Op-Ed: We have 2 weeks to complete our work. We can do this. This is how we will win this election – Essence

If we all do our part in the subsequent two weeks, Kamala Harris will be our next president. But our job is difficult. We cannot vote alone. We need to help others mail their ballots and get to the polls. We can’t simply talk to individuals who agree with us about our hopes for a Harris presidency and the hazards of Trump. We need to talk to people who find themselves considering not voting and even voting for another person.

This is our task now. I’m not saying it is often easy. And it can’t at all times be fun. So I’m writing this article to offer some suggestions – and belongings you can say – that will make this job a bit easier.

We all know that there will be nothing higher than waking up after November 5 and seeing how well we did our job – seeing how much it paid off to change this election and seeing that Black people got here out on top. Because that is what it’s all about, ensuring that Black people come out ahead in this election.

We need to make this clear to everyone in our lives before they vote. This means talking to our entire family, even people who find themselves difficult to talk to; and the people we work with, even when it isn’t at all times comfortable to speak about it; and our friends and neighbors whom we see on the salon or barbershop, during school pickup, at church, or on the last picnics of the season, or anywhere else. Everyone we can talk to, we need to talk to.

But how will we get there?

#1 – Volunteering. Resources like voting.org, Black voters matter and Color Change Voting Being Black provides tools to assist you to talk to Black voters across the country — ensuring they’re ready and able to vote.

On these sites you can check your voting registration and be sure that you have not been faraway from the voter rolls by right-wing Republicans. You can use them to help family and friends do the identical. You can also enroll to volunteer – alone or with a bunch of friends – to do what matters most in the ultimate weeks of the election: texting other black voters, calling voters, donating to… voting programs, neighborhood walks door-to-door, organizing events to motivate more people to vote, and more.

#2 – Talk to people you already know. This can be difficult – talking to friends who may not yet agree with you. Someone may inform you, “I’m not involved in politics.” But you have to tell them: “If you don’t take care of politics, politics will take care of you. And if you realize that after the November 5 election, it will be too late.”

Sometimes it’s about saying the one thing they can’t ignore: the one thing they can’t deny that makes the election alternative and its urgency seem so real. For example,

Donald Trump executed more imprisoned black men than the federal government has killed in a long time. He wanted to look tough and Black people paid the value. Harris and Biden stopped it. But Trump will surely start it once again on day one. This is because Trump only cares about his popularity with the loudest white supremacists, not people like us.

Sometimes it’s about talking in regards to the reality we will all have to live with if we let Trump back in. In 2016 hate crimes increased by over 200% in places where Trump held campaign rallies. And after taking on the White House, they will rise even higher. Now he is gathering all this hateful energy against Haitians, leading to: over 30 bomb threats in schools, government buildings and officials’ homes where he told his mob to aim: Springfield, Ohio. This level of anti-blackness will not end with Haitians. We are all a part of the group of Black folks that he will order his mob to attack. And if he is within the White House, he will attack us: he will tell his Justice Department and the police to attack us by entering our neighborhoods, and he will tell his IRS and Social Security to attack us by canceling our advantages, and who knows what next.

Sometimes it’s about being clear and sober about Kamala Harris. She will give us an incredible opportunity to move ourselves and this country forward, even when she can’t do the whole lot for us, especially if a Republican Congress stands in her way – as they did with Obama. But it will move the Government forward in delivering what we need and deserve by way of health and childcare and the fight against discrimination. He will pursue economic opportunities for us. And like Obama, sometimes we’ll have to push her. The difference is that when Black people push a Democrat like Obama or Harris, we can move them. I used to be involved in this under Obama, and we won so much – especially in health care. But we cannot have any illusions in regards to the situation under Trump: we will never find a way to put pressure on Trump. We have no probability with him.

And this is one other issue: talking about Trump’s plans for us.

You may have heard of Project 2025. But what is it? This is Trump’s program plan, which might expand executive power – similar to a dictatorship – and hand over your entire decision-making process in the federal government to right-wing extremists. We all know who they’re and what they do.

Project 2025 features a plan to eliminate job protections for 1000’s of presidency staff and replace them with people loyal to Trump. Black staff create over 18% workforce on the federal level, so this is a direct threat: we have been kicked out of the federal government and will probably be the primary to leave. Project 2025 also plans to destroy the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides money to low-income people to buy food. They will attack diversity programs across the country. One results of this is an enormous shortage of black doctors. The scope of negative impacts on Black people is countless. You can see me speak about it here. You can read more here.

Sometimes we see people forget what happened when Trump was the last president, and we need to remind them of that. When Trump left office, the black unemployment rate was over 9%and the Covid pandemic, which he and his administration downplayed and allowed to spread, has resulted within the disproportionate death of Black Americans, at twice the speed of white Americans. The Trump administration halted consent decrees that finally began to regulate corrupt and racist police departments and halted Justice Department investigations into violent police departments. Trump appointed essentially the most Court of Appeals judges in a long time –none of them were Black– and appointed three Supreme Court justices who ended Affirmative Action, abortion rights, and more.

Vice President Kamala Harris has proven achievements working with President Biden to create record numbers of jobs, keep unemployment low, improve maternal care, solid the deciding vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, and far more.

Our work in the approaching weeks will not be easy. However, we need to talk to people. And we can’t leave anyone behind. As you saw within the Paint the Polls Black series, hosted by Global Black Economic Forum and with the support of Essence, we must make sure the exchange of data, dispel myths and mobilize to vote. If you have not seen the series, you can watch all of the content on YouTube.

No matter what anyone cares about – climate change, discrimination within the workplace and employment, quality education and health care, reproductive health care, inexpensive housing, criminal justice reform, LGBTQ+ rights, stopping corporations that cheat us with fines and costs at every step – we have to show them that what they care about most will be within the November elections: either they will get it (or they will have a probability to get it with Harris), or they definitely won’t get it with Trump – and in truth, the whole lot will worsen. Our job is to be sure that people know.

We can do this.