Hello Hello,
Hope everyone is well. I cannot believe we are TWO WEEKS away from election day here in the US. Please make sure you have a plan to VOTE!!
In light of the pending election, many of my favorite podcasts are doing series related to the election process. And as much as I might try to stay away from politics in this email, the topics are too intertwined. We can’t work on combating racism in the present day without exploring the roots of our democracy. Enter the Electoral College. I knew that the Electoral College is a relic from the days of slavery, and it was established to boost the voting power of the Southern states. However, I didn’t remember much more regarding the election process from my high school Government class (Ok, I’m not even positive I had a Government class in high school…). Luckily, NPR’s Throughline recently put out an episode on the Electoral College and its origins: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/30/918717270/the-electoral-college
There’s so much packed into this episode. It’s an excellent reminder that our democracy and the country’s founding documents were created by flawed humans. I give them mad props for not going the way of a dictatorship post revolution, but that doesn’t mean they got everything right! The system needs on-going updates to stay relevant hence the Amendment process. Second, the historians in the episode point out that the Electoral College was most likely a product of “haste and fatigue” crafted together at the end of the Constitutional Convention, and some, such as James Madison, quickly came to realize it was a mistake and made proposals to change the system.
I gotta say, this whole topic gets me really fired up. I can’t believe we haven’t changed a system that was founded on such moral corruption, and I’m scared to accept just how powerful a select few were in creating the system and the select few that maintain that power in elected office today. Disbelief and fear aside, we must remain hopeful that positive change is in front of us. What’s that famous quote about the arc of the moral universe being long but bending towards justice?
#blacklivesmatter #powertoprivilege #VOTE2020
Until next time,
Jessica
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” – Martin Luther King Jr.