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Abstract

ars.</p><p id="d0f5">But they say vote or don’t complain, as if the act of complaining was some kind of freedom or life itself. Vote or the elephant will kill black children. Vote or the donkey will kill Palestinian children. Vote or die. Vote or don’t vote, angry white men will still go into black churches or stores in black neighborhoods armed with second amendment — and everyone dies.</p><h2 id="52b5">America will be what America wants to be. This is it.</h2><figure id="a981"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*_V4hd53I7cCiLrPj"><figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@nechirwank?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral">Nechirwan Kavian</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure><p id="98d6">To vote, to believe in the practice of voting, requires hope. And if you are black in America in 2023, hope is hard to come by. Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in 1955 for supposedly whistling at a white woman. Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was killed by police officers while playing alone in a park with a toy gun in 2014. Even the woman who had called the police told the operator that it was probably just a toy.</p><p id="dfe5"><b>Nothing changes.</b></p><p id="a7f5">But they say vote. Who would I have had to vote for to keep Tamir Rice alive? Who should I have voted for to keep police from kicking in Breonna Taylor’s door and shooting her dead as she lay in her own bed? What yard sign would have kept Dylann Roof from turning the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church into a killing field? What box could I check to get rid of mass incarceration, America’s legalization of modern slavery, free labor for profit?</p><p id="a676">But well-meaning Americans want us to be patient. They want us to feel encouraged. They say that if we vote for the lesser of two evils, maybe next year they will kill fewer black people than they did this year. But they will still kill. We will still have to give our children instructions on how to survive a traffic stop. <b>Yes sir. No sir. I’m not giving you attitude, sir. Please!</b></p><h2 id="55a3">Vote or die. Vote and die. Don’

Options

t vote and die. But die. By all means, die.</h2><p id="9d48">They say if you obey you will live. They say that if you are sufficiently docile you will live. I don’t think I know how to be more submissive that Elijah McClain was. He begged them not to kill him. He <i>begged</i>.</p><p id="529f">So, if there is a donkey in the Whitehouse or if there is the elephant, we die because voting cannot quench America’s thirst for the blood of black people.</p><p id="d254">I used to work with a Lebanese guy who was a naturalized American citizen. His children had grown up here. He had met his wife here. He loved the Houston Astros. But he didn’t vote. The reason, he told me, was that no matter who won, America’s policies toward his people wouldn’t change.</p><p id="14ff">He was right. No matter who wins, America will go on hunting for the next George Floyd or the next Breonna Taylor or the next Tamir Rice. America will go on fertilizing the next crop of Dylann Roofs.</p><p id="a9ed">I’m sure a lot of people who read this will take offense to the assertion that America is a place where black people are hunted. They will say that the vast majority of cops are not like that, as if they know the vast majority of cops. They will tell you about George Floyd’s history of substance abuse, as if having an addiction somehow meant he had no right to live. They will tell you about how real Tamir Rice’s toy gun looked.</p><p id="d260">And the handful of America that will tell you it actually cares, will tell you to vote, not because they really believe America will change. They will tell you to vote because they don’t know what else to tell you. They can’t tell you that some new law can make America stop hating the color of my skin.</p><h1 id="f0c9">They can’t tell you that some newly elected president or senator can sweet talk militias and skinheads out of the idea that a black man commits the greatest sin when he breaths.</h1><p id="ea74">Vote, they say, like you believe it will actually change something. Vote, like you believe the death of Tamir Rice sixty years after the death of Emmitt Till represents progress. Vote, as if you believe that somehow, there is still hope.</p></article></body>

Why I Don’t Feel like Voting Anymore

America is just going to keep being America

It is the season of voting again. I know because you can smell the lies in the air. Something rotten has blossomed. It is the season of yard signs standing proudly on suburban lawns for the republican running for this, the democrat running for that. The third- or fifth-party guy who will have no chance because he has no money. It is the season of donkeys running from this and elephants running over that.

Vote, they say, or you will have no right to complain.

I have been complaining. I have been voting, for years. Neither has brought a better life. Neither the complaints, nor the votes have made this society less brutal. And I still must suffer the consequences of my skin whether I vote or not.

I won’t lie. I have felt good after having cast my vote. I walk back to my car, drunk with the delusion of hope. I drive back to my house in the inner-city neighborhood that I chose to live in because it means something to me.

I would like to believe that the children who attend the elementary school around the corner from my house would be precious to this country, as they are to me. I would like to think that the little black boys who go to that school won’t be pulled over for no reason and frisked for the first time at twelve-years-old as I was. But I know that is not the way America works.

I know the little black boys will cry as I did that first time. Rough hands pat little boys even in private places as the cop asks questions that little boys have no answers to, and the radio in the police car makes sounds that children should not hear. It is as though I can taste the salt of their tears.

But they say vote or don’t complain, as if the act of complaining was some kind of freedom or life itself. Vote or the elephant will kill black children. Vote or the donkey will kill Palestinian children. Vote or die. Vote or don’t vote, angry white men will still go into black churches or stores in black neighborhoods armed with second amendment — and everyone dies.

America will be what America wants to be. This is it.

To vote, to believe in the practice of voting, requires hope. And if you are black in America in 2023, hope is hard to come by. Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in 1955 for supposedly whistling at a white woman. Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was killed by police officers while playing alone in a park with a toy gun in 2014. Even the woman who had called the police told the operator that it was probably just a toy.

Nothing changes.

But they say vote. Who would I have had to vote for to keep Tamir Rice alive? Who should I have voted for to keep police from kicking in Breonna Taylor’s door and shooting her dead as she lay in her own bed? What yard sign would have kept Dylann Roof from turning the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church into a killing field? What box could I check to get rid of mass incarceration, America’s legalization of modern slavery, free labor for profit?

But well-meaning Americans want us to be patient. They want us to feel encouraged. They say that if we vote for the lesser of two evils, maybe next year they will kill fewer black people than they did this year. But they will still kill. We will still have to give our children instructions on how to survive a traffic stop. Yes sir. No sir. I’m not giving you attitude, sir. Please!

Vote or die. Vote and die. Don’t vote and die. But die. By all means, die.

They say if you obey you will live. They say that if you are sufficiently docile you will live. I don’t think I know how to be more submissive that Elijah McClain was. He begged them not to kill him. He begged.

So, if there is a donkey in the Whitehouse or if there is the elephant, we die because voting cannot quench America’s thirst for the blood of black people.

I used to work with a Lebanese guy who was a naturalized American citizen. His children had grown up here. He had met his wife here. He loved the Houston Astros. But he didn’t vote. The reason, he told me, was that no matter who won, America’s policies toward his people wouldn’t change.

He was right. No matter who wins, America will go on hunting for the next George Floyd or the next Breonna Taylor or the next Tamir Rice. America will go on fertilizing the next crop of Dylann Roofs.

I’m sure a lot of people who read this will take offense to the assertion that America is a place where black people are hunted. They will say that the vast majority of cops are not like that, as if they know the vast majority of cops. They will tell you about George Floyd’s history of substance abuse, as if having an addiction somehow meant he had no right to live. They will tell you about how real Tamir Rice’s toy gun looked.

And the handful of America that will tell you it actually cares, will tell you to vote, not because they really believe America will change. They will tell you to vote because they don’t know what else to tell you. They can’t tell you that some new law can make America stop hating the color of my skin.

They can’t tell you that some newly elected president or senator can sweet talk militias and skinheads out of the idea that a black man commits the greatest sin when he breaths.

Vote, they say, like you believe it will actually change something. Vote, like you believe the death of Tamir Rice sixty years after the death of Emmitt Till represents progress. Vote, as if you believe that somehow, there is still hope.