October 12, 2020 • 14 mins
If you want to change, preserve, or build a better America, there’s one easy way to make your voice heard: Vote. This year, iHeartRadio is teaming up with over 20 incredible celebrities (plus a handful of our most popular podcasters) to get the country excited to go vote, broadcasting the personal, emotional and heartfelt stories behind why showing up to the ballot box means so much-- not just as individuals, but for our entire nation.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Why I'm Voting, a production of I Heart Radio. Listen.
You already know this, but it's an election year. You
might already be tired of hearing about it. But here's
the thing. Democracy doesn't work without you. I'm Holly Frying,
and I'm sitting down with many of my fellow podcasters,
from Will Ferrell to Stephanie Rule, as well as other luminaries,
(00:27):
to find out about their relationships with the ballot box
and ultimately just to find out why they vote. I
hope you're exercising your right to vote, and if you're not,
I hope that their stories inspire you. Hello, and welcome
to Why I'm Voting. Today is a delight for me
(00:49):
because I have the honor of having Alicia Garza on
the show. The principle at the Black Futures Lab and
co founder of Black Lives Matter. She is the Strategy
and Partnership director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and
she has a book coming out this October, The Purpose
of Power, How We Come Together When We Fall Apart.
She is also the host of Lady Don't Take No Podcast,
(01:13):
and I just can't imagine how she gets all of
this done. Alicia, thank you so much for joining me.
Thanks so much for having me. You are an activist
sort of through and through. It seems like it's in
your blood. So I wonder if you realized at what
point that voting was something that gave you an active
voice in democracy and that you were going to get
to do it. Well, I'm not sure it totally worked
(01:36):
out that way. You know. I think like many black voters,
especially of my generation, you know, we were told that
voting was a right that people fought and died for,
and so you had to vote if you wanted to
have a voice in what's going on in your everyday life.
But mostly the messages I got, frankly, were that I
(01:59):
needed to vote because my ancestors died for the right
for me to do so. It wasn't until I got
really involved in organizing, and you know, years into it,
that I started to realize how voting can actually be
a marker for how strong our organizing work has been.
(02:20):
And so that is how I look at voting now.
But I'll be honest with you, it took a while
until I got there. No shame in that. So does
that mean that you did register right away when you
were a team, getting the message constantly that you had
to do it to honor your ancestors, or did you wait,
I did, I've I've registered right when I turned eighteen.
(02:40):
It's kind of one of those rights of passages. Right
you turn eighteen, you can register to vote, and there's
a whole bunch of other things you're able to do
because you're technically an adult. So I think I went
through the motions of it without fully understanding the significance
of it until way later. Do you remember the first
time you voted and what that felt. I don't remember
(03:01):
who it was for, but I remember being fully confused,
and I remember saying to myself, like, I don't think
they taught us this in high school, which is like
how to vote, right, Like I was always told that
we needed to vote, that when you turned eighteen, you
got to vote, like it was a big privilege, But
I never remember an actual lesson on like here's what
(03:23):
a ballot looks like, here's what's at the top of
the ballot, here's what's at the in between, and here's
what those things mean. And I think probably other people
are in the same boat as me. So when you
did get it, like, what was the thing that kind
of turned that light on about how important it was.
You know, being in California, we have propositions where people
(03:47):
who are organized can get something put on the ballot
for the voters in California to decide. And so, you know,
the way that I started to understand how organizing could
impact voting was really through proposition fights. And you know,
I came up at a time when there were two
(04:09):
very big propositions that passed in the state of California.
One was Proposition which really was geared around access to
public services for immigrants, and it restricted it was restricting access.
The other one was Proposition Too oh nine, which effectively
eliminated affirmative action in California. So, you know, I started
(04:35):
actually seeing the connection because we started organizing around propositions
that had passed that were detrimental to our communities. So
I would imagine that this is something because of your
action and the work that you do in the community.
Local elections are probably a big deal for you as
well as the bigger presidential ones certainly, and I know
(04:59):
you mentioned of propositions in California and the California ballots.
Too many people that live outside of it seemed very
confusing because of all of this, But I wonder what
your prep work is like to get the information you
need for those local elections to make sure everyone understands
those propositions and what the wording actually means. Like, what
(05:19):
is all of that prep work like when it's not
a case where it's like a big presidential election where
you're getting constant media coverage. Well, I think you know,
for me, the prep has looked like um looking to
organizations that try to make voting easy, because voting is necessary.
So whenever I'm confused, I look to some of the
organizations locally and statewide that I'm familiar with, who I
(05:44):
know just work to make sure that voters are informed
and sometimes they take positions on certain issues to help
voters better understand what's at stake with their votes. And
so some of those organizations include San Francisco Rise, which
is an organization that really works to build grassroots power
(06:06):
in San Francisco and beyond, and they put out voter
guides every election cycle where it's really simply broken down.
And so if there's something that I'm like, wait, what
does this person even do? And how do I tell
the difference between this person and the other person. That's
a place where I can go. Other formations include Bay Rising,
(06:29):
which is like a regional version of San Francisco Rising.
And then there's a very local organization called Oakland Rising,
which has put out voter guides and done voter education
for at least the last ten years now. So anytime
I'm confused about what's going on and how i can
use the power of my vote to impact what's happening
(06:50):
in my community, those are resources that I definitely go to.
There is this unfortunate feeling I think that happens particularly
with young voters, where they think that the results of
an election, particularly like in their state, are kind of
a foregone conclusion. They're like, well, I'm in a blue
state or I'm in a red state. I already know
how it's going to go, so I can just stay
(07:11):
home or go to work and not try to get
time off that day. What are your thoughts on making
sure that people get to elections even if they think
they know it's a lock. I think what we've seen,
especially in the last election cycle, is that nothing is
a lock. I mean, people were a hundred percent sure that,
(07:31):
for example, in the last presidential election that Hillary Clinton
was going to sweep, and that didn't actually happen. In fact,
it was quite the opposite. So I would say voting,
especially if you're voting by mail or absentee, it's really like,
take thirty minutes to an hour and just know that
(07:52):
you made your voice heard, and don't assume that it's
a lock, because there are a lot of people who
are thinking just like you, Oh well, I think it's
already going to be taken care of, so mine won't matter.
And so many of our elections, especially at the local level,
come down to a few hundred votes that every single
vote does actually matter. So obviously we are in strange times,
(08:16):
and the nature of how people vote is something that
is constantly discussed at the moment. But if this were
not a pandemic year, when we're worried about what's going
to happen with the mail service, would you normally be
a mail in voter, an early voter, or do you
like to go day of I am a mail in
voter since I was in college. I do not like
to navigate lines. I don't like to feel rushed when
(08:41):
I'm voting. I like to take my time and so,
and because I'm somebody who's at least before the pandemic
was constantly on the road, it just was not always
possible for me to get to a precinct. So I
think it really depends on what your life is like.
But in this moment, it feels really important to say
(09:02):
to everybody who is planning to vote, and even people
who are not sure if they're going to. If and
when you vote, make sure that you give yourself enough
time to get your vote counted. As a somebody who
also has a procrastination issue, I can tell you I
have been known to be like rushing to the ballot
drop box at the very last minutes and because I
(09:26):
didn't get my two weeks in advance to make sure
that my ballot got there and got counted. So honestly,
I would say, really make a voting plan for yourself,
and make it with your friends too. Sometimes knowing that
a group of you are going to do something all
at one time helps you pre plan for how to
make it happen perfection. Because you are theoretically a mail
(09:48):
in voter, not I'm going to presume, not always procrastinating.
That means that election day is probably a day where
it's literally about the returns for you. So what do
you do on that day? Do you watch all day
long as the results come in? Or do you stay
away from it? Do you have a lucky outfit? Like?
How does voting day play out for you? Well, look,
(10:10):
I'll be honest here. Unless there's something that I really
care about on the ballot, it's rare that I'll be
plugged in all day. The last few election cycles, I
have been plugged in all day because there's been a
lot of things that I've cared about, including who's taking
it at the top of the ticket, all the way
down to ballot measures in my community that would fund
(10:32):
more affordable housing or that would make sure that we
have clean water like those things I care about too.
So my favorite thing to do on voting day is
to make sure I have my sticker. I love the
feeling of wearing that sticker around all day and knowing
that I actually participated in the decisions that impact my
life every day. I imagine that it also motivates other
(10:54):
voters who weren't totally sure if they were going to
do it, that they just go and handle it. I
tend to not like the rigamarole of like the predictions
of what's gonna win. So I actually have more of
an early morning day after the elections ritual where I
get up so that I can see the returns and
(11:16):
see what races have already been called. And I love
doing that, like it's a weird numbers thing for me.
But the predictions thing is always really strange to me
because I can't always tell what the predictions are based
on and all of that stuff. I love it, alright.
So the final question is one to help inspire and
motivate our listeners. Anybody who's maybe not sure that they
(11:39):
are really feeling it. But if you had, you know,
just one opportunity to tell someone one thing in the
hopes of getting them out there and using their right
to vote, what would it be. Okay, I've thought about
this a lot. I think about this every day. So
I would just say, if you're somebody who isn't using
(12:01):
your right to vote, and you're not using it because
you don't think that it matters or you think that
you know politics is corrupt, I just want to say
to you it totally is. It totally is. And a
lot of people will tell you to you know, look
past it or look over it. And I just want
(12:21):
to say that part of why I vote is because
I know that every space that I leave, my opposition
takes that space and uses it for nefarious purposes. And
so it's really about making sure for me that I
(12:42):
don't seed space that people didn't earn. And so I
think it's possible for us to hold the tension of
not being satisfied with the way that politics is operating.
But what I know is that when I'm not satisfied
with the thing me sit out of, it doesn't do
anything to change it. So if you're somebody who feels
(13:04):
like your vote doesn't matter, I'm going to tell you
it does. It matters for some things, it doesn't matter
for other things. But at this moment in time, your
vote literally can help determine whether we march full steam
into an authoritarian government or whether we try and scraped
(13:26):
together what's left of our democracy that has been shredded
intentionally by a very powerful movement over the last thirty years.
So if you want to see these kinds of big
picture changes, it does matter who the coalition is that
is making decisions on our behalf. And for now, you
actually get to weigh in on who it is that
(13:48):
you want to do that. You also get to weigh
in on a local level around how money is distributed.
And that is a very direct connection that I feel deeply,
much more so often than I feel with the presidential elections.
So all I'm saying is, Annie, scraps of food you
leave on the table, somebody else is gonna come and eat,
(14:09):
Get out there and hold your space. You got it
straight from Alicia Garza. Hey, are you not registered to
vote yet? But you think it's something you want to do.
You may still have time. Voter registration deadlines vary by state,
so to find out the scoop for where you are,
check out a nonpartisan registration voting site like head count
(14:31):
dot org or fair vote dot org. Why I'm Voting
is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever it is you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Why I'm Voting, a production of I Heart Radio. Listen.
You already know this, but it's an election year. You
might already be tired of hearing about it. But here's
the thing. Democracy doesn't work without you. I'm Holly Frying,
and I'm sitting down with many of my fellow podcasters,
from Will Ferrell to Stephanie Rule, as well as other luminaries,
(00:27):
to find out about their relationships with the ballot box
and ultimately just to find out why they vote. I
hope you're exercising your right to vote, and if you're not,
I hope that their stories inspire you. Hello, and welcome
to Why I'm Voting. Today is a delight for me
(00:49):
because I have the honor of having Alicia Garza on
the show. The principle at the Black Futures Lab and
co founder of Black Lives Matter. She is the Strategy
and Partnership director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and
she has a book coming out this October, The Purpose
of Power, How We Come Together When We Fall Apart.
She is also the host of Lady Don't Take No Podcast,
(01:13):
and I just can't imagine how she gets all of
this done. Alicia, thank you so much for joining me.
Thanks so much for having me. You are an activist
sort of through and through. It seems like it's in
your blood. So I wonder if you realized at what
point that voting was something that gave you an active
voice in democracy and that you were going to get
to do it. Well, I'm not sure it totally worked
(01:36):
out that way. You know. I think like many black voters,
especially of my generation, you know, we were told that
voting was a right that people fought and died for,
and so you had to vote if you wanted to
have a voice in what's going on in your everyday life.
But mostly the messages I got, frankly, were that I
(01:59):
needed to vote because my ancestors died for the right
for me to do so. It wasn't until I got
really involved in organizing, and you know, years into it,
that I started to realize how voting can actually be
a marker for how strong our organizing work has been.
(02:20):
And so that is how I look at voting now.
But I'll be honest with you, it took a while
until I got there. No shame in that. So does
that mean that you did register right away when you
were a team, getting the message constantly that you had
to do it to honor your ancestors, or did you wait,
I did, I've I've registered right when I turned eighteen.
(02:40):
It's kind of one of those rights of passages. Right
you turn eighteen, you can register to vote, and there's
a whole bunch of other things you're able to do
because you're technically an adult. So I think I went
through the motions of it without fully understanding the significance
of it until way later. Do you remember the first
time you voted and what that felt. I don't remember
(03:01):
who it was for, but I remember being fully confused,
and I remember saying to myself, like, I don't think
they taught us this in high school, which is like
how to vote, right, Like I was always told that
we needed to vote, that when you turned eighteen, you
got to vote, like it was a big privilege, But
I never remember an actual lesson on like here's what
(03:23):
a ballot looks like, here's what's at the top of
the ballot, here's what's at the in between, and here's
what those things mean. And I think probably other people
are in the same boat as me. So when you
did get it, like, what was the thing that kind
of turned that light on about how important it was.
You know, being in California, we have propositions where people
(03:47):
who are organized can get something put on the ballot
for the voters in California to decide. And so, you know,
the way that I started to understand how organizing could
impact voting was really through proposition fights. And you know,
I came up at a time when there were two
(04:09):
very big propositions that passed in the state of California.
One was Proposition which really was geared around access to
public services for immigrants, and it restricted it was restricting access.
The other one was Proposition Too oh nine, which effectively
eliminated affirmative action in California. So, you know, I started
(04:35):
actually seeing the connection because we started organizing around propositions
that had passed that were detrimental to our communities. So
I would imagine that this is something because of your
action and the work that you do in the community.
Local elections are probably a big deal for you as
well as the bigger presidential ones certainly, and I know
(04:59):
you mentioned of propositions in California and the California ballots.
Too many people that live outside of it seemed very
confusing because of all of this, But I wonder what
your prep work is like to get the information you
need for those local elections to make sure everyone understands
those propositions and what the wording actually means. Like, what
(05:19):
is all of that prep work like when it's not
a case where it's like a big presidential election where
you're getting constant media coverage. Well, I think you know,
for me, the prep has looked like um looking to
organizations that try to make voting easy, because voting is necessary.
So whenever I'm confused, I look to some of the
organizations locally and statewide that I'm familiar with, who I
(05:44):
know just work to make sure that voters are informed
and sometimes they take positions on certain issues to help
voters better understand what's at stake with their votes. And
so some of those organizations include San Francisco Rise, which
is an organization that really works to build grassroots power
(06:06):
in San Francisco and beyond, and they put out voter
guides every election cycle where it's really simply broken down.
And so if there's something that I'm like, wait, what
does this person even do? And how do I tell
the difference between this person and the other person. That's
a place where I can go. Other formations include Bay Rising,
(06:29):
which is like a regional version of San Francisco Rising.
And then there's a very local organization called Oakland Rising,
which has put out voter guides and done voter education
for at least the last ten years now. So anytime
I'm confused about what's going on and how i can
use the power of my vote to impact what's happening
(06:50):
in my community, those are resources that I definitely go to.
There is this unfortunate feeling I think that happens particularly
with young voters, where they think that the results of
an election, particularly like in their state, are kind of
a foregone conclusion. They're like, well, I'm in a blue
state or I'm in a red state. I already know
how it's going to go, so I can just stay
(07:11):
home or go to work and not try to get
time off that day. What are your thoughts on making
sure that people get to elections even if they think
they know it's a lock. I think what we've seen,
especially in the last election cycle, is that nothing is
a lock. I mean, people were a hundred percent sure that,
(07:31):
for example, in the last presidential election that Hillary Clinton
was going to sweep, and that didn't actually happen. In fact,
it was quite the opposite. So I would say voting,
especially if you're voting by mail or absentee, it's really like,
take thirty minutes to an hour and just know that
(07:52):
you made your voice heard, and don't assume that it's
a lock, because there are a lot of people who
are thinking just like you, Oh well, I think it's
already going to be taken care of, so mine won't matter.
And so many of our elections, especially at the local level,
come down to a few hundred votes that every single
vote does actually matter. So obviously we are in strange times,
(08:16):
and the nature of how people vote is something that
is constantly discussed at the moment. But if this were
not a pandemic year, when we're worried about what's going
to happen with the mail service, would you normally be
a mail in voter, an early voter, or do you
like to go day of I am a mail in
voter since I was in college. I do not like
to navigate lines. I don't like to feel rushed when
(08:41):
I'm voting. I like to take my time and so,
and because I'm somebody who's at least before the pandemic
was constantly on the road, it just was not always
possible for me to get to a precinct. So I
think it really depends on what your life is like.
But in this moment, it feels really important to say
(09:02):
to everybody who is planning to vote, and even people
who are not sure if they're going to. If and
when you vote, make sure that you give yourself enough
time to get your vote counted. As a somebody who
also has a procrastination issue, I can tell you I
have been known to be like rushing to the ballot
drop box at the very last minutes and because I
(09:26):
didn't get my two weeks in advance to make sure
that my ballot got there and got counted. So honestly,
I would say, really make a voting plan for yourself,
and make it with your friends too. Sometimes knowing that
a group of you are going to do something all
at one time helps you pre plan for how to
make it happen perfection. Because you are theoretically a mail
(09:48):
in voter, not I'm going to presume, not always procrastinating.
That means that election day is probably a day where
it's literally about the returns for you. So what do
you do on that day? Do you watch all day
long as the results come in? Or do you stay
away from it? Do you have a lucky outfit? Like?
How does voting day play out for you? Well, look,
(10:10):
I'll be honest here. Unless there's something that I really
care about on the ballot, it's rare that I'll be
plugged in all day. The last few election cycles, I
have been plugged in all day because there's been a
lot of things that I've cared about, including who's taking
it at the top of the ticket, all the way
down to ballot measures in my community that would fund
(10:32):
more affordable housing or that would make sure that we
have clean water like those things I care about too.
So my favorite thing to do on voting day is
to make sure I have my sticker. I love the
feeling of wearing that sticker around all day and knowing
that I actually participated in the decisions that impact my
life every day. I imagine that it also motivates other
(10:54):
voters who weren't totally sure if they were going to
do it, that they just go and handle it. I
tend to not like the rigamarole of like the predictions
of what's gonna win. So I actually have more of
an early morning day after the elections ritual where I
get up so that I can see the returns and
(11:16):
see what races have already been called. And I love
doing that, like it's a weird numbers thing for me.
But the predictions thing is always really strange to me
because I can't always tell what the predictions are based
on and all of that stuff. I love it, alright.
So the final question is one to help inspire and
motivate our listeners. Anybody who's maybe not sure that they
(11:39):
are really feeling it. But if you had, you know,
just one opportunity to tell someone one thing in the
hopes of getting them out there and using their right
to vote, what would it be. Okay, I've thought about
this a lot. I think about this every day. So
I would just say, if you're somebody who isn't using
(12:01):
your right to vote, and you're not using it because
you don't think that it matters or you think that
you know politics is corrupt, I just want to say
to you it totally is. It totally is. And a
lot of people will tell you to you know, look
past it or look over it. And I just want
(12:21):
to say that part of why I vote is because
I know that every space that I leave, my opposition
takes that space and uses it for nefarious purposes. And
so it's really about making sure for me that I
(12:42):
don't seed space that people didn't earn. And so I
think it's possible for us to hold the tension of
not being satisfied with the way that politics is operating.
But what I know is that when I'm not satisfied
with the thing me sit out of, it doesn't do
anything to change it. So if you're somebody who feels
(13:04):
like your vote doesn't matter, I'm going to tell you
it does. It matters for some things, it doesn't matter
for other things. But at this moment in time, your
vote literally can help determine whether we march full steam
into an authoritarian government or whether we try and scraped
(13:26):
together what's left of our democracy that has been shredded
intentionally by a very powerful movement over the last thirty years.
So if you want to see these kinds of big
picture changes, it does matter who the coalition is that
is making decisions on our behalf. And for now, you
actually get to weigh in on who it is that
(13:48):
you want to do that. You also get to weigh
in on a local level around how money is distributed.
And that is a very direct connection that I feel deeply,
much more so often than I feel with the presidential elections.
So all I'm saying is, Annie, scraps of food you
leave on the table, somebody else is gonna come and eat,
(14:09):
Get out there and hold your space. You got it
straight from Alicia Garza. Hey, are you not registered to
vote yet? But you think it's something you want to do.
You may still have time. Voter registration deadlines vary by state,
so to find out the scoop for where you are,
check out a nonpartisan registration voting site like head count
(14:31):
dot org or fair vote dot org. Why I'm Voting
is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever it is you listen to your favorite shows.
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