September 17th, 2024
by Tevin McDaniel, FLM Community Building Coordinator
We are now less than 2 months from Election Day, and with all of the nonsense that is being spewed out by politicians everywhere, I wanted to take a little time to talk about the importance of not just voting, but civic engagement. Every 4 years, it feels like we go through this same cycle of “the world is ending,” “we need something new,” and the same complaints about what presidents are and aren’t doing. In actuality, the president has very little to do with the folks' day-to-day lives. And that’s not to say that the President isn’t an “important” position, but rather we have lost our direction of what our civic duty and responsibility really is. Civic engagement is more than just voting every 4 years, it is a dedication to your community and ensuring that your City Councilors, County Commissioners, Mayors, Representatives, and Senators are representing you in your cities. That those policies and decisions are the ones that your community wants and are advocating for, rather than folks who don’t represent the majority of your community. Civic engagement is about the constant education and willingness to learn about what issues are actually daunting for your community, what opportunities are available to make for better living, and how we can build relationships with the people around us so that we can have empathy and see others' experiences.
At FLM, we talk continuously about Dreaming Radically and what it means to envision a world that you want to live in and go get it; civic engagement is the space for that–to picture equity in your neighborhoods and communities, having people in your Capitol that look like you and represent you, opportunities for all! But we can’t do that unless we are civically engaged and willing to learn about ourselves and the people around us! National Registration Day is here and your voice does matter, but remember it matters more than just every 4 years; it matters every single day.
