I’ve often heard it said that voting is our highest civic duty. I would argue instead, that it is our lowest, as it requires the least from us.
It does not ask that we are informed, although ideally we care enough to be. It does not ask that we are educated, although we should all seek to be. Nor does it ask that we put the needs of the country ahead of our own, although perhaps we should. It does not ask that we all agree — in fact, it serves to measure the degree to which we do not.
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This Is Us
On structural racism, implicit bias, and what white people do (and don’t) say
I am regularly the only black kid in the photo. I have mastered the well-timed black joke, fit to induce a guilty “you thought it but couldn’t say it” laugh from my white peers. I know all the words to “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers.
I am a token black friend. The black one in the group of white people. This title is not at all a comment on the depth of my relationships; I certainly am blessed to have the friends that I do. But by all definitions of the term, I am in many ways its poster child…
