A Taco Bell in Logan, West Virginia
Does anyone else find it hypocritical that we often frame political elections as choosing between the lesser of two (or more) evils yet we readily choose to reduce and define people based on who they voted for?
To provide a tangible example, Trump is a bigot, but I think it would be a stretch to say that every person who voted for him is just as intolerant.
At worst, they are bigots and they feel emboldened to act upon their prejudices during his administration. At best, they are permissive of his bigotry and are failing to hold him accountable for being so intolerant.
There’s a multitude of reasons why 63,000,000 people voted for Trump in 2016. Straight up racism and sexism, personal economic anxiety, loss of faith in our political system and religious fundamentalism are some, but after visiting nearly all 50 states and having countless conversations across the political spectrum over the last two years, I don’t think reducing anyone to a “Trump supporter” does us any good.
Why bring this up?
Sure, we can just lump them all together and say fuck them for voting for Trump and supporting his discriminatory and oppressive policies. But we do ourselves and others a disservice when we get lumped into groups based on singular identities. We minimize our shared struggles in an increasingly exploitative and unequal society because of the box we decide to check come election day.
Right now, I'm sitting in this Taco Bell in Logan, West Virginia.
I’m looking out at a town and community facing challenges of poverty, obesity, drug addiction, corrupt and underfunded education systems, and continued economic divestment and decline that mirror what I've experienced first-hand while working in poor, urban communities of color like Detroit.
I wish we could see this as a shared struggle, but we’re so deeply embedded in focusing on the differences between poor urban and poor rural communities - demographics, geography and who people decided to vote for - that we lack the ability to mutually empathize and strategize on the issues faced by these respective communities. We see these as unrelated issues and fall short of coming up with comprehensive solutions as a result.
As 2020 inches closer, I'm deciding whether or not to adorn myself with blue warpaint and follow the Democrats’ version of William Wallace into a partisan battle by working on a campaign.
But I’m not willing to do it if the rhetoric is divisive and if we’re positioning the challenges of poor white communities against those of poor communities of color as a way to grab votes. I'm interested in working towards solutions that create more justice for all people disenfranchised by our failed political, economic, educational and social systems.
You can take that at face value, you can agree with it or you can even dismiss it as misplaced, idealistic and unrealistic, but I hope that the insights shared through this newsletter make it all seem more feasible as this pilot of why [here] progresses.