Chances are high that you see versions of the same message on all of your screens today (November 6): "Get out and vote!" And you should; today’s midterm elections include many candidates and measures poised to push back against racist policies across the country.
But don’t take our word for it. Listen to the actors, writers, athletes and other public personalities of color you love as they plead their case:
Hasan Minhaj discusses the importance of local elections on "Patriot Act"
"Crazy Rich Asians" stars Constance Wu and Jimmy O. Yang implore fellow Asian Americans to vote in a public service announcement from New Virginia Majority and We Stand United
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???Check out Crazy Rich Asians stars @ConstanceWu and @FunnyAsianDude as they hilariously explain to us why we need to VOTE this November 6th! https://t.co/ejgXo4mV3u #AAPIVoices @NewVAMajority @WSUCampaign
rntt?️ pic.twitter.com/Vnb7lpLmM3rnt— New Virginia Majority (@NewVAMajority) October 31, 2018
rntComedians Chris Rock ("Top Five") and Keegan-Michael Key ("Key and Peele") address suppression of Black voters in a funny PSA from Color of Change
Olympians Ibtihaj Muhammad, John Carlos and Brittney Griner join other Athletes for Impact and co-sign a letter that denounces hate violence and calls for votes against oppression, via The Nation
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We know that building walls—whether between nations, between ethnicities or between genders—is an attempt to divide and conquer. We are calling on people to get out the vote on November 6 for candidates who stand against this division. We also call upon people to stand together, publicly and proudly, against hate. As athletes, we will use our platform to defend the most vulnerable in our society. An injury to one is an injury to all.
Journalist Nikole-Hannah Jones recounts violence against Freedom Summer protesters and the legacy of voting rights activism in a Twitter thread that includes the following posts
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In 2014, I traveled to Mississippi, my ancestral land, for the first time in my life in order to document the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, a deadly and violent few months aimed at bringing democracy to the blackest state in the nation. It was a transformative experience.
rnt— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) November 5, 2018
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We tend to think of the CRM in somewhat gauzy terms. Folks marching, ketchup poured on heads and, occasionally, hosed down with water. It was far worse. In trying to exert their 15A right to vote, blk Mississippians were castrated, dragged behind cars, sunk in the river, lynched pic.twitter.com/KzJju1o0jU
rnt— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) November 5, 2018
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Do you think Fannie Lou Hamer & Medgar Evers had good candidates to vote for? None of the candidates were fighting for them. But they understood if they couldn’t & didn’t vote, none of the candidates ever would. This is as true now as it was then. VOTE. It is your duty.
rnt— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) November 5, 2018
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We don’t learn about how after the 1965 VRA, black people in Greenwood STILL could not vote. How the native black folks who remained in MS after the white college students left were retaliated against both physically and economically. How they STILL suffer for what they did.
rnt— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) November 5, 2018
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There is a man in Greenwood TODAY, whose teeth got shot out of his face for working on voting rights, who lives on the edge of town in poverty because the white folks have for decades punished his family for daring to push for our basic human and constitutional rights.
rnt— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) November 5, 2018
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