Vote Your Values

Vote Your Values

 

I have been around for sixty-nine years. I am far from perfect. My flaws include being judgmental, I don’t speak up often enough, I avoid conflict, I have difficulty being organized, and my attention span can use improvement. There are others believe me. In my lifetime I have seen a lot and have learned from my experiences. I realize we need to live our lives with dignity, respect, and love. I believe that is a formula to keep us on track, in spite of ourselves and what is happening around us. Nobody can take away our dignity, the respect we have, and certainly the love inside us is always there. We just need to remember that. These values are what guides us to happiness.

I say this because I feel we bring all our hopes, desires, what we want to see happen, even our dreams, to some savior or hero, some one that will rescue us. In our culture we are indoctrinated, trained, and goaded into that. There is always a hero in the stories we read, the movies we watch, and in the history, we are taught. We don’t hear about the nuances of the movements by the people that made it possible for the main character to do what they did. It is the community that paves the way for change. It is each person believing in what they feel is right and then acting on it that causes shifts in consciousness. I saw this with the anti-war and civil rights movements, as well as the women’s rights movement in the 60’s and 70’s. It was the masses of people, especially college students who believed from their hearts that “war is not the answer.” They protested and sent a strong message to the government that the Vietnam War needed to end. And eventually it did. There was a strong sentiment in the Black community about the injustices towards them. Even though they continued to be oppressed, they stayed with it. They continued to protest, demonstrate, and fight for racial equality. Some gains were made. Schools were integrated. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, and the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968. Women organized and created a movement to gain more respect and equal rights. They eventually were able to get better jobs where they took on leadership positions, and even got into elected positions. It took “the people,” to make some sort of change. In order for movements to happen it takes individuals to become active in the cause. They either elected people to represent them or marched and let their voices be heard. At this time, I am seeing another burst of energy from the people, Black and White, that are demanding change in police brutality towards Blacks and racial inequality in our country. Some of the demands are defunding police and taking down statues of confederate soldiers.

We are at a crossroads at this point in time. There is a strong momentum from the people to end racial discrimination in our cities, states, and country. We as a nation are talking about and doing some things to change the oppression towards the Black community. We have an opportunity to continue this. We need elected officials that will carry this out. We have elections coming up. There might be candidates you really like, and you might not be in love with some of the other candidates. I urge you to vote even if you are disappointed. Vote by what your values are. It is not the person you are voting for but voting for what you believe in. Joe Biden is not you. He is not perfect. He is far from perfect. But he can represent a lot of your values. Maybe not all but a lot. He has lived his life and served as a public official with dignity, respect, and love, so please give him a chance. At this time, we need to heal. There is a divisive and hateful tone in our country. Not only is there police brutality, there is citizen to citizen violence, harassment, and prejudice. We need to set a healing atmosphere in our cities. There needs to be a different message that comes from our administration in the white house. We need radical change there. We need to elect someone else so this country can heal.

Too often people give up on voting because their candidate of choice didn’t make it past the primary. They don’t vote at all because of how frustrated they are. I understand that. My candidate of choice did not last past the primary and I am very disappointed in that. But I need to go out and vote for the person that did make it. I feel Biden does share my values of being empathic, he understands and is sensitive to racial injustice, and he conducts himself with dignity. I believe he will set a tone of healing for the country.

If we can elect someone that will promote our values, then we can create change and start a healing process that we all need. Please vote with your heart. Don’t let disappointment stop you from reaching for your dreams. We will all benefit.

We the people need this change. Please make that happen on election day.