March 10 is approaching and you know what this means — it’s time to get out and vote.
No, I don’t want to hear your complaints and whines about how lines are long and how your vote doesn’t matter. They are not that long — you’ve waited longer for a roller coaster — and your vote definately matters.
I understand voting in the United States isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean you should throw your rights away.
People you are slapping in the face if you don’t vote: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Ida B. Wells, Alice Paul, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Cesar E. Chavez, Barbara Jordan, William Velazquez, Hector Garcia, Mary Church Terrell, Sojourner Truth, Jovita Idár, Wilhelmina Kekelaokalaninui and Widemann Dowsett.
These are just some of the women, men and predominately people of color (POC) who worked hard for people to vote. I’m not here to tell you to vote blue, red or even purple. I’m just telling you to vote.
We as Americans take our right to vote for granted. We think things like, “My vote doesn’t matter,” and “Someone else will just do it” or “I just don’t care.”
But this is a wake-up call — your vote matters.
While we might take our right to vote for granted now, it wasn’t always possible for everyone to vote — especially women and POC.
I’m not going to give you a huge history lesson on all of voting rights, but I will give you a little one.
In Idaho, the right for women to vote came a little earlier in 1896, but this wasn’t the case for all states. The 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, ratified in 1920. It’s ratification gave all women the right to vote.
But the United States elected George Washington, the first president, in 1789 — 231 years ago. But wait, most women only got the right to vote 100 years ago, right? Yup.
And did it really give all women the right to vote? Nope. Women of color
still faced issues after the ratification of the 19th Amendment. And even today, not everyone has the right to vote.
Immigrants living in the U.S. who love this country and are still waiting on their citizenships and those that are undocumented or in the prison system can’t vote. We take for granted this privilege that people fought so hard for us to have.
As a woman, as a first- generation American and as a proud citizen of the U.S., I will be voting on March 10. Will you?
Alex Brizee can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @alex_brizee