Covid’s disruptions have highlighted how interdependent we are, as well as the fragility of all systems supporting us, including our earth’s ecosystems. I now understand more deeply the critical role government plays in the progress or decline we make as human beings. In my 57 years of voting, I confess I sometimes left the voting booth wondering if I made the right choices. Now, in our electronic age, I’ve learned how to access candidate websites, League of Women Voter sites and their questions put to candidates, and candidate responses, or lack there of. And I attend Zoom meetings where priorities for fairness and the common good are shared.
I directly benefitted from Martin Luther King’s non-violent struggle for fairness, which eventually gave us the Civil Rights Act that allowed me employment advancement as a woman, to earn a living wage, and support my three children after my husband died in 1975. This is why the gerrymandered maps from the 2010 census data are so abhorrent to me as Wisconsin districts were mapped to circumvent voters who might oppose self-serving agendas. Where Wisconsin county boards allowed ballot referendums calling for fair maps to be drawn based on 2020 census data, a majority of voters asked for a fair maps process. A majority of Ozaukee County Board members denied a Fair Maps ballot referendum opportunity.
And it’s also time our education systems tell the truth of the cruel policies and treatment of Native Americans and Blacks in our country’s founding and beyond. We cannot learn from past horrors inflicted if they are whitewashed. A high-ranking Pentagon official, when asked what he thinks is the most important criteria for peace said, a high quality public education of our youth is the way to peace.
We are all flawed, but I am learning to develop empathy and compassion, not only toward myself but also for those with no empathy and compassion for the needs of others. You can make a difference, too. Vow to become educated on the issues and candidates in all-upcoming elections.