A younger perspective

This week, I’m doing something different.

My lovely youngest, my Baby Girl, KaLa, regularly reads my commentaries, and then shares her perspective on what I’ve written about, which is good. She represents a point of view from Generation Z, and given how our current presidential election is proceeding, I think it’s important to hear at least one of those informed perspectives, one that I trust. It may answer some burning questions for a lot of us.

She and I have been discussing the value of young people voting, especially in this election.

For the record, KaLa is a North Carolina public school graduate, a senior at Yale University, and has just completed a six-week course of study at the University of Oxford in England.

She started her commentary days before the events of this week's Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

So without any further or do, here is my youngest daughter, KaLa, and her commentary on voting:

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by KaLa Michaels

At my university, which saw weeks of encampments, student and community-led collaborations, teach-ins, marches, and protests, we make it a point to connect international struggles to each other: from Gaza to Sudan, Congo to the vulnerable in the United States. We learn about and discuss theories of love, liberation, intersectionality, and coalitions of solidarity. We strive for a world where the air is clean, water is free, and every human lives unfettered by ideological and literal violence. As such, ending the genocide in Gaza and Israeli apartheid that has saturated our collective consciousness is of utmost importance to myself and many of my peers as Americans and human beings. For many of us, it will determine whether we vote Democrat—the party of the president sustaining this needless violence, third party, or not vote at all come November. I, and I suspect many others, must weigh: how should my values of a freer world, disdain for the genocide in Gaza, and existence as a Black American who will live through the results of this election inform my first presidential vote? 

I offer my meditations and questions as they currently stand in hopes to provide others insight into the moral and political quandaries many, but not all, of my peers and I are considering.With an upcoming election and an active and overt American-backed genocide as our political context, I don’t offer straight forward answers because I still don’t have them myself. Every day I am learning and evolving my own thinking. So, please think along with me. Critique and poke my ideas as I think aloud on the page. 

I don’t know how presidential elections operated before I was born or if the rhetoric I’ve grown used to is normal. However, I do know my lived reality and personal observations, and for years, with increasing urgency, presidential elections have felt like a world-ending, reality-altering, life-threatening, and chaos-inducing apocalypse on both sides of the political spectrum. The president is no longer an executive power who simply stewards our country. The president is now constantly positioned as the almighty savior of American democracy at the peril of their opposing party, whichever it may be. Especially if Trump is in the race, which he has been for the last three cycles of my life, candidates ascend to godlike or devilish status to secure votes. Policy proposals have taken a back seat to name-calling, racism and sexism, and overall nastiness. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t understand what I am supposed to vote for in three months. Should I vote for a symbol? A savior? A god? A political actor capable of making tangible, realistic reform? A placeholder until a candidate who reflects my radical dreams has a chance at winning? Or should I settle for a decent human being? Some of my boycotting peers are dissatisfied with all of the above, seeming to strive for a liberator who will dismantle our oppressive structures and start totally anew. 

The way different generations, races, parties, religions, ideologies, and classes cannot agree on what the president's job actually is troubles me, and I feel the need to develop my own answers regarding the real responsibilities and context of our highest office. I have to unlearn the rhetoric of the adults around me and reframe the presidency for what I believe it really is: the most powerful position in a historically violent country. Despite our nation’s master narrative of hope, bravery, and freedom, the United States has always existed as an oppressive regime against its own and others. The plight of Black Americans and Indigenous folks is a normalized tale as old as time in our national memory, and the genocide of Palestinians is the most recent revelation in a long list of countries destabilized and people harmed by the U.S. The president has always supervised and facilitated our worst. Even President Obama, a leader who made me believe I could do anything, committed violent atrocities throughout his terms. Therefore, I can’t help but feel like the uproar against voting in efforts to end violence is misdirected; the violent gravity of the presidency is not brand new. Every president will engage in some level of violence, either domestic or abroad, regardless of how many voters abstain or how progressive their platform presents. For myself, I now ask: who do I trust the most to handle our country’s violence if ending it full stop is not a realistic option? 

Therefore, my only sound option in my beloved swing-state is a bittersweet one: Vice President Harris, the beautiful, beaming second-in-command of the administration I so strongly condemn for its prolonging of Palestinian suffering and carnage. My confidence in her ebbs and flows. One day, she hooks me by painting a future America where my reproductive freedoms are restored; the Democratic Party feels more united than ever; grocery costs lower; housing and childcare is more affordable; healthcare is protected; gun-control is possible; and the middle class thrives. The next day, she fondly recalls planting trees for Israel and reaffirms our alliance with the ‘only democracy in the Middle East.’ I understand the resistance to elect her when her campaign is sprinkled with reminders of her failures to enact the most important justice for ten whole months. Even more so for Palestinian families who have lost more than I can imagine. However, I have to be painfully honest. I would rather have to morally and personally grapple with Vice President Harris as the best candidate at this time, not the perfect candidate, than risk Trump winning again as the dangerous candidate. 

American life as my generation knows it will cease to exist with a second Trump presidency. He will gut healthcare; grant police officers impunity; ban abortion procedures and possibly pills nationally; dismantle the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and the Environmental Protection Agency; reinstate stop and frisk policies; “make our college campuses safe and patriotic again;” instate die-hard loyalists; end the Fair Housing Act; mass deport immigrants; revoke same-sex marriage; give the executive seat unchecked power; and many more horrors. Vulnerable communities, especially low-income communities of color, will suffocate under the brunt of his backwards policies and the emboldening of his white supremacist supporters. These are just his domestic threats; he does not even pretend to have sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza. I firmly believe that solely critiquing Vice President Harris without mentioning Trump’s egotistic vengeance is irresponsible and short-sighted. If he wins, none of us will be in a position to fight for progress because we will be too busy fighting to get back to where we are now. Trump must be stopped, and I know the only way I can do my due diligence and block him from office is by voting blue. 

The tension between wanting a better existence for myself and my people and saving us from a power-hungry dictator at the conscious expense of innocent people abroad not only darkens the upcoming election, but every election from here forward. I realize that my concerns are too big for a single vote, that I should focus on the election at hand by casting a ballot and calling it a day. However, I also worry that boycotters in my generation will do so not out of indifference towards Vice President Harris or Trump, but because of the idea that voting will not produce large-scale and radical systemic change. I worry that our big dreams and theories of a violence-free world obscure the simple but life-changing power of voting, and this simmering sentiment could hurt us for decades. 

My Dad raised me to revere the collective power of the Black voting bloc. He taught me about our historic struggles for suffrage and the sacrifices great leaders and freedom fighters made to go to the polls undeterred. I want to believe wholeheartedly in the ‘one vote, one voice’ optimism he instilled in me, and have faith that voting shapes the country according to the will of the people. When I look at history, voting is often the first step to change. Even anti-war protestors of the sixties and seventies—who coined many of the chants my classmates and I scream for Palestine—fought for the voting age to be lowered to balance their military service with their ability to express their disapproval of our violence abroad. Voting, when done right and fair, puts the proper people in place to improve our lives on our behalf. Those people, when they act out of genuine care for their communities, in turn, should listen to us. Even with opposing views and platforms, politicians are supposed to act on our behalf. It’s easy to forget this is how democracy is supposed to work, especially today. 

Our political system has not followed this democratic spirit for a long time, so I can’t completely discredit my peers’ critiques and disappointments. For those who are perplexed at why my generation is lukewarm on voting, it is because many of us are faced with the fact that our vote becomes part of the American machine we did not create and do not like at all. Our vote in this process will feel like a personal endorsement of our country’s historical and ongoing violence, and that is a heavy, inescapable weight to bear. We are more and more aware that voting is a routine process in our flawed system that can proceed without accurately reflecting the will of the people. And in the worst case, voting can leave us with power-hungry, self-interested narcissists (my Dad would call them Republicans) who gerrymander and instate voter ID laws to restrict access and stay in the limelight. There is a growing belief that voting alone cannot fully respond to our hopes of a freer tomorrow. I’m just not convinced this means we should not vote at all. 

My peers and I desire so much more than a single election can accomplish. We see how unstable and susceptible to hate our world is and always has been, and our hearts are invested in the long fight for liberated futures for all. Our only disconnect with our elders is how we should approach the work that needs to be done. Should we rely on the traditional voting practices our forefathers and foremothers fought to secure? Or should we turn elsewhere and abandon normal politics? How should we bridge theory and praxis in our modern world? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions. However, I do know that my generation deserves the chance to figure all of this out. Which is why, at the least, I plan to vote for somebody. Third-party or Democrat is to be determined. I just know I have to try to shape my country into a better place, violence and all, even if it will never be perfect. 

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That’s my Baby Girl, everyone.

I grew up during an era when we were taught that it was important for young people to be heard, because this is their country too. But it is also their future, and we’re asking them to invest in it early, through voting, pledging military service, and other important avenues of civic engagement. So when any of them indicate they have something important to say constructively and responsibly, we should provide those avenues and opportunities, whether we agree or disagree, so that they can properly takeover the daunting task of ensuring the future of this nation.

That’s what we say we educate them for.

At the very least, we should listen.

Thanks for reading what my Baby Girl has to say.

I’m immensely proud of her!