i dont vote.

i didnt vote for in 2000 or 2004 or 2008 and im not going to vote in 2012

and that is not because i am ignorant of the issues. or i dont pay attention to us national politics. or i dont think that politics is important. or i dont care about what happens to the world.

and here’s the thing…i like obama. as a man. as a face that represents the country from which i come. i like michelle and the kids, and frankly, obama himself is endearing. he can shoot a three pointer, he understands the subtleties of race in the us, he can woo through singing, hell, even obama’s tumblr is cool.

and frankly i do think the world would be more painful if romney became president. i want affordable healthcare. i want a cautious president because my kinfolk and my skinfolk are so often the ones who are on the front lines of us’s imperial military excursions.

and i dont vote.

and frankly i feel like when i read little screeds about how everyone should vote, the assumptions made about folks who dont vote, arent really geared toward me.

yes, i know folks died in the march for black voting rights. but here’s the thing i dont think *this* is what they were dying for. from what i have read, the folks who were fighting for voting rights, for the most part, saw that fight as part of a larger fight, for freedom. freedom. freedom. they didnt die so i could choose between two imperial leaders, they died so that there would be no empire to disenfranchise folk. but this empire does disenfranchise folk.

srsly, everytime we go someplace and give them freedom by the barrel of a gun, we disenfranchise folk. palestinians vote, but they never got a real choice. neither did egyptians this summer. or mexicans. or congolese. and these are just the places ive vistited/lived. we conquer, and no one gets to decide who we conquer, but the powers that be.

did you decide to go to iraq? or afghanistan? or open guantanamo?

folks have been writing about western privilege. i hear the complexity and nuances. i love them. these are questions i deal with daily as i live and walk and breathe in this third world city, as a first world girl descendent of slaves and indigenous folks who died for me to be able to live.

but look there is a western privilege in being able to vote for whether or not you want the leader who is pro-health care, or anti health care. cause seriously, that choice, that fact that we have enough resources in this country to provide health care to our citizens if we chose, that choice, is western privilege. there are a lot of citizens in this world who do not have this choice. this vote. they are voting for which war lord do they want. and yes, black neighborhoods are terrorized by the police and multiple systems of oppression. a lot of black folks have lost their right to vote. and there are major efforts to disenfranchise black folks in key swing states. but our ability to choose what kind of economic recovery do we want, what kind of health care do we want, what kind of taxes do we want, is based on the fact that the us took and continues to take resources from other peoples without having to give a fair compensation for those resources.

like the fact that the us is in debt, really really bothers us. why? most countries are in debt. oh, but the us is different. we have so much. why should we have to be in debt like some third world country…

i dont vote.

and i understand why people do vote. i have respect for their desire to part of this system, to have a say in this system, even if it is in some small way. and i understand why most folks dont vote. the folks who ive talked to over the years who dont vote, arent more ignorant about the issues, for the most part. they arent apathetic about the future. they arent sociopaths.

they just see that their vote doesnt matter. because the system is already rigged before they get in the booth. and they want more than that.

i tell this story a lot. but here goes. when i worked in tuwani, west bank, palestine there was a guy who explained, when asked who he was going to vote for in the 2004 election of the new palestinian president after arafat died, he pointed to a chair and said, anyone can sit in that chair. anyone. it doesn’t matter. the problem isnt the person, the problem is the chair.

which is what i think about when i see clint eastwood talking to an empty chair.

dude, you need to be asking the chair questions, not the invisible obama.

i dont vote.

that palestinian guy who pointed to the empty chair had spent his life fighting for his right to live on his land. his family and friends had been to jail, and physically attacked by settlers, and had their houses destroyed, and more, because he/they believed in his right to live. this struggle in many ways defined his life. and he fought for the simple right to love his family and his village.

he didn’t vote.

he fought.