For the past few months, many of us have been signing petitions and donating to various organizations to help with the Black Lives Matter movement. While all of those things have made a large difference, the single biggest way to contribute to meaningful and significant change is to vote. Whether this means at local elections or the upcoming presidential election, if you are old enough to do so, voting is the perfect way to make a difference in the BLM movement.
In the upcoming election, we need to make sure that we are holding politicians and leaders accountable for their actions. We need to vote for those who will support BLM and work actively to help dismantle the systemic racism built into our society. Many of those currently in charge of us, from the Trump administration to local politicians, are not doing anything or not doing enough to combat racial injustice. By voting, we have a chance to change that. Though some change can come from the people, much of it comes from the politicians leading us. We can’t achieve significant and long-lasting change unless we work with and not against our leaders. No matter how many petitions we sign and protests we attend and donations we make, it’s not going to be enough until we have leaders willing to work on our side. And those leaders will come only if we vote them into office.
Though candidates in an election may not always be ideal (especially in this year’s presidential election), you should still vote. After all, every candidate has their flaws, and there will never be a candidate that is 100% perfect. In these situations, it is better to choose the lesser of two evils than to not choose at all. We should learn to settle for the candidate who will do the best possible job of representing us and our communities.
Not only is voting vital to the progression of our society, but it is also vital to democracy. Though voting is not a duty of being a citizen, it is a responsibility, and being a good citizen means fulfilling not only your duties, but also your responsibilities. Historically, voting has been the catalyst for change, with candidates being pushed out or brought in based on what the people wanted or how the political climate was shifting. Every major policy and event that has happened in our past has been affected by our leaders. The only way to have a say in who those leaders are is to vote for who you feel will act with your community’s best interests in mind. And it’s not just the presidential election. Local and state elections are even more important because their outcomes affect our communities more directly than the presidential election. Change comes from legislation, and the single biggest way to impact that legislation is by electing leaders who will best represent your views.
So in the upcoming presidential election and our local and state elections, lets embody the change we want to see and vote out those who won’t get on board. If we want the Black Lives Matter movement to remain strong past this moment, we must choose the right leaders: leaders who will make sure that BLM achieves everything it seeks to achieve, and who won’t let BLM fade out. To see real change, to create a society where skin color doesn’t determine how a person is treated, and to attain justice for all those who have lost their lives at the hands of racial violence, we can’t let the movement die out.