Every time I read another article about voter restrictions a shiver runs down my spine. I do wonder when I will fall under the restrictions? When I am old and fragile? When I no longer stand with ease? When I have the wrong friends, or belong to the wrong party? When I am still just a woman? When I have the wrong color, or freckles might be outlawed. When I am retired, or too young to die?
If you would have asked me 20-30 years ago about my predictions for the 21st century, I would have looked at you full of hope. The future of human kinds seemed so clear. There would be smarter people, better educated and kind toward each other. They would have learned from past mistakes. How wrong I was. Then is now. Technology is fast and furious, yet we act like we still live in medieval times. We cut rights when we should do the opposite. We make it harder for people to vote, instead of offering a helping hand.
Restrictions, just because the wrong party won? How ridiculous and how scary? Who decides who the wrong party is? If we let power be abused on one side, shouldn’t we worry they will come after all of us, whenever they chose to do so? When I am on the wrong side today, you might be tomorrow.
The right to vote and the freedom to do so is fragile, as fragile as democracy has become. We need to open our eyes not close them, just because it’s so much easier not to see.
We live in the era of knowledge and information, yet we act so dumbly. The lines of color and gender should be blurred by now. Why aren’t they? Nobody can steal our freedom, we can only give it away. Perhaps with a vote?
NIKKI GIOVANNI: It’s not a hug
Nor mistletoe at Christmas
It’s not a colored egg
At Easter
Nor a bunny hopping
Across the meadow
It’s a vote
Saying you are
A citizen
Though it sometimes
Is chocolate
Or sometimes vanilla
It can be female
Or male
It is right
Or left
I can agree
Or disagree but
And this is an important but
I am a citizen
I should be able
To vote from prison
I should be able
To vote from the battlefield
I should be able
To vote when I get a driver’s license
I should be able
To vote when I can purchase a gun
I must be able
To vote
If I’m in the hospital
If I’m in the old folks’ home
If I’m needing a ride
To the Polling Place
I am a citizen
I must be able to vote
Folks were lynched
Folks were shot
Folks’ communities were gerrymandered
Folks who believed
In the Constitution were lied to
Burned out
Bought and sold
Because they agreed
All Men and Women Were Created Equal
Folks vote to make us free
It’s not cookies
Nor cake
But it is the icing
That is so sweet
Good for the Folks
Good for Us
My country ’tis of thee.
This is the first Nikki Giovanni poem I have read. I have heard of her before, mostly because she has some literary and family history in Knoxville, TN, near where I used to live. Interestingly, the city just voted to reimburse African Americans who lost their homes and properties by eminent domain for “urban renewal” of downtown Knoxville in the 1960s and 1970s. The home where Nikki spent a good part of her childhood was among those properties.
How interesting that you know her without knowing her.
Wonderful! Thanks so much for sharing… <3
Wonderful poem. I have enjoyed Nikki Giovanni before, but never read this particular poem. I know what you’re saying and sharing is SO true, and it also chills me every time I see expressions of piety on the faces of the people defending these voter restriction laws. Their false claims of “strengthening” voter security are so obviously false and yet people by it. It’s maddening and frustrating and we should indeed be fearful. I know that’s what I am, fearful.Oh yes, and angry, too!
I never hear of her, but fell in love with her and her poems recently.
I am angry too. Sometimes I wonder why we all aren’t in the streets, protesting. Are we now so used to our dysfunctional government?
Excellent poem Bridget. A scary situation which is reminiscent of 1930’s Germany.
You see it, I see it. Pretty much everybody in Europe who has learned about WWII and how it all started can see it. Here in the U.S. not so much. Sadly this part of history is hardly taught in school anymore. American history is mostly about America, the rest of the world disappears more and more and is hardly even mentioned in the news anymore.
I don’t know how anyone can miss what is going on with the voter restrictions. I feel more than a shiver.
It used to be … If you just get out and vote, things will be fine. That just won’t work anymore. 🙁
The gentleman who stated he missed the news about voter restriction in the U.S. happens to live in the U.K.
Yes, it’s hard to follow every bit of news. Unfortunately so much of what happens in the US affects what happens elsewhere. 🙁
The best is not to follow the news. 🙂
LOL
Excellent poem well read. What have I missed about voter restrictions?
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-states-where-efforts-to-restrict-voting-are-escalating/
Thanks for this. Now I understand
You’re welcome. Now you know why I am pissed 🙂
🙂