A couple years ago I went through my reading list and my twitter feed and basically purged a lot of people who brought nothing new to the table, and made a conscious effort to include voices I didn’t hear enough from. That means I followed a lot more women, a lot more people of color, a lot more lgbtq voices, etc. I already followed a lot of black women because I followed AngryBlackLady and liked what a lot of her friends had to say, and during the Obama years it became clear to me who the most important portion of the Democratic party was and is when it came to getting shit done.
I’m not saying this to let you know that I am particularly “woke” or anything like that, but because the fact of the matter is I like to read and see new things and I get bored easy. I’m the person who will always try the new thing on the menu and read every magazine in a doctor’s office and can’t leave a bathroom stall until I have read all the god damned graffiti. It’s just one of my quirks- I read everything put in front of me except instructions when it comes to assembling things. And basically, I realized I didn’t need to follow 100 white guys retweeting the same Chris Hayes or Rachel Maddow tweet, so I branched out.
At any rate, the reason I’m babbling about this is because a person I follow tweeted this:
Sure don't. https://t.co/0jlfTZrhIy
— The Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) October 7, 2018
The link is to a fascinating story in the NY Times I had missed, which is not surprising because I am still pissed at the Times and other than Michelle Goldberg (who is becoming a national treasure) I don’t read them that often:
Nearly two years after Donald J. Trump’s election, with racial divisions increasingly in public view and voting rights under regular attack, Ms. Sabbs is one of a small army of African-American women across the South using networks originally forged in segregation to muster turnout for Democratic candidates in the November elections. They are mobilizing in conservative states and districts, hoping to pull off upsets like Doug Jones’s stunning Senate victory last year in Alabama, where 98 percent of black women voted for him and proved a critical base of support.
In Columbus, Ga., women sit in the fellowship hall of the Emmanuel Christian Community Church, clipboards at the ready to register voters. In Panama City, Fla., sorority sisters park themselves at a street corner across from an imperiled elementary school, holding signs reminding people to vote. And in Greenville, Miss., the mayor of a nearby town founded by sharecroppers says she will not give up on coaxing young people to the polls, even as they complain their votes don’t matter.
The whole thing is worth a read, but the story mentioned a group that I think is pretty amazing, the Black Voters Matter Fund. At any rate, I liked what I saw and gave 50 bucks and once I sit down and work out my budget for next year I am going to consider making them a monthly recurring donation. This is how we are going to take back control of our government. Not with some magic bullet approach where maybe we luck into another charismatic leader like Obama.
Black Votes Matter- An Amazing OrganizationPost + Comments (41)