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advocate daily podcast September 3, 2020
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The Advocate Daily Podcast chats voting with youth activist Alliyah Logan

Advocate Daily is a podcast and editorial series focused on highlighting young community organizers and social justice advocates of color. In collaboration with The Gathering for Justice, we have recorded 10 episodes of audio content focused on different topics in the social justice sphere. Advocate Daily is a reminder:

Educate. Empower. Elevate.

Youth activist Alliyah Logan joined the Advocate Daily Podcast to explain how to get the youth to the polls this November.

As an 18-year-old, Logan is entering her first Fall where she will be able to vote. Naturally, as the months and years go on, more youth will get a chance to vote for candidates and policies that reflect their own beliefs and morals.

 

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Let’s talk Voter Suppression⬇️⬇️ . We shouldn’t have to be choosing between the lesser of two evils for our national leadership. My generation is going to be drastically changing American politics to ensure that future elections have candidates that are openly anti-racist and defend human rights. But in this moment we should be doing everything in our power to end voter suppression, which is way too acceptable in this country. Voter suppression ranges from increasingly long waiting lines during a Global pandemic, having Photo-ID policies, making sure people who have felonies aren’t able to vote. The fact of the matter is, this country has never been a Democracy, voting was used as a form of privilege – creating leverage to maintain power. Instead of ensuring it’s a right that everyone has access to. Do not shame people for not voting in the 2020 election, by creating a toxic environment. The electoral college will not solve any problems facing communities like BIPOC, Woman, Disabled people and more. It can not solve or end racism, years of redlining, enslavement, Jim Crow, The War on Drugs or discrimination in general. Being out on the streets protesting and organizing will. We should all be using our efforts to end Voter Suppression to ensure that every single person who wants to participate in this election can do so fairly during a Global Pandemic. ….. #president #kamala #vote #biden2020

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But Logan also made clear that voting is not the only way to stay civilly engaged.

“People are gonna find different ways to be engaged, by being civilly disobedient, by being on the streets and truly advocating for their rights,” said Logan on the podcast.

She continued:

“I am excited for this election and to be able to vote for the first time, and I think it’s obvious who I’m voting for…”

Shaming others into voting is not necessarily the right course of action. While we must understand that the right to vote is a privilege that was not afforded to many of our forefathers and foremothers years ago (especially for BIPOC), people have their reasons for voting and not voting.

But being educated on the history of the United States and world, tapped in to current issues and battles, and remaining civilly disobedient when justice is not served… these are all steps one must take to stop racial injustice and oppression.

Just like it is not enough to be not racist, we have to be anti-racist, it is not enough to say you stand with Black Lives Matter. You must take action to ensure that oppression is stopped and racist systems are dismantled.

None of us are free until we are all free.