[Ladd] You Got the Power

They call you “sorry.” “Lazy.” “Apathetic.” Or, worse: “Dumb.” At the same time, they treat you like an idiot. They don’t talk about anything that matters much to you. They make fun of your music, and your baggy pants, or maybe your tattoo, or even your compassion. Or, they come speak at your church while they leave their lapel pins in their SUV’s ash tray. They then expect you to turn out and vote for them. If you don’t, you’re “sorry.”

Why in tarheel would you possibly go vote for these people? Yes, you say, there is a tragic history of many of us not having the right to vote—African Americans, immigrants, women, felons—but that doesn’t mean that people who don’t care about us and who spend millions of dollars running stupid, hateful television ads deserve your time and your vote. Why bother if you have to hold your nose with one hand and touch the voting screen with the other?

You’re right. But you’re also wrong.

You’re right that many candidates suck. Most of them are so worried about someone using a sound bite to make them appear slightly more “liberal,” and thus offensive to some hateful rural chick in Kemper County, that they don’t bother to say anything worth hearing. Nothing. Nada. And often they’re the ones who actually believe in something other than selling out the state, and its jobs, to the highest bidder. It’s ugly out there.

But—and please stay with me here—you’re wrong that your vote for a lesser evil doesn’t matter. And here’s why: It’s not because that lesser evil is necessarily going to do anything worth a damn over the next four years. It’s because future candidates—the ones with a daring voice and progressive ideas and the willingness to talk to, not at, you and me—simply won’t materialize if we don’t vote now. That is, if we stay home next week, we are jinxing the next several elections. We are ensuring that, once again, we’re going to have multiple Tweedle-Dee-Tweedle-Dum options when it’s time to vote again, and why bother then, either?

Your vote matters for the future. The intricacies of today’s political machinery and polling and funding and all that jazz all lead to one thing: the candidates are vying for the voting pool that’s already there. That is, if you don’t vote, and join other like-minded people to start building your own loud voting bloc, then no one is going to give a crap what you think. The pollsters won’t care about you. The candidates won’t. The parties won’t. And, certainly, no one will step up to deal with your issues.

It’s not as backward as it sounds, really. It makes sense that true democracy, true freedom, starts with people. The candidates should respond to us, not the other way around. If we—Jackson Free Press readers and every friend and family member we can harass to the polls—turn out en masse, we will be the force to be reckoned with in the next election. Chew on that for a minute.

The funny thing is, Jackson is already the most powerful force in the state—if we choose to flex our muscle. Starting with this issue, the JFP is printing 18,000 issues that go to every zip code in the Jackson metro area. Our Mississippi College readership audit found that an average of 2.9 people read every issue of the JFP (in some college dorms, 10 or more people share the same copy!). Do the math: that’s 52,200 readers. At least 500,000 Mississippians are expected to vote Nov. 4; that means that JFP readers can account for 10 percent of the vote if each of us turns out. And that doesn’t count all our friends and family.

OK, that’s unscientific. And, no, not all JFP readers will vote for the same candidates. We have some dedicated conservative readers, for instance, and this publication is known for its progressive stances. But, just consider the possibilities, especially if some of the elections, like the governor’s race, turn out to be as close as they’re expected to be. (Incidentally, note that two-thirds of the respondents to The Clarion-Ledger/Associated Press poll just published were over age 35. Half of our readers—26,100 voters—are under 35. For the record.)

Now, allow me to appeal to you based on history and a bit of emotion. We all know that Mississippi is an odd nut to crack; I don’t think I’ve ever met a Mississippian, of any race, who does not love this state, at least deep down—from the most sarcastic expatriate to rapper David Banner (who votes, by the way). It may take a while to reclaim your love for the state, and you may have grown up in Detroit or Chicago or Cleveland and then made your way to where your people helped build this state. But you’re a Mississippian at heart, and that’s why you’re back here.

This common pride is where our history should matter, even the painful parts—no, especially the painful parts. It is hard for black and white Mississippians alike, not to mention Native Americans, to take a deep breath and look at where we’ve been, so we can more clearly figure out where we’re going. But we must.

Where my people in Neshoba County have been, for instance, is caught in a web of trying to stop many of their neighbors from voting. When I was born in 1961, no blacks voted in Neshoba County, not because they had something to better to do, or because they were “sorry,” but because my people didn’t let them. We, like the rest of the state, had imposed heavy poll taxes and literacy tests to keep other people from competing for our small piece of the pie.

One of the questions that local blacks were asked when they approached the Neshoba County courthouse to try to register was: “How many bubbles in a bar of soap?” White Mississippians actually sat behind the table, and swallowed their own humanity long enough to ask that question of people they knew. And the people who couldn’t answer it then had to slink away in defeat, their votes un-cast, their voices unheard. Just about everyone believed Mississippi could never change, it would never be integrated, certainly never more progressive. No one believed multi-racial alliances could ever be formed here.

Until.

The power of the people, the power of hope, the power of the vote is nowhere more strong than right here in Mississippi. This state is the most vivid example of what an alliance of dedicated people, especially young ones, can do to change their world into a better place.

Yes, I sound hokey when I say this, and those 10 dudes out there who like to make fun of anything positive and hopeful are rolling their eyes right now. But this plea is for the rest of you: Vote on Nov. 4. Mail your absentee ballot by Nov. 1. Drive back to your home county on Tuesday. Vote against the past and against soap bubbles and race cards and hateful images and people who want to keep us mired in division and apathy for their own benefit. If each of you will do that, I make you a promise.

They will never again call you “sorry.”

Donna Ladd is the editor-in-chief of the Jackson Free Press.

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