As I grew older, I realized my dad was not an anomaly. Most Black men his age were similarly situated but were crippled in some way: My dad, for instance, earned a felony when he was a young boy for defending his mother against white supremacy. Knowing that his struggles were all too common for Black men and watching America snuff out his greatness were my marching orders and the reason I fight for the betterment of my community.
W. Mondale Robinson Wants to Help Black Men Believe in the Electoral Process Again
When I was a kid, I used to watch my father do amazing things for people all the timehed fix roofs, lay drywall, pour cement for entire driveways. We were extremely poor, and I could never understand why. I thought: My dad is an anomaly. How can you be so great as a person and still suffer from poverty?
Why I'm Working to Get More Black Men to Vote
I wound up doing campaign work for a long time, and one thing I noticed right away was that most of the people who determine whats said about politics generally, but progressive politics more specifically, are white men. The messaging they convey doesnt speak to my lived experience as a Black man. Its not motivating to me or to the brothas I knowuncles, cousins, friends, men like my father.
It is well-known that voting is a habit thats formed when resources are spent on it, and Black men arent a priority when it comes to spending money on elections. That was the genesis of the Black Male Voter Project . Our goal isnt just to make voters out of Black men but to foster this idea of voting on issues that are important to us. We dont outright support candidates; we support issues important to Black men. Were seeking to combat the narrative that Black men are apathetic toward politics.
members of the black male voter project
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Being a Black man in America is a political statement, and it is impossible to watch politics from my body when the result of so much of the politics of this country has been the subjugation of me and folks who look like me. You cant discount the impact thats had on the mental health of Black men, either, and yet mental health is not considered part of the fight for revolution as it pertains to white supremacy. Imagine what hundreds of years of slavery have done to the psyche and the soul and the makeup of Black bodies in this country.
Theres a direct correlation between voting and peoples health, especially for Black men. We know were overrepresented in the prison population, which means we are less likely to have voting rights. A Florida prison system did a study a few years back, and they found that people with restored voting rights were less likely to go back to prison.
Every time that Im silent about inequality, I think about my mother, who would pretend to laughto lessen the impactwhen she would tell me stories about being sprayed with a fire hose when she was nine years old for no reason other than being downtown after dark. She couldnt run and hide because she also had groceries for her siblings in her arms, and so she had to pick up the groceries while being sprayed. The white man who did it was still in elected office as the fire chief when I was growing up. Whenever Im silent, I feel as though Im selling my mother out.
How we define success with our organization, in the end, is more complex than simply getting more Black men to vote. Were building long-term relationships. We hold focus groups called Brothas Be Voting and populate the room with brothas who dont normally participate in politics, people from the street and from underground economies, so we can hear what the barriers are. That way, we can work to remove them and help Black men start believing in the electoral process again. As told to Michelle Garcia
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