October 27, 2020 • 31 mins
Tensions are high. Now more than ever, political engagement is particularly prevalent. For many, this can feel like a game of catch-up if you didn’t follow politics in high school. This episode discusses the ways to own your voice, craft your voting plan, and find your political niche amongst the many student organizations to choose from.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello everyone, Hey guys, welcome back to The Secret Syllabus podcast.
The Secret Syllabus is a production of The Female Quotient
and I Heart Radio and co produced by The Female
Quotient and Wondering Media Network. I'm Katie Tracy and I'm
Hannah Ashton. This episode is all about voting, and before
we get started, we just wanted to mention that this
(00:23):
episode isn't meant to sway you in any direction. We
simply are willing to talk about the experiences around pollocks
that we are having on campus and how college students
can be engaged and informed voters. But Katie, I would
love to start with you because I'm curious as an
international student, what have you witnessed as you watch America
during this election year. Yes, so I'll say this first.
(00:45):
I'm an international student, so I'm not a US citizen.
But even from my perspective, I know this is very important.
It has implications for my visa status as a student
in the States, it has implications for international relations, and
this election is being followed at a global scale. I
can ensure that even from the Philippines right now, I
along with many of my friends from other countries, have
(01:07):
been keeping up with the highlights and views. What about you. Yes,
So this will be at my first presidential election. I
will be voting in UM And at first, like when
creating my voting plan, I was really overwhelmed, just because
there were a few different options. You know, you can
do the mail in, I could drive home on election day,
I could drive home and do early voting. But it
actually worked out that in the middle of October I
(01:29):
was able to be home for the first day of
early voting in Tennessee, and so I was able to
walk in one morning and it was at our local mall,
and it was the busiest my mall there has ever been.
Lines were wrapped around the inside and outside of the mall.
Like my mom, who has early voted before obviously said
she's never seen it like this. And we actually had
(01:51):
to leave because I had to get back for an
online class. But then I came back later in the afternoon,
line was a little bit shorter, and I got to
vote and it was a really cool experience, honestly, and
I'm really thankful that I got the opportunity to do
it in person. Well, we love that. And the final
presidential debate was hosted at Belmonte your school. Yes, this
(02:13):
was so cool. At first, we didn't know if it
was going to happen. I mean they told us a
year ago, um like last October that we were hosting it,
so we've been known, we've known about it for a while.
But then you know, all these things came up. I
didn't know if it was going to be online or
just canceled, but it ended up happening, and it was
a really cool experience, Like even though most students couldn't
go unless you were a volunteer, it was just awesome
(02:36):
to have that kind of energy on campus. Obviously, there
was also a lot of safety precautions, like starting weeks ago,
they had fencing put up all around the school. You
had to show your ID just to park. Media were
always walking around, and sometimes you couldn't get into certain
buildings or you know, if you've been online, if even
in person class, it was kind of difficult. Some got moved,
and something I thought was really interesting is they actually
(02:58):
moved the freshman who had dorm near where the debate
was actually being held. They moved them for two nights
into a galored Opuland hotel, which is a really nice
hotel here in Nashville, so they kind of all got
a little mini vacation, if you could say. My roommate
and I actually drove by the perimeter of our school
the night it was happening, and we got to just witness,
(03:18):
like the crowds of people that had signs, and we're
just walking around and trying to like, you know, get
a glimpse of whoever and see all the security. But
I think overall, the debate I would say was a success.
It seemed a lot more composed and more presidential. And
I was proud of my school for the night. For sure.
I would be proud to if it was hosted in
my school. But that campus energy sounds amazing. It makes
(03:41):
me miss being on a campus so much because I've
been stuck at home for the past two hundred days. Anyways,
speaking of college campuses, today, we're calling in with Christian
are on campus, corresponding to check in on her first
year at Harvard University, especially during the voting season. Hey Christian, Hey,
you're nearly halfway through your first semester of college. Yeah,
(04:05):
it's honestly kind of crazy to think that like a
month has already passed from since I moved in on campus,
and I'm kind of excited to have a break, but
it's also kind of crazy to think that I like
made it through almost my first semester already, so lots
of emotions. I would say, I'm sure, and I feel
like the semester is just flying by because we don't
have any breaks, so it's just like pushing hard towards
(04:27):
the end. But this episode is all about politics, and
with the presidential election around the corner, we would love
to know what's happening on your campus right now surrounding politics,
Like do you feel it's a matter of conversation with
your friends or did you or anyone you know watch
the presidential debate? The presidential election is definitely a very
pressing hot topic on campus. Um I actually personally didn't
(04:51):
know the debate was happening, like until a couple of
hours before, but there were kids like had like set
up projectors in the yard and they're like multip poll
projector setups going all around of people watching the debate.
There are different like the different kind of political organizations
on campus having like pushing stuff out to their social media's,
and I think everyone is just super tuned in to
(05:13):
what's going on. So it's definitely being talked about a lot.
And yeah, I think I think as as soon as
we get closer, it's just going to be like more
and more buzz around it. So it's definitely something that's
being talked about that's really great to hear. And how
has Harvard been encouraging students to vote? So there's this
UM organization called the Harvard Votes Challenge, and they've been
partnering with different UM athletic teams and different clubs that
(05:35):
are like pledging for all of their members to vote
or to register to vote, and so that's they're like
whole mission is to get as many eligible Harvard students
as possible to be registered and then to actually vote
on election day. So that's definitely something that's really big.
Like they have different members, like if there's like students
in the Harvard Votes Challenge like organization, Like in class,
they've been doing like little presentations like hey guys, this
(05:57):
is like where Harvard Vote Challenge. This is kind of
like what we're about. And so that's been the main
way that they're trying to get people to vote, and
that's like all student led so a lot of the
kind of efforts like around politics and everything are very
student led and that's mostly where it's like all coming from.
That's really cool, And it's your first time voting, So
how are you feeling about it? Do you have a
(06:17):
voting plan in place? Yes, So I'm having to do
an absentee ballot um because I'm currently out of state
and like I won't have enough time to go back
home before the voting the voting day, um, so that's
like my voting plan. And I guess it's exciting to
be political specifically engaged. But I have voted before in
like stay in local elections, so I'm kind of familiar
(06:39):
with the process, but this is like the first big one,
so I guess that's like a good milestone. Well, thank
you Christian for sharing and for coming on, and we
will talk to you again soon. Great, see you guys soon.
We have the opportunity to be able to talk to
Stacy Abrams in September, and she is the perfect guest
for this episode because Stacy Abrams is in a mayor
(07:00):
can politician, lawyer, voting rights activists, entrepreneur, nonprofit CEO, and
author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from
two thousand seven to two thousand seventeen. She was the
first black woman and first Georgian to deliver a response
to the State of the Union. Stacy Abrams launched fair
Fight to ensure every American has a voice in the
(07:20):
U s election system through programs such as fair Fight,
an initiative to fund and train voter protection teams. In
twenty battleground state, she launched fair Count to ensure accuracy
in the census and greater participation in civic engagement, and
the Southern Economic Advancement Project, a public policy initiative to
(07:40):
broaden economic power and build equity in the South. It
is an honor to be able to interview her, so
we won't keep you any longer. Here's Stacy Abrams. Welcome,
Stacy Abrams. We are so thrilled to have you on
the show. Can you start us off by taking us
back to the first time you've voted as an eighteen
(08:01):
year old while you were a student at Spellman College.
How did it feel to vote for the first time?
So I'm actually going to talk about the second time
I voted, only because I know I voted in the primary,
but it was a primary and during a time where
it was just Democrats. But I think the time that
sticks in my memory was when I voted for president
(08:21):
in long long ago, before many of you were even imaginations.
But it was an amazing thing. I had grown up
with parents who used to take us with them to protest,
and they took us with them to vote. I I
joke about the fact that because I'm the second of
six kids, we looked like make way for ducklings as
we trailed out the voting booth with my parents. But
(08:43):
I remember what it felt like to be the person
making the decision. I'd spent my time at Spellman. I
was seventeen when I got there, so I was registering
voters before I was old enough to vote. And when
I finally had that opportunity to cast my ballot and
to make it seemed to me at the moment an
incredibly important choice about the direction of our country. I
(09:05):
just remember being so filled with pride. You know, It's
like the first time you get to drive. You're the
one doing it. It's not you, there's no one telling
you what to do. You get to make the decisions,
and you get the one to lead and that's what
I got to do. I love hearing how you found
this passion even before you were eighteen. And even though
I'm turning twenty one, this will be the first presidential
(09:25):
election I'll be able to vote in, which is exciting
but also stressful. This year I'm feeling So do you
think engaging in politics as a young person in is
different from when you were in college? Yes? And no.
You got to remember in two that was the year
the Rodney King verdict. It was the first public example
of videotaped police brutality, and in that year the attack
(09:52):
by the police happened to Rodney King in ninety one,
but the exoneration of every police officer happened in nineteen two.
And so the civil unrest, the anger, the pain was visceral.
But what was different was that it dissipated by the
time we got to the presidential election in November. There
(10:12):
were those of us who've been involved in the protests
and in the struggle who were still talking about it.
But you didn't have the sustained galvanization. You didn't have
this national conversation. In fact, the conversation it turned against
many of the issues we were talking about and so
I would juxtapose ninety two in this way. It is
(10:32):
a presidential year, but the power possessed by young people
in this year is so much greater than the power
we possessed in that year. Young people were still very
instrumental in the election of Bill Clinton, but in a
very different way. We were in the midst of an
economic downturn, you had civil unrest. Civil unrest had had
abated somewhat, And I think what you all face in
(10:54):
this moment as young people is this triple crisis of
health care crisis, h economic collapse, and this racial reckoning.
But you also have immense power because if you combine
jen Y and gen Z, your ability to sway elections
is so much greater, And the diversity of the communities
(11:14):
that you represent mean that the capacity to drive change
is just greater. And so I would say it is
certainly more stressful because of the omnipresent challenges that you face,
but I think the opportunity is also greater because you
have the capacity to organize ourselves in ways we didn't like.
We were still celebrating call waiting when I was eighteen.
(11:36):
So yeah, I think your ability to use social media,
but more importantly, just to use the connectivity you've built
because of the crises you all have endured is just
an instrumental part of how you can shape the next
decade of change. I totally agree, we both I think
Hannah and I feel the same. But there's a lot
of pressure right now. We have so much information coming
(11:57):
at us and it's intense. But at the same time,
we really want to vert all of this into action,
and we've never felt more empowered to do so than
at this time. Switching gears a bit. Fair Fight is
an organization you created in ten to fight voter suppression
and create a more fair voting process. What motivated you
to start this organization? As I've said, I've been involved
(12:21):
in the conversation of voting rights for most of my
adult life, in fact, before I was an adult, and
it came about because my parents were teenage activists during
the Civil Rights Movement. My dad was arrested registering people
to vote in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, when he was fourteen. So
I came about this honestly, and I don't divorce the
protest side of my family's history from the voting side.
(12:44):
I see them as part of a continuum. My responsibility
when I ran for governor was to do the work
of galvanizing and turning out voters so they could own
their power to shape the state they wanted. When I
didn't get elected, my responsibility was to make certain that
the powers that be that prevented them from speaking aloud.
(13:06):
I can't say for certain that they would have voted
for me, but I can say for certain that thousands
of people were denied the right to vote. And so
fair Fight for me is the continuation of my obligation.
I may not hold the title, but that doesn't relieve
me of the responsibility. And that responsibility includes making sure
that every vote can be cast and every vote can
(13:27):
be counted. And the way I try to do this
is I try to meet people where they are. Fair
Fight is the largest and I think the most effective
way to lift up this conversation about voter suppression so
that people know it's not just Georgia. It's a national phenomenon.
It's a national crisis. But I've also written a book
about it, I have a new movie coming out, new
(13:48):
documentary coming out about it. Trying to make certain that
people understand that I care about voting, not because of
the act of voting itself, but because of what voting represents,
our ability to create change, our ability to trans to
your point, Katie, about taking your power to create change.
Protest is how we declare our needs. Voting is how
(14:10):
we make those needs real because we pick the people
who represent us in our government and who are responsible.
But it's also how we fire people who didn't do
their jobs. And in my mind, fair Fight is instrumental
in helping situate us so that we have the ability
to use our power as citizens to shape our future.
(14:31):
I would love if you could explain a little bit
more about how voter suppression happens in a democratic process.
Voter suppression refers to discouraging or preventing people who were
otherwise eligible from casting their votes. And let's let's be clear.
Political parties are always going to try to convince you
to vote for your their guy and against someone else
at that I don't care about that. It's when you
(14:52):
try to prevent me from using my right to vote
at all, that's voter suppression. And we have to understand
voter suppression has been a part of our nation since
its exception. Our Constitution basically said White men who owned
property could vote. If you were black, you were subhuman.
If you were Native American, you were invisible. That Native
Americans didn't become citizens of the United States until nineteen.
(15:14):
Women were told to be silent until the Nineteenth Amendment
in ninety, and the naturalization after seventeen ninety basically said
only white people of good character could immigrate to the
country after seventeen ninety. So we've had a long history
of saying to people you aren't good enough to participate
in our democracy. If you fast forward to today, voter
(15:36):
suppression looks a lot different than it did before. It
used to be the law saying you just can't vote. Today,
it's using the law to make it too complicated and
to push people out of the process. And there are
three things that happen. It's making it difficult to register
and stay on the rolls. It's making it difficult to
cast your ballot, and making it difficult to get your
ballot counted for young people. This manifests itself in rules
(16:00):
about when you can register to vote. So those states
that won't let you register until you turn eighteen as
opposed to states will let you do it when you're seventeen,
so that if you're turning eight team by the election,
you can participate. It's the likelihood of getting kicked off
the roles because you're going off to school and there are,
you know, complicated rules about where you can register. When
it comes to being able to cast your ballot, it's
(16:21):
voter i D laws and states like Wisconsin and Georgia,
Texas that won't allow you to use your student i
D usually the only form of I D you have
that says you can't use your student i D. Or
if you look at what happened in New Hampshire, it's
passing laws to basically say we don't want students to
be heard even though you spend nine months out of
the year in those locations when we're not in COVID times.
(16:42):
And then it's shutting down polling places on campuses. In Florida,
they shut down polling places by law to force students
not to be able to vote where where they lived.
We've been able to challenge some of those things, but
that's it. And then the last is that when you
vote by mail, young people have the hardest time I'm
actually getting their ballots, and their ballots are five times
(17:03):
more likely to be rejected, and so voter suppression happens
all along that continuum. But when you know what they're doing,
you have a better opportunity to fight back and to
force them to let you cast your ballot, because you
are just as entitled to be heard as anyone else.
I'm really glad you shared this. I don't think a
lot of people know about this. I certainly didn't. And
(17:26):
if this is a systemic issue, then is there anything
we as citizens can do about it? Absolutely? Number one,
it's knowing about it. I I spend a lot of
time talking about voter suppression. I didn't discover voter suppression,
but you know, after my election, because I made the
choice to publicly declare that voter suppression was at work,
(17:46):
it helped me lift up the issue in ways I
don't think it had been before. And you know, it's
bright Garden. Fox News really hate me, but you know
it's it's okay. And part because part of my responsibility
was to say, yes, the legal system said this can happen,
but we need to look at the laws. If the
laws are wrong, we need to push back against them.
(18:08):
And that's not a partisan issue. I may have been
a Democrat running, but the same laws, the same suppression
impacts you whether you're a Democrat or Republican or an independent.
And when you break the machinery of democracy, you break
it for everyone. And so my responsibility and the way
we can all fight back is one understanding what it is.
In my book, Our Time Is Now, I talk about
(18:31):
in much more detail, much more academic detail, but still accessible,
so that people really get what's going on. Because once
you know it, then you can start to ask your
state legislators to pass better laws. You can work with
your county elections officials. We tend to take for granted
these things just kind of move and we think about
it every two years or four years. Do you be
(18:52):
involved now? And in particular, we need young people to
sign up to be election workers to work the polls.
The average poll worker is around mid sixties. They are
very susceptible to COVID and so a lot of states
are going to see their polling places shut down if
we can't get more young people to sign up to
be poll workers. It's a paid gig, and so it's
(19:14):
worth it because you can be part of the way
we stop the closure polling places, which blocks hundreds of
thousands of people from being able to cast their ballots.
And then the last thing is you can run for
office yourself. You don't have to wait. The best people
to make the choices for you are the people who
understand your life, understand your challenges, and particularly for young people,
(19:35):
being in the arena sometimes seems a bit corrupt, but
I will tell you it only gets better when good
people get in the arena. It only gets better when
young people's voices aren't yelling from the outside, but are
yelling from the outside and answered from the inside. And
so those are some of the ways you can really
tackle this challenge. Those are great tactical tips on how
(19:56):
we as individuals can get involved and do something and
feel like we're move going forward. I'd also love to
hear what are the best ways to motivate our friends
to vote. I feel like in recent years the fomo
of social media has created definitely helps, but it can
be easy to also not vote out of maybe the
hassle of getting to the polls. I think it's important
(20:16):
to first acknowledge the limits of voting. Part of what
happens is we build this notion that voting is a
solution to all problems. It's not, but it is the
only solution we have in a democracy that actually can
guarantee progress and change. Protests is how we declare what
we need. But the reason you protest is you're trying
to put pressure on those who are making decisions to
(20:39):
make better decisions. Well, the other pressure point is voting
them in or voting them out. And so I began
conversations about voting not by saying you should do it
because it's your moral duty. You should do it because
it's patriotic. You should do it because if you don't,
they're going to continue to screw you over. Voting is
how we get the things we need, and silence guarantees
that no one's going to hear it. And so when
(21:01):
you're silent and you don't vote, that gives the people
in power permission to ignore you. Voting doesn't guarantee that
they'll hear you, but it gets you much closer, and
it guarantees that they have to pay attention. I also
try to connect the dots. We tend to think about
voting on this sort of macro level, but we need
to think about the fact that if you care about
environmental action. It's a question of does your county zone
(21:25):
to allow power plants and contaminating places to go into
poor communities. That's something you can change by voting on
the county level. If you're concerned about criminal justice issues,
if you vote for the district attorney who says I'm
gonna put everyone in prison versus the district attorney who
says I'm going to use my power to allow first
offenders to get help instead of going to jail, then
(21:48):
vote for the district attorney. You think the sentencing disparities
between black and brown and white offenders is too much,
vote on judges, and so it's making sure we start
to connect the dots, especially for your age group, connect
the dots between the issues that matter and the change
you want. The linkage is voting, and so one be honest,
(22:08):
to be specific, and then three make a plan. Telling
people they need to vote is irrelevant if you haven't
walked them through or they haven't figured out how to
do it. Vote dot org is an amazing website as
well as all in for voting not comm You can
go to one of those two websites and you can
actually figure out what your opportunities to vote are as
(22:28):
young people, depending on where you live. To your point
Hannah about how hard it can be, it's hard because
we're often trying to figure it out on the fly.
But if we use these resources, I encourage everyone make
a plan to vote. I've made a plan for June.
I got my absentee ballot, filled it out, did my research,
and then the envelope was sealed shut, so I was
(22:51):
legally not permitted to return my absentee vallot. But I
had a plan, so I knew I could go and
vote in person, and that was a critical thing because
otherwise I could have been stymied and they could have
ignored my voice. Vote early, So make a plan and
vote early, and that helps more people actually get through
the process. But to your point about social media, it's
(23:12):
also sharing your plan to use fomo. It's about talking
about here's my plan to vote, what's your plan to vote?
And it may seem, you know, cheesy, but it is
a critical way to create the change. And if there
has ever been a year where we know it matters
who's in charge, this is that year. What you said
about silence also was really powerful because in college I've
(23:32):
been able to learn so much from people by starting
these conversations. I think in my experience in college, though,
conversations about politics can get very passionate and sometimes divisive,
which I don't think it should be. Like you mentioned,
but what tips do you have for people who want
to discuss the upcoming elections but don't know how to
talk about it with friends who may not be politically
(23:55):
aligned with them. One is that I don't believe conversation
is a place for conversion. Often we go into these
conversations trying to make the other person agree with us.
That's not the point. The point is to learn. My
job as minority leader, I was the Democratic leader in
the House of Representatives for seven years. There was not
(24:15):
a single year where I had enough people to get
anything done on my own. Everything I did required that
I work with people who were diametrically opposed to me
on most ideological issues. And I used to say that,
you know, being minority leader was Latin for losing well,
but here's what I learned. Part of my job wasn't
to try to convince them that they agreed with me
(24:36):
about the fundamental underlying belief systems that we held. We didn't,
but I could convince them to work with me on
the things we did think mattered, and so I you know,
one of my favorite examples is that I worked with
the Tea Party on environmental issues. And the way we
did it was I believe that climate change is real.
They believe property values are real, and so we were
(24:57):
able to work together to block legislation that would have
created harm to the environment because it would have cost
them money and I thought it would cost us lives.
We didn't have to agree on the reason, to agree
on the way. And that's what we have to do
in these conversations. If you go into a conversation about
politics trying to convince someone one that they're wrong and
(25:17):
more importantly too, that you're right, you're going to lose.
But if you go in trying to learn what they
believe and why they believe it, then you create common
space to figure out where do you agree. And you
can agree to agree on things, and you can agree
to disagree on other things, but the most important things
that you're having the conversation and you're enlarging your understanding
(25:37):
of who they are and what they see as the future. HM.
That's so good, And I know for many college students
and more generally Americans, they can struggle with backlash in
their home lives if they are looking to vote for
someone that maybe their loved ones opposed. Do you have
any advice or how people can navigate that tension of
wanting to vote or share their opinions but not upset
(26:00):
their loved ones. So there's a great show. I love television.
It makes me incredibly happy. There is this fantastic episode
of One Day at a Time from this fourth season.
It's an animated episode, so I think it's the last
episode they did where Linman while Miranda is one of
the voices on the episode, and it's this fantastic navigation
(26:21):
of exactly that issue. How do you talk to your
family when you may not share common belief and the
reality is not believing the same things politically does not
make that person a bad person. And it doesn't mean
that you can't engage, but you have to engage in
a way that respects their right to be wrong in
(26:41):
your opinion, but it also is an important way to
understand what motivates them. My, my siblings and I we
all luckily agreed, but I have cousins who do not
agree with me. On some political issues. I don't dismiss
our family connection because we don't share the same political
connect Shi. I learned very quickly which ones we can
(27:03):
talk about and who I can talk to, And sometimes
you just have to talk about the weather because sometimes
you know, you know, silence again, it may be the
better part of valor in that instance, because it's not
about making them so angry that you can't love one another.
It's about creating the space that if you need to
create change, you can. As we start to rub up,
(27:25):
we wanted to ask for those that say my vote
doesn't mean anything, or my vote won't make a difference,
what do you have to say to them? Every vote matters.
If it didn't matter, they wouldn't be working so hard
to stop you from being heard. But here's how to
think about it. We're tackling diseases in our country, the
disease of racism, the disease of COVID, the disease of
(27:47):
economic inequity, the disease that is ravaging our environment. We
have so many of these diseases, and voting is not
a magic pill. It's chemotherapy. It is a regiment and
it works not because you do it once and you
say I'm done. It works because you do it again
and again and again. I think about it. If you
(28:09):
play a sport, or if you're involved in any kind
of competitive activity, you don't do it once and think
I'm great. You have to do it again and again
and again to get better and better and to see
the change you need. And the same thing is true
with voting. We have to stop lying about voting being
some magic pill. It's not. It's it's a treatment, and
(28:30):
it's the treatment to the injustice. It's a treatment to
the challenges. But that means we've got to keep taking it,
keep taking that vote, keep taking those pills. And we've
got to do the other things. And the doctor tells
us to do that. We don't want to like participating
after the election. We've got to do the things that
we find the fun part, like protesting, but we've also
got to do the really wonky, annoying part of going
(28:51):
into that voting booth, of doing our research, of understanding.
And if we start to treat it as a process
rather than an event, then we under stand that voting works.
Because when voting is a process, things get better. And
here's the last thing, I'll say I know it gets
better because my great great grandparents were slaves, my great
grandparents were share coppers, my grandparents were cooks, my parents
(29:16):
were working for and I got to be the first
black woman in American history to stand for governor. I
got damned close. Excuse my language. The reality is progress
gets made. It is hard, it is mean, there are setbacks,
but progress does happen. And because progress happens, I'm not
going to stop fighting and I'm not going to stop
voting because I'm going to get it done. I have
(29:38):
chills right now. Wow. Thank you so much for being
on the show and informing all of us not only
of how to get our voices heard, but also why
every voice matters and for listeners. Be sure to follow
Stacy Abrams on Instagram at Stacy Abrams and check out
her new film All in the Fight for Democracy on
Amazon Prime Video. Thank you again, Thank you guys, thank congratulations,
(30:01):
and best of luck. So, Katie, what was your takeaway
from that amazing interview? Stacy Abrams is a role model.
I feel like as a student, it's easy for me
to just shy away from issues that are controversial, to
change the topic when things get heated and seem very divisive,
but Stacy reminds me that there are ways to navigate
(30:21):
these conversations with grace, to respond with the composure that
can encourage more productive discussions about issues we care about.
It's why we brought them up in the first place, right,
so we just have to remember to treat it like
a discussion, not a debate. That's might takeaway what about you, Hannah.
That's so good and I learned a lot from this episode.
(30:42):
One thing Stacy stated that was so true is that
we think our voice only matters on the big scale
a k a. The presidential election. However, our voice matters
and it is sometimes better heard at the lower levels.
It's our duty not to just stay informed on Trump
and Biden's agendas, but to be informed on how our
local mayors, governors, and legislators are hurting or helping our community,
(31:04):
because in the counties and in the cities that we
live in, we are directly affected by those decisions, and
so it makes sense for us to also want to
be informed and have a say at the local level. Yes, well,
we hope this inspired you listeners to go out and vote.
Figure out what you gotta do and we are your hosts.
Katie you can find me at a Loha kyd X
on Instagram. And I'm Hannah you can find me at
(31:26):
Miss Hannah Ashton on Instagram. The Secret Syllabus was created
by The Female Quotion in partnership with I Heart Media
and co produced by The Female Quotion and Wonder Media Network.
The Female Quotion is committed to advancing equality and elevating
woman from college campuses for the corner office. You can
find out more at www dot The Female Quotion dot com.
(31:48):
See you after class.
Hello everyone, Hey guys, welcome back to The Secret Syllabus podcast.
The Secret Syllabus is a production of The Female Quotient
and I Heart Radio and co produced by The Female
Quotient and Wondering Media Network. I'm Katie Tracy and I'm
Hannah Ashton. This episode is all about voting, and before
we get started, we just wanted to mention that this
(00:23):
episode isn't meant to sway you in any direction. We
simply are willing to talk about the experiences around pollocks
that we are having on campus and how college students
can be engaged and informed voters. But Katie, I would
love to start with you because I'm curious as an
international student, what have you witnessed as you watch America
during this election year. Yes, so I'll say this first.
(00:45):
I'm an international student, so I'm not a US citizen.
But even from my perspective, I know this is very important.
It has implications for my visa status as a student
in the States, it has implications for international relations, and
this election is being followed at a global scale. I
can ensure that even from the Philippines right now, I
along with many of my friends from other countries, have
(01:07):
been keeping up with the highlights and views. What about you. Yes,
So this will be at my first presidential election. I
will be voting in UM And at first, like when
creating my voting plan, I was really overwhelmed, just because
there were a few different options. You know, you can
do the mail in, I could drive home on election day,
I could drive home and do early voting. But it
actually worked out that in the middle of October I
(01:29):
was able to be home for the first day of
early voting in Tennessee, and so I was able to
walk in one morning and it was at our local mall,
and it was the busiest my mall there has ever been.
Lines were wrapped around the inside and outside of the mall.
Like my mom, who has early voted before obviously said
she's never seen it like this. And we actually had
(01:51):
to leave because I had to get back for an
online class. But then I came back later in the afternoon,
line was a little bit shorter, and I got to
vote and it was a really cool experience, honestly, and
I'm really thankful that I got the opportunity to do
it in person. Well, we love that. And the final
presidential debate was hosted at Belmonte your school. Yes, this
(02:13):
was so cool. At first, we didn't know if it
was going to happen. I mean they told us a
year ago, um like last October that we were hosting it,
so we've been known, we've known about it for a while.
But then you know, all these things came up. I
didn't know if it was going to be online or
just canceled, but it ended up happening, and it was
a really cool experience, Like even though most students couldn't
go unless you were a volunteer, it was just awesome
(02:36):
to have that kind of energy on campus. Obviously, there
was also a lot of safety precautions, like starting weeks ago,
they had fencing put up all around the school. You
had to show your ID just to park. Media were
always walking around, and sometimes you couldn't get into certain
buildings or you know, if you've been online, if even
in person class, it was kind of difficult. Some got moved,
and something I thought was really interesting is they actually
(02:58):
moved the freshman who had dorm near where the debate
was actually being held. They moved them for two nights
into a galored Opuland hotel, which is a really nice
hotel here in Nashville, so they kind of all got
a little mini vacation, if you could say. My roommate
and I actually drove by the perimeter of our school
the night it was happening, and we got to just witness,
(03:18):
like the crowds of people that had signs, and we're
just walking around and trying to like, you know, get
a glimpse of whoever and see all the security. But
I think overall, the debate I would say was a success.
It seemed a lot more composed and more presidential. And
I was proud of my school for the night. For sure.
I would be proud to if it was hosted in
my school. But that campus energy sounds amazing. It makes
(03:41):
me miss being on a campus so much because I've
been stuck at home for the past two hundred days. Anyways,
speaking of college campuses, today, we're calling in with Christian
are on campus, corresponding to check in on her first
year at Harvard University, especially during the voting season. Hey Christian, Hey,
you're nearly halfway through your first semester of college. Yeah,
(04:05):
it's honestly kind of crazy to think that like a
month has already passed from since I moved in on campus,
and I'm kind of excited to have a break, but
it's also kind of crazy to think that I like
made it through almost my first semester already, so lots
of emotions. I would say, I'm sure, and I feel
like the semester is just flying by because we don't
have any breaks, so it's just like pushing hard towards
(04:27):
the end. But this episode is all about politics, and
with the presidential election around the corner, we would love
to know what's happening on your campus right now surrounding politics,
Like do you feel it's a matter of conversation with
your friends or did you or anyone you know watch
the presidential debate? The presidential election is definitely a very
pressing hot topic on campus. Um I actually personally didn't
(04:51):
know the debate was happening, like until a couple of
hours before, but there were kids like had like set
up projectors in the yard and they're like multip poll
projector setups going all around of people watching the debate.
There are different like the different kind of political organizations
on campus having like pushing stuff out to their social media's,
and I think everyone is just super tuned in to
(05:13):
what's going on. So it's definitely being talked about a lot.
And yeah, I think I think as as soon as
we get closer, it's just going to be like more
and more buzz around it. So it's definitely something that's
being talked about that's really great to hear. And how
has Harvard been encouraging students to vote? So there's this
UM organization called the Harvard Votes Challenge, and they've been
partnering with different UM athletic teams and different clubs that
(05:35):
are like pledging for all of their members to vote
or to register to vote, and so that's they're like
whole mission is to get as many eligible Harvard students
as possible to be registered and then to actually vote
on election day. So that's definitely something that's really big.
Like they have different members, like if there's like students
in the Harvard Votes Challenge like organization, Like in class,
they've been doing like little presentations like hey guys, this
(05:57):
is like where Harvard Vote Challenge. This is kind of
like what we're about. And so that's been the main
way that they're trying to get people to vote, and
that's like all student led so a lot of the
kind of efforts like around politics and everything are very
student led and that's mostly where it's like all coming from.
That's really cool, And it's your first time voting, So
how are you feeling about it? Do you have a
(06:17):
voting plan in place? Yes, So I'm having to do
an absentee ballot um because I'm currently out of state
and like I won't have enough time to go back
home before the voting the voting day, um, so that's
like my voting plan. And I guess it's exciting to
be political specifically engaged. But I have voted before in
like stay in local elections, so I'm kind of familiar
(06:39):
with the process, but this is like the first big one,
so I guess that's like a good milestone. Well, thank
you Christian for sharing and for coming on, and we
will talk to you again soon. Great, see you guys soon.
We have the opportunity to be able to talk to
Stacy Abrams in September, and she is the perfect guest
for this episode because Stacy Abrams is in a mayor
(07:00):
can politician, lawyer, voting rights activists, entrepreneur, nonprofit CEO, and
author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from
two thousand seven to two thousand seventeen. She was the
first black woman and first Georgian to deliver a response
to the State of the Union. Stacy Abrams launched fair
Fight to ensure every American has a voice in the
(07:20):
U s election system through programs such as fair Fight,
an initiative to fund and train voter protection teams. In
twenty battleground state, she launched fair Count to ensure accuracy
in the census and greater participation in civic engagement, and
the Southern Economic Advancement Project, a public policy initiative to
(07:40):
broaden economic power and build equity in the South. It
is an honor to be able to interview her, so
we won't keep you any longer. Here's Stacy Abrams. Welcome,
Stacy Abrams. We are so thrilled to have you on
the show. Can you start us off by taking us
back to the first time you've voted as an eighteen
(08:01):
year old while you were a student at Spellman College.
How did it feel to vote for the first time?
So I'm actually going to talk about the second time
I voted, only because I know I voted in the primary,
but it was a primary and during a time where
it was just Democrats. But I think the time that
sticks in my memory was when I voted for president
(08:21):
in long long ago, before many of you were even imaginations.
But it was an amazing thing. I had grown up
with parents who used to take us with them to protest,
and they took us with them to vote. I I
joke about the fact that because I'm the second of
six kids, we looked like make way for ducklings as
we trailed out the voting booth with my parents. But
(08:43):
I remember what it felt like to be the person
making the decision. I'd spent my time at Spellman. I
was seventeen when I got there, so I was registering
voters before I was old enough to vote. And when
I finally had that opportunity to cast my ballot and
to make it seemed to me at the moment an
incredibly important choice about the direction of our country. I
(09:05):
just remember being so filled with pride. You know, It's
like the first time you get to drive. You're the
one doing it. It's not you, there's no one telling
you what to do. You get to make the decisions,
and you get the one to lead and that's what
I got to do. I love hearing how you found
this passion even before you were eighteen. And even though
I'm turning twenty one, this will be the first presidential
(09:25):
election I'll be able to vote in, which is exciting
but also stressful. This year I'm feeling So do you
think engaging in politics as a young person in is
different from when you were in college? Yes? And no.
You got to remember in two that was the year
the Rodney King verdict. It was the first public example
of videotaped police brutality, and in that year the attack
(09:52):
by the police happened to Rodney King in ninety one,
but the exoneration of every police officer happened in nineteen two.
And so the civil unrest, the anger, the pain was visceral.
But what was different was that it dissipated by the
time we got to the presidential election in November. There
(10:12):
were those of us who've been involved in the protests
and in the struggle who were still talking about it.
But you didn't have the sustained galvanization. You didn't have
this national conversation. In fact, the conversation it turned against
many of the issues we were talking about and so
I would juxtapose ninety two in this way. It is
(10:32):
a presidential year, but the power possessed by young people
in this year is so much greater than the power
we possessed in that year. Young people were still very
instrumental in the election of Bill Clinton, but in a
very different way. We were in the midst of an
economic downturn, you had civil unrest. Civil unrest had had
abated somewhat, And I think what you all face in
(10:54):
this moment as young people is this triple crisis of
health care crisis, h economic collapse, and this racial reckoning.
But you also have immense power because if you combine
jen Y and gen Z, your ability to sway elections
is so much greater, And the diversity of the communities
(11:14):
that you represent mean that the capacity to drive change
is just greater. And so I would say it is
certainly more stressful because of the omnipresent challenges that you face,
but I think the opportunity is also greater because you
have the capacity to organize ourselves in ways we didn't like.
We were still celebrating call waiting when I was eighteen.
(11:36):
So yeah, I think your ability to use social media,
but more importantly, just to use the connectivity you've built
because of the crises you all have endured is just
an instrumental part of how you can shape the next
decade of change. I totally agree, we both I think
Hannah and I feel the same. But there's a lot
of pressure right now. We have so much information coming
(11:57):
at us and it's intense. But at the same time,
we really want to vert all of this into action,
and we've never felt more empowered to do so than
at this time. Switching gears a bit. Fair Fight is
an organization you created in ten to fight voter suppression
and create a more fair voting process. What motivated you
to start this organization? As I've said, I've been involved
(12:21):
in the conversation of voting rights for most of my
adult life, in fact, before I was an adult, and
it came about because my parents were teenage activists during
the Civil Rights Movement. My dad was arrested registering people
to vote in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, when he was fourteen. So
I came about this honestly, and I don't divorce the
protest side of my family's history from the voting side.
(12:44):
I see them as part of a continuum. My responsibility
when I ran for governor was to do the work
of galvanizing and turning out voters so they could own
their power to shape the state they wanted. When I
didn't get elected, my responsibility was to make certain that
the powers that be that prevented them from speaking aloud.
(13:06):
I can't say for certain that they would have voted
for me, but I can say for certain that thousands
of people were denied the right to vote. And so
fair Fight for me is the continuation of my obligation.
I may not hold the title, but that doesn't relieve
me of the responsibility. And that responsibility includes making sure
that every vote can be cast and every vote can
(13:27):
be counted. And the way I try to do this
is I try to meet people where they are. Fair
Fight is the largest and I think the most effective
way to lift up this conversation about voter suppression so
that people know it's not just Georgia. It's a national phenomenon.
It's a national crisis. But I've also written a book
about it, I have a new movie coming out, new
(13:48):
documentary coming out about it. Trying to make certain that
people understand that I care about voting, not because of
the act of voting itself, but because of what voting represents,
our ability to create change, our ability to trans to
your point, Katie, about taking your power to create change.
Protest is how we declare our needs. Voting is how
(14:10):
we make those needs real because we pick the people
who represent us in our government and who are responsible.
But it's also how we fire people who didn't do
their jobs. And in my mind, fair Fight is instrumental
in helping situate us so that we have the ability
to use our power as citizens to shape our future.
(14:31):
I would love if you could explain a little bit
more about how voter suppression happens in a democratic process.
Voter suppression refers to discouraging or preventing people who were
otherwise eligible from casting their votes. And let's let's be clear.
Political parties are always going to try to convince you
to vote for your their guy and against someone else
at that I don't care about that. It's when you
(14:52):
try to prevent me from using my right to vote
at all, that's voter suppression. And we have to understand
voter suppression has been a part of our nation since
its exception. Our Constitution basically said White men who owned
property could vote. If you were black, you were subhuman.
If you were Native American, you were invisible. That Native
Americans didn't become citizens of the United States until nineteen.
(15:14):
Women were told to be silent until the Nineteenth Amendment
in ninety, and the naturalization after seventeen ninety basically said
only white people of good character could immigrate to the
country after seventeen ninety. So we've had a long history
of saying to people you aren't good enough to participate
in our democracy. If you fast forward to today, voter
(15:36):
suppression looks a lot different than it did before. It
used to be the law saying you just can't vote. Today,
it's using the law to make it too complicated and
to push people out of the process. And there are
three things that happen. It's making it difficult to register
and stay on the rolls. It's making it difficult to
cast your ballot, and making it difficult to get your
ballot counted for young people. This manifests itself in rules
(16:00):
about when you can register to vote. So those states
that won't let you register until you turn eighteen as
opposed to states will let you do it when you're seventeen,
so that if you're turning eight team by the election,
you can participate. It's the likelihood of getting kicked off
the roles because you're going off to school and there are,
you know, complicated rules about where you can register. When
it comes to being able to cast your ballot, it's
(16:21):
voter i D laws and states like Wisconsin and Georgia,
Texas that won't allow you to use your student i
D usually the only form of I D you have
that says you can't use your student i D. Or
if you look at what happened in New Hampshire, it's
passing laws to basically say we don't want students to
be heard even though you spend nine months out of
the year in those locations when we're not in COVID times.
(16:42):
And then it's shutting down polling places on campuses. In Florida,
they shut down polling places by law to force students
not to be able to vote where where they lived.
We've been able to challenge some of those things, but
that's it. And then the last is that when you
vote by mail, young people have the hardest time I'm
actually getting their ballots, and their ballots are five times
(17:03):
more likely to be rejected, and so voter suppression happens
all along that continuum. But when you know what they're doing,
you have a better opportunity to fight back and to
force them to let you cast your ballot, because you
are just as entitled to be heard as anyone else.
I'm really glad you shared this. I don't think a
lot of people know about this. I certainly didn't. And
(17:26):
if this is a systemic issue, then is there anything
we as citizens can do about it? Absolutely? Number one,
it's knowing about it. I I spend a lot of
time talking about voter suppression. I didn't discover voter suppression,
but you know, after my election, because I made the
choice to publicly declare that voter suppression was at work,
(17:46):
it helped me lift up the issue in ways I
don't think it had been before. And you know, it's
bright Garden. Fox News really hate me, but you know
it's it's okay. And part because part of my responsibility
was to say, yes, the legal system said this can happen,
but we need to look at the laws. If the
laws are wrong, we need to push back against them.
(18:08):
And that's not a partisan issue. I may have been
a Democrat running, but the same laws, the same suppression
impacts you whether you're a Democrat or Republican or an independent.
And when you break the machinery of democracy, you break
it for everyone. And so my responsibility and the way
we can all fight back is one understanding what it is.
In my book, Our Time Is Now, I talk about
(18:31):
in much more detail, much more academic detail, but still accessible,
so that people really get what's going on. Because once
you know it, then you can start to ask your
state legislators to pass better laws. You can work with
your county elections officials. We tend to take for granted
these things just kind of move and we think about
it every two years or four years. Do you be
(18:52):
involved now? And in particular, we need young people to
sign up to be election workers to work the polls.
The average poll worker is around mid sixties. They are
very susceptible to COVID and so a lot of states
are going to see their polling places shut down if
we can't get more young people to sign up to
be poll workers. It's a paid gig, and so it's
(19:14):
worth it because you can be part of the way
we stop the closure polling places, which blocks hundreds of
thousands of people from being able to cast their ballots.
And then the last thing is you can run for
office yourself. You don't have to wait. The best people
to make the choices for you are the people who
understand your life, understand your challenges, and particularly for young people,
(19:35):
being in the arena sometimes seems a bit corrupt, but
I will tell you it only gets better when good
people get in the arena. It only gets better when
young people's voices aren't yelling from the outside, but are
yelling from the outside and answered from the inside. And
so those are some of the ways you can really
tackle this challenge. Those are great tactical tips on how
(19:56):
we as individuals can get involved and do something and
feel like we're move going forward. I'd also love to
hear what are the best ways to motivate our friends
to vote. I feel like in recent years the fomo
of social media has created definitely helps, but it can
be easy to also not vote out of maybe the
hassle of getting to the polls. I think it's important
(20:16):
to first acknowledge the limits of voting. Part of what
happens is we build this notion that voting is a
solution to all problems. It's not, but it is the
only solution we have in a democracy that actually can
guarantee progress and change. Protests is how we declare what
we need. But the reason you protest is you're trying
to put pressure on those who are making decisions to
(20:39):
make better decisions. Well, the other pressure point is voting
them in or voting them out. And so I began
conversations about voting not by saying you should do it
because it's your moral duty. You should do it because
it's patriotic. You should do it because if you don't,
they're going to continue to screw you over. Voting is
how we get the things we need, and silence guarantees
that no one's going to hear it. And so when
(21:01):
you're silent and you don't vote, that gives the people
in power permission to ignore you. Voting doesn't guarantee that
they'll hear you, but it gets you much closer, and
it guarantees that they have to pay attention. I also
try to connect the dots. We tend to think about
voting on this sort of macro level, but we need
to think about the fact that if you care about
environmental action. It's a question of does your county zone
(21:25):
to allow power plants and contaminating places to go into
poor communities. That's something you can change by voting on
the county level. If you're concerned about criminal justice issues,
if you vote for the district attorney who says I'm
gonna put everyone in prison versus the district attorney who
says I'm going to use my power to allow first
offenders to get help instead of going to jail, then
(21:48):
vote for the district attorney. You think the sentencing disparities
between black and brown and white offenders is too much,
vote on judges, and so it's making sure we start
to connect the dots, especially for your age group, connect
the dots between the issues that matter and the change
you want. The linkage is voting, and so one be honest,
(22:08):
to be specific, and then three make a plan. Telling
people they need to vote is irrelevant if you haven't
walked them through or they haven't figured out how to
do it. Vote dot org is an amazing website as
well as all in for voting not comm You can
go to one of those two websites and you can
actually figure out what your opportunities to vote are as
(22:28):
young people, depending on where you live. To your point
Hannah about how hard it can be, it's hard because
we're often trying to figure it out on the fly.
But if we use these resources, I encourage everyone make
a plan to vote. I've made a plan for June.
I got my absentee ballot, filled it out, did my research,
and then the envelope was sealed shut, so I was
(22:51):
legally not permitted to return my absentee vallot. But I
had a plan, so I knew I could go and
vote in person, and that was a critical thing because
otherwise I could have been stymied and they could have
ignored my voice. Vote early, So make a plan and
vote early, and that helps more people actually get through
the process. But to your point about social media, it's
(23:12):
also sharing your plan to use fomo. It's about talking
about here's my plan to vote, what's your plan to vote?
And it may seem, you know, cheesy, but it is
a critical way to create the change. And if there
has ever been a year where we know it matters
who's in charge, this is that year. What you said
about silence also was really powerful because in college I've
(23:32):
been able to learn so much from people by starting
these conversations. I think in my experience in college, though,
conversations about politics can get very passionate and sometimes divisive,
which I don't think it should be. Like you mentioned,
but what tips do you have for people who want
to discuss the upcoming elections but don't know how to
talk about it with friends who may not be politically
(23:55):
aligned with them. One is that I don't believe conversation
is a place for conversion. Often we go into these
conversations trying to make the other person agree with us.
That's not the point. The point is to learn. My
job as minority leader, I was the Democratic leader in
the House of Representatives for seven years. There was not
(24:15):
a single year where I had enough people to get
anything done on my own. Everything I did required that
I work with people who were diametrically opposed to me
on most ideological issues. And I used to say that,
you know, being minority leader was Latin for losing well,
but here's what I learned. Part of my job wasn't
to try to convince them that they agreed with me
(24:36):
about the fundamental underlying belief systems that we held. We didn't,
but I could convince them to work with me on
the things we did think mattered, and so I you know,
one of my favorite examples is that I worked with
the Tea Party on environmental issues. And the way we
did it was I believe that climate change is real.
They believe property values are real, and so we were
(24:57):
able to work together to block legislation that would have
created harm to the environment because it would have cost
them money and I thought it would cost us lives.
We didn't have to agree on the reason, to agree
on the way. And that's what we have to do
in these conversations. If you go into a conversation about
politics trying to convince someone one that they're wrong and
(25:17):
more importantly too, that you're right, you're going to lose.
But if you go in trying to learn what they
believe and why they believe it, then you create common
space to figure out where do you agree. And you
can agree to agree on things, and you can agree
to disagree on other things, but the most important things
that you're having the conversation and you're enlarging your understanding
(25:37):
of who they are and what they see as the future. HM.
That's so good, And I know for many college students
and more generally Americans, they can struggle with backlash in
their home lives if they are looking to vote for
someone that maybe their loved ones opposed. Do you have
any advice or how people can navigate that tension of
wanting to vote or share their opinions but not upset
(26:00):
their loved ones. So there's a great show. I love television.
It makes me incredibly happy. There is this fantastic episode
of One Day at a Time from this fourth season.
It's an animated episode, so I think it's the last
episode they did where Linman while Miranda is one of
the voices on the episode, and it's this fantastic navigation
(26:21):
of exactly that issue. How do you talk to your
family when you may not share common belief and the
reality is not believing the same things politically does not
make that person a bad person. And it doesn't mean
that you can't engage, but you have to engage in
a way that respects their right to be wrong in
(26:41):
your opinion, but it also is an important way to
understand what motivates them. My, my siblings and I we
all luckily agreed, but I have cousins who do not
agree with me. On some political issues. I don't dismiss
our family connection because we don't share the same political
connect Shi. I learned very quickly which ones we can
(27:03):
talk about and who I can talk to, And sometimes
you just have to talk about the weather because sometimes
you know, you know, silence again, it may be the
better part of valor in that instance, because it's not
about making them so angry that you can't love one another.
It's about creating the space that if you need to
create change, you can. As we start to rub up,
(27:25):
we wanted to ask for those that say my vote
doesn't mean anything, or my vote won't make a difference,
what do you have to say to them? Every vote matters.
If it didn't matter, they wouldn't be working so hard
to stop you from being heard. But here's how to
think about it. We're tackling diseases in our country, the
disease of racism, the disease of COVID, the disease of
(27:47):
economic inequity, the disease that is ravaging our environment. We
have so many of these diseases, and voting is not
a magic pill. It's chemotherapy. It is a regiment and
it works not because you do it once and you
say I'm done. It works because you do it again
and again and again. I think about it. If you
(28:09):
play a sport, or if you're involved in any kind
of competitive activity, you don't do it once and think
I'm great. You have to do it again and again
and again to get better and better and to see
the change you need. And the same thing is true
with voting. We have to stop lying about voting being
some magic pill. It's not. It's it's a treatment, and
(28:30):
it's the treatment to the injustice. It's a treatment to
the challenges. But that means we've got to keep taking it,
keep taking that vote, keep taking those pills. And we've
got to do the other things. And the doctor tells
us to do that. We don't want to like participating
after the election. We've got to do the things that
we find the fun part, like protesting, but we've also
got to do the really wonky, annoying part of going
(28:51):
into that voting booth, of doing our research, of understanding.
And if we start to treat it as a process
rather than an event, then we under stand that voting works.
Because when voting is a process, things get better. And
here's the last thing, I'll say I know it gets
better because my great great grandparents were slaves, my great
grandparents were share coppers, my grandparents were cooks, my parents
(29:16):
were working for and I got to be the first
black woman in American history to stand for governor. I
got damned close. Excuse my language. The reality is progress
gets made. It is hard, it is mean, there are setbacks,
but progress does happen. And because progress happens, I'm not
going to stop fighting and I'm not going to stop
voting because I'm going to get it done. I have
(29:38):
chills right now. Wow. Thank you so much for being
on the show and informing all of us not only
of how to get our voices heard, but also why
every voice matters and for listeners. Be sure to follow
Stacy Abrams on Instagram at Stacy Abrams and check out
her new film All in the Fight for Democracy on
Amazon Prime Video. Thank you again, Thank you guys, thank congratulations,
(30:01):
and best of luck. So, Katie, what was your takeaway
from that amazing interview? Stacy Abrams is a role model.
I feel like as a student, it's easy for me
to just shy away from issues that are controversial, to
change the topic when things get heated and seem very divisive,
but Stacy reminds me that there are ways to navigate
(30:21):
these conversations with grace, to respond with the composure that
can encourage more productive discussions about issues we care about.
It's why we brought them up in the first place, right,
so we just have to remember to treat it like
a discussion, not a debate. That's might takeaway what about you, Hannah.
That's so good and I learned a lot from this episode.
(30:42):
One thing Stacy stated that was so true is that
we think our voice only matters on the big scale
a k a. The presidential election. However, our voice matters
and it is sometimes better heard at the lower levels.
It's our duty not to just stay informed on Trump
and Biden's agendas, but to be informed on how our
local mayors, governors, and legislators are hurting or helping our community,
(31:04):
because in the counties and in the cities that we
live in, we are directly affected by those decisions, and
so it makes sense for us to also want to
be informed and have a say at the local level. Yes, well,
we hope this inspired you listeners to go out and vote.
Figure out what you gotta do and we are your hosts.
Katie you can find me at a Loha kyd X
on Instagram. And I'm Hannah you can find me at
(31:26):
Miss Hannah Ashton on Instagram. The Secret Syllabus was created
by The Female Quotion in partnership with I Heart Media
and co produced by The Female Quotion and Wonder Media Network.
The Female Quotion is committed to advancing equality and elevating
woman from college campuses for the corner office. You can
find out more at www dot The Female Quotion dot com.
(31:48):
See you after class.
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