If you are Black and live in Michigan, there is a 50 percent chance your vote doesn’t count. If you are White and live in Michigan, there is a 100-percent chance your vote doesn’t count.
Not the way it used to anyway.
It doesn’t count the way it did when you voted for the first Black president. It doesn’t count the way it did when you, your parents or grandparents voted for the first Black mayor of Detroit.Nor does it count the way it did when you voted for the person you wanted to be on the school board, the city council or local court.
Oh sure, the powers that be hold elections. They print ballots. They allow you to vote. They even count the votes in the same one, two, three fashion to determine a winner.
And after determining a winner, they make all of us losers. They make sure the person we elect can’t run our city, township or school district by appointing an emergency manager. It’s happened so much that more than half of the people of color in the state now live in a place ruled by emergency managers — that’s the 50 percent of why the vote doesn’t count for Blacks.
Here’s the 100 percent of why the vote doesn’t count for Whites in a state where White people make up 77 percent of the population: Democracy is now a fraud where some get treated better than others. That hurts us all.
That’s why your vote doesn’t count anymore.
But your vote does matter – a lot.
Your vote is the hard evidence proving they cheated. Your vote to elect city leaders shows how they cheat us out of our ability to run our own communities. We elect a mayor and city council. They appoint other people over them to run city.
Your vote for school board members shows how they cheat us out of our ability to have a say in our children’s’ public education. We elect school board members. They appoint other people to run the education system.
Your vote this election season shows the world how they cheat the people of Michigan out of their birthright to the freedom of self-government.
As Americans, we’ve been down this road. The colonists revolted against the king. The North beat the South. Women and people of color won the right to vote. We know how this story ends. Good triumphs over evil. Freedom crushed to the ground rises again.
Do your part. Stand in defiance. Stake your claim. Don’t be moved or turned away. Put your name on the roll. Vote anyway.
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