Voting is your Voice! ...Huh?

In the time leading up to February 5th, the famed day of the California primary elections for presidential candidates. Being a current university student, there were a few groups trying to get people to vote, as well as people campaigning for their choice of candidate. As soon as I would near the center of campus where many of these groups were campaigning, I was already thinking of how I would respond to potential conversations I might have with these people. Earlier on I tried to have a conversation with someone who was campaigning for Ron Paul about how my relationship to the U.S. as an empire is one that makes me want to not take part in the U.S. as an empire. The guy simply did not understand me. Hell, I'm sure the long sentence I just wrote was hard to understand. But the central question that I wish people would take into consideration is, why is it that (white) people do not seem to understand that not voting is a form of voice during election times?

I included "white" in parenthesis because the question pretty much applies to white people, but there are plenty folks of all colors who take this assumption into mind. It's more or less "in the culture" or the United States to assume that voting is somehow THE form of exercising voice. At the very least, that was the impression I got when a white woman from the VOTE campaign, a non-partisan (which is only "neutral" upon party lines) asked me if I am registered to vote (Yes), and if I am registered with a political party (Democrat). "Are you voting today? (Feb 5th)" "No." Yet when she asked me why I was not planning to vote.... I was speechless. I couldn't think of how I could possibly begin to explain that I have not yet come to terms with how the U.S. does not remotely represent my best interests, because I am interested in the right to live outside the realm of surviving for all peoples. I was speechless. I didn't know what to say because as I stood there thinking about how I could start articulating myself to her, she would say things like "You should!", "This is important! You're deciding who's going to be the next PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES."

"I....'m just not."

I walked away feeling defeated. I saw my partner. And as I was walking with her, away from the campus center, I told her about how I could not explain myself. I explained my frustration and the sheer distance in thought and feeling that I felt between me and the white woman who asked me about my vote. I decided that come next election, I would be much more prepared to tell someone why I am not voting. That's not to say I am going to be all about practicing lines to say to people come... November is it?... but I will be ready. Because silence is not consent.

And if you may be wondering what exactly ARE my thoughts and feelings on voting... that is for another post.