A Quick Check-in Since the World is Still Awful

31 Aug 2020

Hey y’all,

First things first – how y’all doing? I know the world has been pretty shitty lately. I hope your world has not been all bad. I’ve been fortunate enough to have some good things happen in my life that have mitigated all the awful going around outside me. I hope that’s true for you too.

So, like I said, the world is still pretty shitty. Coronavirus deaths have been as high as 1,000 a day earlier this month. Our black brothers and sisters continue to be killed by police, and peaceful protesters continue to be killed by armed extremists. It’s been pretty death-scenes-as-usual on my blog, but I thought I’d take a few moments out to recommend some anti-racism resources and let you know where my headspace is.

Black Lives Matter. On top of that, between foreign interference in our elections, gerrymandering, efforts to disenfranchise (mainly minority) voters, and the disturbing efforts to introduce delays in the postal service, democracy hangs in the balance. If you believe both those things – that black lives matter, and that democracy hangs in the balance, I would like to recommend donating to the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. Florida citizens voted to return the franchise to former prison inmates who had served their sentences, but the Florida governor and legislature added a restriction, preventing voting rights from being restored until all fines and fees have been paid. These fines and fees can be incredibly steep, and returning citizens don’t tend to have a lot of resources. Since the abolition of slavery, when slave labor was disallowed except for incarcerated individuals, and continuing on into the civil rights area, when black citizens were allowed to vote except for incarcerated and (in many states) formerly incarcerated individuals, prison has been used to deny rights to blacks, and overpolicing of blacks has been a way for whites to keep blacks in line. Our past is racist, and frankly, so is our present. It’s on us to be anti-racist. A donation to the FRRC is a great way to do that.

Continuing on the anti-racism front, I recently finished audiobooks for White Fragility and So You Want to Talk About Race. Both are excellent, and I highly recommend them as a way to educate yourself and give yourself some perspective. I’ve also been reading some fiction by black authors – The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which was quite good, and a graphic novel version of Kindred by Octavia Butler, which completely blew me away.

Continuing on the voting rights front, make sure you’re ready to vote!

1. If you’re voting by mail, make sure you request your absentee ballot early. If you’re in Idaho like me, you can do that at idahovotes.gov. You can register there, too. Idaho is a same-day voter registration state, but that only works in person. If you want to use mail-in voter registration, you’ll need to make sure to do that a minimum of 25 days before the election, and I recommend much earlier. Outside of Idaho, you can use vote.org to check your registration, figure out how to request an absentee ballot, and find your state’s rules for voting absentee.

2. If you’re voting by mail, make sure you sign! Usually that’s on the envelope, separate from your ballot.

3. If you’re voting in person, consider voting early. There’s rarely a line, and if you run into a snag, it’s way better finding out early than on Election Day, when it could be too late to remedy anything. Some polling places are likely to be crowded on Election Day, and there’s the possibility that some normal polling places might be closed if not enough poll workers can be wrangled to open them.

4. Consider volunteering to be a poll worker. This is important, nonpartisan work that is often done by elderly people who are at risk for COVID and therefore shouldn’t be around the kind of crowds they typically see on Election Day. If you’re not at risk, volunteering to do this could be a great way to help out.

5. Consider volunteering to help your favorite campaign. I know it sounds scary, but I’ve done it a few times before, and I promise you, it’s not that bad.

That’s all for now. No death scene today – there’s still more than enough death happening in the real world – but I’ll get back to the fictional deaths. In the meantime, enjoy your quarantine, and do something nice for yourself and others.