Out of frustration and hopelessness, our young people have reached the point of no return.
Malcolm X
No more countdowns, no more wondering about ID’s or
anticipating the lines, the time to vote has come and the anticipation now
moves to watching the results roll in and the electoral college maps fill in.
So, while you, me, Michelle, Tagg and millions more are anxiously awaiting to
find out who the next President of the United States will be, there’s a large
number of the population who can care less. This growing number of constituents
has grown either disillusioned or feels disaffected by the politics of the
country, that what’s momentous to many of us is microscopic in their grand
scheme of things. Or perhaps that’s the issue; there is no big picture for so
many living among us.
The 2008 Presidential Election really brought into focus the
power of the young voter; the college-aged citizen coming into their own,
developing their worldview and for many, having their voices heard for the
first time. But what of the disconnected youth? Those who’ve finished high school
but have opted out of post-secondary training and have yet to find stable
employment, the transient beings who pass through life never knowing what lies
ahead, because getting through the day is paramount to their lives? This number
has grown since 2008, as nearly 1,000,000 young people between the age of 16
and 2004 have joined the ranks of the disconnected.
By disconnected, I am referring to young people not in
school or working; your brother that plays video games all day, your sister who
watches “Maury” until her friends come home from work or class. Of the 5.8
million young folks classified as disconnected, 22.5% are African-American, 18.5%
Latino; imagine the voting power not going to the polls, because many of these
young people don’t see the relationship between voting and their current and
probable future situations.
It’s hard for many to draw a correlation between how voting
today may aid in a turnaround for them tomorrow, when they feel as though there’s no
trickle down to their neighborhoods or households. It’s similar to how those
living in poverty didn’t feel as if The Great Recession had reached them, yet
more storefronts are abandoned and jobs once considered menial, became
desirable as people were forced to humble themselves and pick up work they may
have felt either overqualified or superior to.
Opting out of the electoral process is in many cases a
submission to your current conditions, because you have abandoned an
opportunity to have your say on matters that range from federal to your
municipality, chances to vote on Higher Education reform acts, biased criminal
justice policies and recreation activities for the youth in your community. Additionally,
you’re aiding and abetting the government in burning the bridges out of
poverty. The federal investment on programs supporting disconnected youth has
been slashed from $15 billion to $3 billion since the late 70’s; the government’s
investment in the socioeconomic mobility of its poorest citizens has always been
questionable at best, but the appropriating of funds for those who’ve
disengaged from the institutional pillars of our society is a figurative foot
on the necks of those climbing the ladder of success.
33% of disconnected youth have dropped out of high school
and 75% of inmates in state prisons have not earned their diploma. Do we see a
connection? Even more, just about $74 billion is spent annually on corrections,
while they’re role in rehabilitation has been limited by cuts to training and
education programs, so they’ve become breeding grounds for recidivism.
But I don’t do politics
That’s the most common refrain from those who aren’t voting
today and have no intention to ever do so. They don’t “do” politics”. Much in
the same way they don’t “do” church, or work or self-improvement, but will be
among the first to bitch about the lack of progress they’re making in this
thing called life. You see, disconnected youth move on to become
disenfranchised adults; the listless individuals we try to dissociate ourselves
from, those who’ve watched life pass them by and often make mention about what
wasn’t given to them or what they didn’t have. However, when the time
necessitated speaking up, many fell mute and allowed the spirit of Fannie Lou
Hamer to rest in turmoil, as her efforts and those of so many others may have
been in vain because so many of us take for the granted the obligation of
voting.
Yes, voting is an obligation, not a mere right. We
have the right to bear arms, but we should feel duty-bound to vote, to have our
say in policy and know we’re represented on all levels of government and feel
our best interest is being sought by those we
put in the position to do so. Somewhere between what happens when you leave the
booth and once an elected official takes office causes much of the breakdown,
as those not sophisticated enough to understand the nuances of politics grow
frustrated by campaign promises and the outright lies of our presidents,
governors, mayors and so on, would rather not be part of process than take a
chance in the booth again the next fall and falls to come.
The climate of social and cultural illiteracy is a learned
behavior; where does an 18-year-old learn not to vote? Civic disengagement
happens in many homes, long before a child is eligible to vote, because the conversation
of the positive outcomes of the process is nearly nonexistent. To add, many of
our young people are electing not to be involved, because the information is
definitely there. When he or she turns on the television, there’s a commercial
saying “vote for me”, the same goes for radio. That same teenager logs on to
Facebook or Twitter and there’s dialogue about the upcoming election. Yet,
somehow he or she is able to tune all of the commotion out and proceed with
their fractionalized life, because the audacity to hope was extinguished long
before the reality of forever was even a consideration.
When we’re living for today, what does tomorrow matter? I
pray you’re planning to vote today or already have. If you don’t, I pray you
gain the wisdom to want to change your mind for future
elections in an attempt to change your future, because old fools used to be
young fools…
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