is no more for them to do. That is not, and never will be true.

I suppose we now must address why I am writing this piece at all. In many ways, I am not the target of voting restrictions. I am a white, cisgender male, and am thus the base for the group which is actively trying to restrict people’s right to vote. The only thing that necessarily lumps me into the restrictions are my progressive views and my young age. But I felt a need to write this, because of the anger that these voting restrictions causes me. They have been targeted at groups which have had to fight for every inch of rights that they have in America, and groups which continue to feel the negative effects of a white majority in America’s control. The groups that have been targeted in these restrictions have felt and will continue to feel the most adverse effects of pollution and climate change. The groups that have been targeted are those which feel the effects of police brutality, and most desperately want reform. It is these groups that have been targeted which see gun violence as an issue, and have been refused legislation protecting them. This is an issue of politicians choosing voters, instead of voters choosing politicians.

I have focused much of my work and education on the issues of the environment, namely climate change and ocean conservation. I now see voting rights as the pathway to success on these issues, and many of the other progressive priorities that my generation and our counterparts hold. I believe that the groups which are active in fighting for climate legislation, for police reform, for tax reform, for all of these different things, need to come together, and need to focus on passing federal legislation which protects and enhances voting rights for every single American, no matter what race that they identify as/with, which party they vote for, or which religion that they ascribe to. I have faith that if we are able to do that, that we will see a wave of popular support to fight the injustices in this country which I have detailed, and to rewrite the history books to show a true change. Not the elimination of the injustices that are in our shared history, nor a false belief that we can ever necessarily do that, but a true detail of what can happen if people and their government fight against that in society which disadvantages groups and which creates perpetual inequality.