To Vote or Not to Vote? Featuring Feminista Jones
Every day on the news, it's the same story.
News Reporter:Democracy is a top concern for many voters.
News Reporter:We need to vote or we won't have a country anymore.
News Reporter:Our ancestors died so we could vote.
News Reporter:They're gonna ruin our country. This is the most important election of our lives.
News Reporter:They are the enemy of the people. We gotta take our country back. The fight for the survival of democracy will be won at the ballot box.
Emily Williams:Whether on basic cable or newspaper op ads, we're constantly inundated with a singular message. This is the most important election of our lives. This critical election will determine the future of American democracy and we must vote to save it. But then there's the other stuff we're seeing on the news. Rising fascism at home and abroad, gut wrenching scenes in Gaza and the West Bank, political parties fractured and in disarray.
Emily Williams:All of which what make should be an easy decision, voting for the party that we believe is right, it makes that hard. And it makes voting for who we believe is the best candidate even harder. Let's be honest, this is really demoralizing. Voters feel burned and burn out. So what do you do when you're stuck between voting your values and using your vote as harm reduction?
Emily Williams:How do we think about all those complexities and then weigh those factors in the voting booth? And more importantly, if we don't wanna be in this position again, what do we do in between elections to actually build a socially just world. I'm Emily Williams, executive director of the Arcus Center For Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College. This is Beyond Voting. This podcast is rooted in our conviction that democracy requires more participation than just voting.
Emily Williams:It's up to all of us to take action if we wanna see real change. We'll feature conversations with leaders, activists, and educators discussing the state of our country's institutions, ongoing systems of oppression, and most importantly, how we, the people, can take critical actions in pursuit of true equity and justice. To kick off our Beyond Voting series, I wanna talk about something I think a lot of listeners can relate to, wrestling with the decision to vote or not in the 2024 presidential election. I think it's fair to say that this presidential election cycle has been fraught. Polls were showing that young voters and people of color who have valid reasons for being disenchanted with the electoral process weren't motivated by either candidate to even cast a ballot.
Emily Williams:And others were determined to withhold their vote in protest. That, coupled with a disastrous performance by president Biden in the 1st presidential debate, had political pundits all but guaranteeing a landslide win for former president Trump and progressive voters in a state of crippling anxiety over the future of our democracy. And that left many of us asking ourselves, is this it? Did our ancestors really struggle and die for us to have the right to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump? For many, that anxiety was put on hold when Vice President Kamala Harris was positioned as the new presumptive Democratic nominee.
Emily Williams:But with looming questions about her policy positions on Gaza, immigration, policing, health care, stagnant wages and rising costs, it seems the question still remains in many voters' minds. Is there a candidate running who truly represents my values? With that, I'm so excited to introduce our first guest. She's the perfect person to help me wade through these confusing, ever shifting electoral waters. Doctor Michelle Taylor, or as she's better known in activist spaces and online, Feminista Jones, is a writer, educator, public speaker, and community activist whose work centers around race and culture, feminism, and intersectionality.
Emily Williams:She's the award winning author of the critically acclaimed book, Reclaiming Our Space, How Black Feminists Are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets. And she's also a freelance contributor featured in The New York Times, Out, Essence, and many other outlets. When I talked to Feminista Jones, it was shortly after the Democratic party wrapped its weeklong national convention in Chicago, and she had a lot to say about the candidates, their platforms, and the political theater she saw on display. We talked about where your vote can have the most impact, voting as harm reduction, and the critical importance of political education. Felicia Jones, welcome to Beyond Voting.
Feminista Jones:Thank you so much for having me. It's my honor and my pleasure for real.
Emily Williams:We're so happy to have you. Let's just jump right in. Tell us, what impact does voting have on one day achieving representation in social justice at the local, state, and federal levels?
Feminista Jones:Well, I think to the average voter, they wanna know and feel that their vote matters. They wanna feel like they are actively participating in what they've been told is a democracy. Right? And I choose my words carefully here because I understand the United States is not a democracy. I think people wanna know, you know, I cast this vote.
Feminista Jones:I selected this person. This person won. Now I want them to work for me because I'm their constituent, you know, that I put them in office. And I think what ends up happening is that, some folks become disillusioned when they don't feel that that's what's happening. I do think on the the local, like, the city levels and the state levels, you're more likely to see the impact of your vote and the results.
Feminista Jones:Like, you may vote for this council person and that council person devotes all their time and energy to making the small area where you live, better. And you'll feel that and so you feel like you're part of the process and I definitely encourage people to participate in that. However, I think as we get higher and we get, higher up, that's when I think the waters get a little muddy and folks start to question whether or not their vote actually matters. And I think all the way up to the federal level when you have things like the electoral college. Like, the electoral college kind of defeats the purpose of a true democracy.
Feminista Jones:And so, you know, people have to wrestle with, you know, I'm casting my vote, but all the delegates in my state went to someone else. So what does this mean? You know? 49% of us actually wanted this person and, you know, what's going on? So I think that with a lot of the confusion, we end up with a lot of people that are disillusioned.
Feminista Jones:And I think that starts to, have an impact on how people choose to vote and how often they vote. Right? Right now, we the last election, I think we had 66% of eligible voters voted for the president, and that's ridiculous. Right? And then you go to the local levels.
Feminista Jones:Right? I think of, you know, the most recent mayor in, Philadelphia. During her primary, I think she barely got a 100,000 people to vote for her in a city of 1,200,000. And then when she ran for the major election, I don't even know if she got 200,000 votes. And, again, this is a city of 1,200,000.
Feminista Jones:So what's really going on? These are the kinds of things that I think about. But I do think that people have more of an impact on a local level.
Emily Williams:And that's that's helpful. I mean, especially those numbers, in Philadelphia, if the mayor won with only 200,000 votes, in a city of 1,200,000, what is going on? Black.
Feminista Jones:Yeah. Mhmm.
Emily Williams:Right. What is going on? And at the same time, are we too reliant on electoral politics to make substantive change? Do we put too much emphasis on the vote?
Feminista Jones:Oh, 100%. 100%. That's why, like, I guess I'm struggling right now because I see people, you know, really going, like, all in, pouring their money into so much and their efforts and their energy to focus on this. And I'm like, well, where were y'all when the local people were trying to get these after school programs going? Where were y'all when they were they needed money for their gun violence, you know, their anti gun violence work?
Feminista Jones:Where were y'all when they were trying to open a new day care center because the people, you know, the children didn't have anywhere to go? I didn't see y'all around there doing that. You know what I mean? So it's like you got all this energy for this federal election that happens once every 4 years when your local community really needs you to step up and to do that. And I think a lot of people rely on their presidential vote as, like, their marker of their contribution to their, you know, their civic duty.
Feminista Jones:And, sure. Okay. That is part of your civic duty. But your civic duty is also to kinda show up locally. We're seeing you know, and I'm gonna keep talking about Philadelphia, but we we're seeing the effects of that now.
Feminista Jones:There's so many people that are saying they're disappointed in the mayor, and I'm just like, well, not even a 5th of the population voting. Like, what do what do you expect to happen? You you kinda get what you get. So I think that, when people are talking about what they should be doing, you shouldn't just be relying on a vote. You you should actually be, active in your local communities, and you should be showing up and volunteering and devoting your energy to right where it's gonna where the people need it the most.
Feminista Jones:You know? And I don't I don't necessarily think that's on Capitol Hill. I think they need you right down the street.
Emily Williams:Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Mhmm. And in many ways at the local level and in communities, particularly working with young people or meeting people's needs at the community level, that's also where political consciousness can be developed, right, where we can do that education, which then also would have a different impact on national elections, right?
Feminista Jones:Mhmm. So I
Emily Williams:think that's a really good point. And I wanna go back to something that you said a few minutes ago. You said that the United States is not a democracy. Mhmm. So what are we?
Emily Williams:And, what could a healthy, well functioning democracy do for us? And then is there anywhere else in the world where we see an example of that?
Feminista Jones:Well, you know, they say we're a democratic republic or whatever, but I believe we're an oligarchy, and I believe that we are run by the wealthy. We're run by a few wealthy people who make the decisions and who pour their money into people who are gonna make the decisions that they want them to make. And so I think that if, you know and I'm not trying to be snarky here, but I I do believe that, you know, we learn in American history that this is not actually a democracy, which is why I'm really interested in all this talk about democracy these days. I'm like, where did this come from? For me, I look at, the 2016 election, right, where Hillary Clinton got millions more of the popular vote.
Feminista Jones:Right? So that means millions more people of those who voted, wanted her to be president. Like like, not even, like, 200,000. We're talking, like, 3, 4,000,000 people. And because of our electoral college, because of how we do this so called democracy, the person who the people wanted didn't win.
Feminista Jones:That is disgusting. I don't know any other way to say it, especially because we know that the electoral college has racist roots. Right? It's designed to make sure that, you know, black people can't have their voices be heard. And then when you see the voter suppression around the country, you know it is very much alive and well.
Feminista Jones:In terms of other countries, I'm not sure that a true democracy can exist in the same world where patriarchy exists, where racism, you know, exists, where any of these kinds of oppressive systems exist because there's always going to be a group or a person or, you know, what have you that is gonna be greedy. And they're gonna put themselves ahead of the population. You know, the United States politicians do it. They all put themselves first. They put the interests of the people who fund them first.
Feminista Jones:So I'm not sure we've ever seen that in any modern times. So we can go back to ancient times and and kind of discuss what that looked like maybe in the continent and of Africa and and things like that. But, now I don't think we can point to any place in this world where there's a true democracy, and where the will of the people is untampered, unaltered, respected, honored, where the people representing the folks move with integrity all the time. No. We don't have that.
Feminista Jones:That that doesn't exist. And I'm not sure it can exist, these days with all the trappings of capitalism and all that good stuff.
Emily Williams:And, you know, it's also that with patriarchy, with racism, all of these things, there's also just gonna be unfair power advantages. And not only is it about money, but people will be able and willing to leverage that power advantage over others in order to maintain that power.
Feminista Jones:100%. Even if race wasn't an issue, even if gender wasn't an issue, people are always gonna find a way to other people. Right? And that's coming from this inherent need to survive. And unfortunately, not enough of us believe that if we do we have just enough for what we need, let's make sure everyone else has it.
Feminista Jones:And folks get scared, and that's where the greed come in. So they wanna hoard resources. They wanna make sure that I have enough for today, this week, next year, and 10 years from now, and I don't care what other people have when instead we could come together and be like, is everybody good this month? Alright. Cool.
Feminista Jones:Is everybody good next month? Cool. We don't think like that.
Emily Williams:Yeah. Yeah. But I think you did a great job of of just describing that for us and breaking it down for us. So thank you for that. You know, we just talked about how, like, actual democracy doesn't exist in the US.
Emily Williams:But maybe we can kind of think in the future a little bit and think about what would a real multiracial democracy look like in the US. And then we can talk about whether or not that's actually attainable.
Feminista Jones:So first, we have to stop thinking in terms of race. Right? Because we know that race was something that was constructed by some European male PhDs maybe like a 150 years ago. It's not a real thing. Right?
Feminista Jones:We could think about culture. And I think that culture is way more important because culture allows us to think about what unifies people and what connects people. Right? Shared language, shared rituals, shared art, shared traditions. Right?
Feminista Jones:And I think that those cross racial lines in many ways. They cross, gender lines, class lines. So I think that when we when we focus more on culture, I think we get further in the conversation. And I do believe that the United States can have a true multicultural, harmonious society, when white, cisgender, heterosexual men decide to give up power. And, I don't see that happening.
Feminista Jones:I've never seen people in power willingly give it up to other people. So, you know, we know the revolutionaries tell us we had to take it. You know, as many coups as the United States funds to overthrow people, I think we totally understand what's required of that. You know, people ask me all this time, like, what what would you imagine the world looks like? Well, I think that we go back to some of the earliest principles, that are community based and community oriented and and this idea of reciprocity and justice and harmony and balance and fairness and all these things that guided us for literally 1000 of years, if we could go back to believing in the value of every person in our society, that everybody has a contribution.
Feminista Jones:And just because one person's contribution doesn't look like another, it doesn't mean that they're any less valuable. And I think that's one of the problems that we have in United States is that we assign value to people based on what they contribute to our economy, and that's wrong. And so I think we have to step away from that. We have to totally divest of patriarchy and racism and classism and ableism and queer phobia and all those things if we're talking ideals. Right?
Feminista Jones:We divest of all those things, and we just make a world where everyone has the opportunity to do what makes their hearts sing and their souls fire up. And I'm just not sure that the majority of people are willing to even accept that kind of society, you know, where where love is the rule and respect and mutual honor and integrity. I think these things that scare people. So if I was building a new world, I would build 1. Like, we wouldn't have these state divisions.
Feminista Jones:We'd have communities, and each community comes together and maybe selects their own representative. And these are niche communities, and they come together in those ways. And they have very real conversations and and really consider who they're representing. I think, unfortunately, in our system, people don't actually they get these elected positions. They pander to us.
Feminista Jones:They want our money. They wanna do that. But then when they get in office, they forget who they are beholden to. They forget that this is a government for the people, of the people, and they lose sight of that. And I I I really just wanna see a society where people have their voices heard and their needs are met, and we're not fighting to see who's going to make the most millions or, you know, have the biggest, most successful business or or things like that.
Feminista Jones:Now I I know that that's idealist, but that's the goal. And so I'm not gonna move away from that. I know that we can be better humans than what we are right now, and we just have to believe in that.
Emily Williams:Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And going back to what you said earlier that, we won't have a multiracial democracy until white cisgender men give up power. And I'm reminded of a post that I saw on social media from a friend and someone who's been a colleague and who's been very much involved in the Democratic party.
Emily Williams:The first night at the DNC, he said that he saw something that almost never happens and that it's an old white man who ceded power to a younger woman of color. And I thought to myself, well, he only did that because he was so pressured to do so. Right? And so Right. You know, going back to Europe.
Feminista Jones:At many times, I'm like, oh, let's this. What is happening? Well, right. I mean, we
Emily Williams:could talk about what the DNC actually was in terms of romanticization and a lot of other things. But, that just also reminds me that, you know, we can't necessarily just look to people to do
Feminista Jones:the right thing on their own, that the organizing and the pressure, actually helps
Emily Williams:people do what they should do anyway. You know, it I think it's interesting. You know, I I
Feminista Jones:love that you bring that up because, you know, I don't see it as him, like, ceding power or anything like that. I I agree with you. You know, the DNC, particularly, Jimmy Clyburn down there in, South Carolina, who I believe is the true kingmaker. I think it's it's more that they put her on a glass cliff, and I think people should be, mindful anytime that they put a black woman or Indian woman or some you know, who is not white in a position of power, you have to think what's wrong. What's gonna happen?
Feminista Jones:Like, something is wrong. Something's messy. Something needs to be cleaned up because the history tells us that. It shows us that. And that's that glass cliff that I believe that the DNC is putting Harris on.
Feminista Jones:I think that people are gonna try to romanticize that. I don't think that her identity is all that important. I don't. And and and a lot of people are, you know, kind of upset with me because I'm I'm a black woman who isn't. As I said, in one of my posts, I said I'm not falling to my knees praying for her to win.
Feminista Jones:I I don't care who you are. If I don't like your platform, I don't like your platform. And if you have the same platform as somebody else said I wasn't gonna vote for, then why would I vote for you too?
Emily Williams:And Kamala Harris has, like, a different appeal because she is a woman of color, because she's younger. But in many ways, in in her closing speech at the DNC, it was like she had to come out even stronger or, you know, more resolute about these policies that actually are wildly unpopular.
Feminista Jones:Yeah. And did she have to, or did was that a choice?
Emily Williams:Well, no. No. I I hear that. No. I hear I think it's totally a choice.
Emily Williams:I don't wanna take her agency away in this at all.
Feminista Jones:Right. Like, she she didn't have to say any of those things. She chose to because of what Yeah. Is required of her at this particular juncture. And, you know, there are people that are looking for a leader that they code as masculine, and they only allow for masculine people to be assertive and strong and things like that.
Feminista Jones:So in some ways, she has to perform masculinity in order for them to accept her because we can't accept that women are also strong and assertive and all those kinds of things. We have yet to see her wear a skirt or dresses.
Emily Williams:Oh, interesting.
Feminista Jones:She doesn't wear much makeup. You know? She's doing the Hillary Clinton thing, and she's gotta play with the boys. And I just find that incredibly fascinating.
Emily Williams:Well, I hadn't even thought about that I hadn't seen her wear a skirt. I mean, I'm not necessarily looking for that, but that's a really good point. And it just shows you how curated everything is about their presentation. Right? Absolutely.
Feminista Jones:And that's what political strategizing is about. Right? I'm not knocking them for that. They are absolutely doing exactly what they need to do to win. My only question is how important is the win with regard to the sacrifices that are being made and the people who are seemingly being either left behind or disregarded or thrown under the bus?
Feminista Jones:Is the win that important? And apparently, the answer is yes. The win is that important. We are gonna put more people on the DNC stage who are currently Republicans and will only vote for us this one time than we are gonna put people who have been longtime Democrats working in their communities, upholding the Democratic platform. We're not gonna give them the time on the stage.
Feminista Jones:And I just I find it all really theatrical.
Emily Williams:Interesting. It's certainly that. I I agree with you that it's certainly theatrical. So when we think about voting and harm reduction in this upcoming presidential election, what calculus are we really making? I mean, reproductive rights, Palestine, another Trump presidency.
Emily Williams:Like, really, what are we doing when it comes to harm reduction in this election?
Feminista Jones:Oh, you know, I love that. I love that conversation, and I love when people are able to have it in nuanced ways rather than, oh, you're just giving your vote to Trump. And I'm like, I don't have time for that. I'm way smarter than that. Let's actually, you know, have this conversation.
Feminista Jones:So when we wanna talk about harm reduction, right, this is a conversation that comes up a lot with the people that I'm in community with, and they're like, oh, man. You know? Whatever we can do to not have another Trump presidency. And I say, hold up. Hold up.
Feminista Jones:Hold up. Stop. Stop. If they want Trump to be president, they'll make it happen. Right?
Feminista Jones:We already see he's already setting us up to say, you know, this whole thing about, so called illegal immigrants are being allowed to vote and all this stuff that they're already talking to be able to challenge this so much so that they had to create a PAC that is raising funds to be able to challenge him when he challenges the election. They already know it's gonna happen. Right? So they're setting this whole thing up. We already know that we're heading that way.
Feminista Jones:We're thinking, alright. So we need the Democrats to win so that Trump loses. Okay. So if Trump loses, how does that stop Heritage Foundation supported elected officials in the senate or the house of, you know, representatives from being elected and going in and stopping everything that Harris says she wants to do. Why do people think this is simply about Trump and about Harris?
Feminista Jones:And that if he wins, then project 2025 goes into effect. What makes y'all think it won't go into effect with Harris being president? Like, I'm trying to understand why people think that because they have been advising conservative presidents since Reagan. That's 40 years that they've been doing this. And if we look policy wise, we see that many of their policies have been enacted by Democratic presidents, including Barack Obama.
Feminista Jones:Right? So this whole fearmongering around project 2025 let me know that, no disrespect, but a lot of people are simply uninformed, and they're voting based on not having any real information. So harm reduction for me looks like educating people. It looks like when I do my, streaming and I do political theater with doctor t, it's just like, yo, let's really just talk about the reality here. I just did a abortion thing yesterday.
Feminista Jones:It's like, there's all these myths and untruths. Let's just get the real information out. And I think that education is the key. As as much as that sounds cliche, it really is the key. And that's the most harm reduction that we can do is making sure that we're educating people, that they know the truth so that when they go and they cast that vote, it is an informed vote.
Feminista Jones:Now you can know all the truth and all these things and still make the decision you make and you can hold your nose if you want to, and that's fine. I will never tell people who to vote for or who not to vote for, but at least we can be informed. Now in terms of voting for the Dems to prevent Trump, I I just don't see how that makes a whole lot of sense unless you don't understand how the government works and you don't understand how lobbyist works and you don't understand how this oligarchy works. They will run whatever they wanna run. They will do whatever they wanna do.
Feminista Jones:And as we see the Democratic Party move to the right as evidenced by the DNC and the things that they said on that stage night after night, I'm not sure we are have to worry too much about president Trump when the border policy that, you know, Harris was talking about is a Republican one. So if we're saying that we don't want Trump because of deportations in the border, well, Biden's been deporting people back to Haiti since April. And, you know, they've adopted this Republican border policy. So what's the difference? You know?
Feminista Jones:And you have to start bringing things up like that. Like, think about abortion. She keeps saying to people, if you put this on my desk, I will sign it, which essentially leaves it up to congress, which essentially means that if the Heritage Foundation places enough people or if the conservatives get enough people, that is never going to happen while she's in office. And she knows it. She knows it's not gonna happen.
Feminista Jones:So these are the kinds of things that I want people to think about. You want to vote for her because you believe it's gonna protect abortion rights. It's not. So when you make the decision that you make, at least let it be based in truth and not fear marker mongering and misinformation.
Emily Williams:Also, it makes me think about that people don't necessarily fully understand the way that our government works. But I think part of the reason why anybody but Trump, why that logic works is because so many people were totally asleep until Trump got elected. So many people thought that he would never get elected and then he got elected and people started paying attention to just what he was doing in office and the things that he was saying. And so I think for people, you know, there was so much sensationalism around it that I think that's really visceral for people. So when they think about Trump, they think about, you know, a dictatorship that resonates with them.
Feminista Jones:Well, I, you know, I I I'm sorry. I just I just ask people, like, when you say the things that he did in office, like, what are you talking about? Aside from, you know, the whole COVID thing, which he totally mishandled. Like, I I'm always asking people, like, well, what did he do in in when he was in office that affected you? Most people don't have an answer.
Feminista Jones:So what does that again
Emily Williams:Well, I think
Feminista Jones:you had somebody who had 1400 vacancies in his administration because he didn't bother to hire anybody. You had someone who, you know, is facing all these these other issues that he had. He wasn't really doing much. He had a he had a ban against Muslim people, and I tell people all the time that's part of the larger immigration, plan that the, Democrats are currently supporting. He tried to get rid of ACA.
Feminista Jones:He couldn't. There were a number of things that he said he was gonna do that he wasn't able to do again because of congress. Right. So again and, again, I am so not trying to be flippant here, but I'm just trying to make the point that a lot of people are voting completely lacking information, knowledge about how any of this works. Somebody said on my Instagram, the human body cannot survive another 4 years of Trump.
Feminista Jones:I said, are you what what are you talking about? What is Trump going to do related to the Supreme Court that Harris can't do? Neither one of them is gonna have an effect on the Supreme Court. Okay? Because nobody's retiring and nobody's dying anytime soon.
Feminista Jones:Right? Okay. What are they gonna do about abortion? Trump can't do anything more about abortion than Harris can do about abortion. Again, Congress is right there.
Feminista Jones:So with all that fear mongering, I'm just questioning. I'm just like, what are you talking about?
Emily Williams:Yeah. And I think, you know, the part about Trump is that and this is what I mean by, like, the sensationalism. You know, it was like just reading the headlines or hearing what he said or, you know, the most recent racist comment. I think that's what people mean when they're saying, like, my body can't take it. And I also think that he's learned since his last presidency, and I think that a lot of the fail safes that we had in his last term have been removed, particularly, like, the presidential immunity.
Emily Williams:I think that that's real. That's really concerning to
Feminista Jones:me. Yeah. It concerns me for anybody that's in that office. For anybody. That Harris wouldn't also use that.
Feminista Jones:Right?
Emily Williams:And that's also my point is that I think Yeah. That anybody but Trump, it's also just given free license to the Dems to do whatever they want. That's, that's also concerning to me because in many ways, she came out much harder than I think Biden had come out Yeah. On issues related to the military, related to what's happening in Gaza. So I think we have to also be careful not to just give free license to the Democrats because they're not Trump.
Emily Williams:Right?
Feminista Jones:Because she's right of Biden. She's right of Obama. Walls pulls them a little bit back, but she's to the right of them. And I think I think this is what's happening, and this is what I've been talking more about, is that there are a lot of people that are just fine with that. They love it.
Feminista Jones:They love her exactly as she is. They love this administration exactly as it is. They love that tough on crime, most lethal force. They wanna hear that. And they have been waiting in the wings for a Democratic candidate to come and say those things because they've been residing in that right of center, but I'm not racist and I'm not this, and I'm just waiting for a Democrat that comes and is actually speaking to me.
Feminista Jones:And I think that's what's happening. And that's why I'm saying to people, I'm like, yeah, like, let people vote how they wanna vote because a lot of people are now feeling represented. And we have to be honest about that. I'm I'm, like, left of leftist, so nobody's ever gonna represent me. Right?
Feminista Jones:But I can recognize that the majority of the of the United States voting public is, like, in the middle, and they they want more of these kinds of centrist values. That's why they loved Obama. But now it's like they do wanna see more of that, like, force and that strength and because they feel like Trump made us look weak and, you know, silly, and they want us to go back to that. And that's okay too. Like, listen.
Feminista Jones:Vote your conscience. Ain't about to be me, but vote your conscience.
Emily Williams:This is Beyond Voting. We're back with the author, educator, and community activist, Feminista Jones. Before the break, Feminista shared her belief that we as activists are often too focused on Capitol Hill and not focused enough on how we can affect positive change in our communities. While I agree that we can achieve more substantial, immediate change by being in community with our neighbors and organizing, I also wanted to hear her thoughts on what we can do as activists to hold our elected officials accountable at every level from city council to the White House. In the second half of our conversation, we talk about the uncommitted movement, her feelings on our 2 party political system and what abstaining from voting could mean for the most vulnerable and marginalized among us.
Emily Williams:So you said on IG that it's not wrong to ask that your party sticks to its values. Yeah. And there's a pervasive idea that will hold those candidates accountable and push them on social justice issues that matter to us after they're elected. But that so rarely happens. Right?
Emily Williams:And we've seen this in in the Biden administration. So not this. Right. But so what are the strategies to actually hold our elected officials accountable while they're in office?
Feminista Jones:You cannot. You understand I tell people that that's my joke is, like, you don't have enough money to hold an elected official accountable. Like I said, on the local level, when you are there and you can actually go a few blocks down and their office is right there and you can knock on the door and say, hey, I wanna have a conversation, that is very different because that person is representing maybe, like, 25,000 people and you can have that conversation and say, listen, this park over here, that slide is too hot. It's burning the kids. Can you fix that?
Feminista Jones:And it'll get fixed. Right? You know, this this street light here is broken. We need that done. I want people to do more of that because that actually improves our day to day, you know, material conditions.
Feminista Jones:But when people say, well, I'm just gonna hold her account. She don't know who you are. You don't have money. Now if you have $10,000,000 and you say, hey. I I have $10,000,000 to go towards this effort.
Feminista Jones:Can I have a conversation with you? Well, that's a little bit different because that's how American politics work. Right? So in order to masquerade as a democracy, you have to have buy in from the people and the biggest buy in is voting. Right?
Feminista Jones:And so people believe if I go and vote, I'm a part of this process, but they don't realize that between the electoral college, the big money lobbyists, and these super packs and all this campaign funding nonsense that went out the window years ago, that there's not really much you can do because as we saw when people tried to hold her accountable, she said, I'm speaking. I'm speaking. Okay. Alright. We get it.
Feminista Jones:You're speaking. But they also have, you know, something that they'd like to say. So for me, instead of talking about holding people accountable, I want you to take that energy and redirect it to your community Because I know that there's some something in your community that needs some work, it needs some money, it needs some energy, and I want you to go and do that. You're not holding a president accountable after they've been elected.
Emily Williams:I'm with you. I I don't think that we've really seen it, seen where activists can then hold presidents accountable after they're in office. And in so many ways, they wanna get elected. That's the prize for them. And when they're in office, they already have it.
Feminista Jones:That's it.
Emily Williams:So that you know, it's a good point that you're making.
Feminista Jones:I think some of the best accountability that I've seen has been, you know, the activist groups who have just said, alright. We're gonna pivot. We're not focusing on that election stuff or the press we're focused on how can we affect local policing? How can we you know, the district attorney, how do we make sure we get the right district attorney in? How do we make sure we get the right judges in?
Feminista Jones:Like, how many judges run unopposed and no one even knows that they exist? So I think that when folks start redirecting and putting their energy, you know, beyond, like you said, beyond that vote and more into their community, that's when we start see the real change, and that's the change that affects people's daily lives. And so I'm I will always encourage more people to do that kind of stuff.
Emily Williams:Yeah. And I think also the the other side of that is that that's where regular everyday people actually feel the change, and then they can believe that change is possible on a larger level.
Feminista Jones:And they build on that. And then maybe they try to elect those people who have been doing this work locally. They're like, well, maybe we can boost them up to senator or boost them up to governor because of how they have already represented us. Right. And if they're lucky, those people actually stay true to the values that they have.
Feminista Jones:We have yet to see it, but we can believe that taking a local council person and pushing that person up and through the ranks, and if they hold on to those values, then that's where I think the change can happen.
Emily Williams:Definitely. I agree with that. So, okay, there's a movement of voters that have not committed to any presidential candidate until a candidate commits to a ceasefire, and now they've changed their call to ensure that there's an arms embargo for Israel. Mhmm. What impact do you think the uncommitted movement has had or will have on this election?
Emily Williams:And what lessons, if any, will the Democratic party take from them?
Feminista Jones:So I was an uncommitted voter in the primary. I'm among 700,000 people across the country who voted uncommitted. That is not a small number of people. So 700,000 people, a good chunk of them from states that you must win, swing states that you must win and you your response is, no, we're not gonna put them on. Give them we're not gonna give them 5 minutes.
Feminista Jones:Okay. Well, now we have different demands. Now it's arms embargo. We were actually willing to work with you on that light ceasefire talk, but now it's like we're not easing up. Vice president Harris, said, I've had a commitment to Israel since I was planting trees for them as a child, and I will always support Israel's right to, you know, all this stuff.
Feminista Jones:So if you believe that they're gonna have an arms embargo, I want you to let that go, baby. Let that go. That's not gonna happen. And so there's people who were just like, no, we're not voting for you, and that is their right. The impact of that is this, and I tell people this all the time.
Feminista Jones:You know, where I live is a solidly blue state. There are people that live in solidly red states. Trump is gonna get those delegates. You know, Harris is gonna get those delegates. But when you vote uncommitted or when you, you know, vote for 3rd party or another party or what have you, 1, you're helping them in future elections, right, because campaign finances are distributed publicly and, you know, based on what vote you get.
Feminista Jones:When you go and you vote for them, it tells your local, you know, jurisdiction, tells your state, it tells what have you, that, you know, oh, we got 20,000 people that support them. So the next time they run, they can cite that and be like, we need to get some of this public funding too, you know, because we actually we're on the ballot. We have enough people to support us. Give us some of this public campaign funds as well. So your vote does help in that way.
Feminista Jones:And like I said, it also sends a message. So you could be supporting that movement to disrupt this 2 party, you know, system. You're also sending a very clear message to them that, you know, there are people who ain't ain't rocking with you, and they would have. Long time people that have supported this party have now defected. And what does that mean for the future of your party?
Feminista Jones:Now as the Dems are moving to the right, they may not actually care that there's almost 3 quarters of a 1000000 of us who aren't gonna vote for them because maybe they believe they'll pick up some of the more moderate Republicans. At the same time, we're also the people that are doing the work that you say you wanna do for the American people. You know, you wanna start these programs. Well, who do you think are running these programs? Who are carrying out these programs?
Feminista Jones:You've just alienated so many of them. You you've disillusioned so many people. You've got younger people who are just like, I don't believe in any of this. You have a lot of work to do. And I think that that's what the message that the uncommitted voters are sent are sending and, you know, they're protesting.
Feminista Jones:And and I just wanna be very clear to listeners. It is not simply about Gaza. And, yes, free Palestinian people, you know, we need an arms embargo. But part of that is because we just sent them $3,200,000,000, but yet we're not canceling all people student loans. We're not canceling all medical debt.
Feminista Jones:We're not providing free lunches for all children. You know, where could $3,200,000,000 go here in the United States? It could go to so many things that could that the Democrats say that they support, and yet it's going towards bombs. And that's not cool. And so it's not just a single issue thing.
Feminista Jones:It's about American, foreign policy. It is about American taxes, how the how the money is being spent, the defense budget. It's about all these things, and people care about all of these things. So the implication, I think, is gonna be real interesting, especially because Weston Abdullah and Stein Ware are, like they're all in this together. Like, they all support each other.
Feminista Jones:They're, like, they're starting to all drum up the votes that the Democrats need because Harris is still neck and neck with this clown.
Emily Williams:Right. Yeah. And, you know, dare I say something that could be perceived as, like, wildly unpopular, but I think she's not beating him by a lot because she's not distinguishing herself enough from him. Right. And I think people are smart enough to know that.
Feminista Jones:She stole his no taxes on tips thing. Like, come on. You know, she didn't have so people were getting on her because she didn't have much of a policy. And I think that that's important. Voters I mean, I think that likability is number 1, but voters do wanna see, like, what your policy platform is.
Feminista Jones:You can go to I think it's, like, platform.trump.com or something like that. They've got their policies written out. Their mailers that are going out to people are bullet points. This is this is what we're gonna do. You know, first one 80 days, day 1, this is what we're gonna do.
Feminista Jones:They're very clear about what they're, you know, gonna be doing. I mean, you go to her website, and it's give us money. Give us money. Give us money, but no policy platform. And it's like, okay.
Feminista Jones:He says that he's gonna have no taxes on tips in Nevada. Your next rally, you say no taxes on tips. What is happening right now? Yeah. You know, you say you wanna give $6,000 to newborns, which isn't is part of this whole natalist thing because we have to have people have more babies.
Feminista Jones:Well, where's that money gonna come from? Like, how y'all gonna make up for the deficit of the $6,000 in taxes that you're giving back to be? I I don't you know, there was a candidate a few years ago called named Elizabeth Warren who, with her economic economist background, was able to explain her plans really clearly in terms of how they were gonna be funded, how they were gonna be implemented, etcetera. And they all made a lot of sense, and that's why she had a lot of support. Right?
Feminista Jones:That's what the people wanna hear right now. That's what they wanna see from Harris Walls. What are your plans? What are you, like, what are you concrete saying that you're going to do? Not what you're waiting for congress to do, not what you're gonna keep pressuring people to do or encouraging people to do.
Feminista Jones:What are you going to do? And if you look at it, they're not saying much that Biden wasn't already saying. So that's the that's where they're struggling.
Emily Williams:Yeah. I agree with you on that. There was a video going around on social media. There was a woman at the DNC asking people, like, which policy of Kamala Harris is your favorite? And they couldn't say.
Emily Williams:And it was like 10 people who couldn't say.
Feminista Jones:But wait, I just wanna say, I think it's also perfectly fine to continue with the platform that you had, the Biden Harris administration. They've done a lot, but you've gotta make sure people know what you were doing. You gotta make sure people, you know, know exactly these, how you have benefited their lives and that you're gonna continue that.
Emily Williams:Yeah. And that's why I think it's a problem that people can't say exactly what are their what are her policies, especially after having spent 4 long days at the DNC. We need to know what policies are we talking about.
Feminista Jones:But whoever wins, I am a fan of getting rid of this 2 party system. I don't think that it serves the needs of the American people and the citizens of this nation. So I would I would like to see, ideally, that you just you if you wanna run for office, you run on whatever platform you have. You don't have to align with a Democrat or a Republican. You just run.
Feminista Jones:You just are who you are and people just vote for folks based on what they say they wanna do and that's it. That sounds like democracy to me. But because they've separated into these parties and there's all this money flowing and I'm tens of 1,000,000 of dollars, that's where I think we get it all mixed up. Just one person, here's what I wanna do, vote for me.
Emily Williams:Yeah. And I think when we think about, like, the amount of money that's in politics and the ads and how it can confuse people and take advantage of people and the voter suppression, I mean, if we had a system where it was truly easy to just vote for 1 person based on what they say they'll do and then probably also their record, then we would be living in a very different country.
Feminista Jones:Different world. Yeah. And I just think about how much money all these people raised. Right? Those white women got on a call and raised all that money.
Feminista Jones:I was like, when was the last time white women came together and raised money for something in their communities? Where's the money for the abortion funds? Y'all raised all this money to support a presidential candidate, but in the last few years, how much money have you given to your local abortion funds since you'd say that abortion is so important to you? Have you ever volunteered as a clinic escort? You know what I mean?
Feminista Jones:Like, there's there's travel funds that they have for people that have to come from other states. Have you donated to that? You know, you show up once every 4 years and think you're doing something, but it's like, you know, people still gotta have abortions. They're still gonna have abortions. So what are you doing in the meantime in between time?
Emily Williams:Exactly. And, I mean, that's kind of the whole point of of what we're trying to do here is to say that we gotta go beyond voting. Right? Yes. There's so much more that we can do to impact this democracy that we live in and actually create social change.
Feminista Jones:Absolutely. I've taken the education route. Like, I'm really committed to trying to just educate people, give them resources, giving them things to read, giving them facts, giving them figures. A lot of times people get overwhelmed with some of the information. I will distill it for you.
Feminista Jones:I will make it easier for you. Like, I just wanna make sure you get it. And for me, right now, that's what I see my job is, is just to make sure that people have the information they need to make the best choices for their lives.
Emily Williams:Yeah. Definitely. And thank you for doing that work. It's so important. Thank you.
Emily Williams:You've talked about how people shouldn't feel the pressure to vote if their values aren't represented by either candidate, but let's play that out a little bit. Okay. Is that how the empire crumbles? Don't
Feminista Jones:I love that question.
Emily Williams:And if people don't vote in presidential elections, what does not voting mean for the most vulnerable and marginalized among us at home and abroad?
Feminista Jones:I mean, that's that's the question. Like, those are the questions. Right? What impact is my conscientious abstinence going to have on the larger, population? I know for me, it won't have none because my delegates are going to a democratic candidate.
Feminista Jones:Right? So I I in some ways, I have the privilege of my righteous indignation and, you know, And we do, as activists and and folks in this world, we have to acknowledge that we do have certain privileges to take certain stances because, you know, we we can move like that.
Emily Williams:And let me also just say that that's also an example of being educated. Right? Being educated on this political system, educated about one's own social location, privilege, all of these things. So
Feminista Jones:Yeah. You know, I I I have to be. I I have to do that. So I was having this conversation yesterday with a friend of mine, and he asked me the same thing. And I'm just like, at the end of the day, a 100 years from now, if we're still here, if the climb if the, you know, Earth hasn't burned to its core because of climate change, they're gonna study this the same way we study the Holocaust, the same way we study slavery.
Feminista Jones:And we're like, who stood up? Who said something? The thing about the holocaust, everybody wants to ask, how did they let this happen? I'm like, look around you. This is very easy.
Feminista Jones:How? You know, like, did we let this happen? Why are you asking this? Because there are people who will always choose themselves over the greater good and they will vote for that. I want them to be able to look back to 2024 and have a little section in their textbook that says, but then there were those who would not go along with this.
Feminista Jones:They were called the uncommitted delegation, or they were the uncommitted voters. And they took the stance that they were not going to vote in support of the genocide of these people. And we're grateful to them because at least they had the moral conviction to speak up and act for what was right. That's how this is gonna be written in history. We know because we've already read about how it's been written before.
Feminista Jones:So I made a decision and me and many other people are like, what sign I'm not gonna be on? Would I have been silent, or would I have been somebody who was actively trying to stop this from happening? It's not a hard decision for me to make. And some people say, well, you know, if Trump gets in there, it's gonna be even worse. You can't use that with me.
Feminista Jones:Not when we are actively sent we've sent them under this Democratic president. We've sent over 10,000, £2,000 bombs. Okay? We have given them 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars in cash and arms. You cannot tell me that Donald Trump is a bigger threat when we are the ones responsible for almost 200,000 people being dead right now.
Feminista Jones:There's nothing you can say to me about what the old Trump will make it worse.
Emily Williams:Are you
Feminista Jones:kidding me? We've been doing this for the last year. Why would I wanna put the people who have actually shown me that they've been doing it for the last year? Why am I putting them in office versus the person y'all think is going to continue this? So what do you want me to do?
Emily Williams:That's so sobering to think about the reality of, like, what's happening right now. And since a lot of this is rooted in knowing policies and getting educated on how our government works, As an educator, where can people start?
Feminista Jones:Oh, you know, I I love that social media allows for people to share their you know, this knowledge and this information. And while there's a lot of, what they call misinformation or what have you, it's up to you to be discerning. It's up to you to be able to tell when something is fact or fiction. I do think that social media is a really great place to get a lot of this information. I want people to start with reading the constitution of the United States and all of its amendments.
Feminista Jones:Start there. Then I would say start reading the local laws. And do you know what the laws are in your state? I'm actually gonna ask you, do you know who both your senators are? Who is representing you in the House of Representatives?
Feminista Jones:Do you know these things? Who are your senators? Who's your governor? You're supposed to know these things. Right?
Feminista Jones:Yep. I want people to think about writers and and theorists like Angela Davis. Huey Newton, his revolutionary suicide book is excellent, doctor Maleficente, who coined Afrocentricity. I want you to start thinking about these folks who have challenged us, you know, in in these scholarly and these academic ways, but also were, you know, activist folks who were challenging us to look beyond all of this and to start thinking about, you know, what's really important to me. If abortion is your thing, read books about from abortion activists.
Feminista Jones:Renee Bracey Sherman has one coming out now. Read her book. Like, learn from her. Dorothy Roberts has this book torn apart about child welfare system and the case for abolition. You wanna learn about the abolitionist movement?
Feminista Jones:Read that book. Read, Angela Davis. Read Mark Lamont Hill's book. He wrote about Palestine. Like, these are people who are have been doing this work for so long and producing all of this knowledge.
Feminista Jones:You just have to consume it. You can get all this stuff from your local library. You can go online. You can get you can rent ebooks from the library. There's so many ways that you can access this.
Feminista Jones:There's also podcasts like this one that you can look in this political podcast and a lot of people will break down a lot of this stuff for you and give you information that you hadn't thought about. If reading is not really a thing, the audiobooks are there. You know, there's I I just want people to know more. And I'm gonna challenge my fellow writers. Write so people can read what you're talking about.
Feminista Jones:Okay? We know that the average reading level in the United States is 6th grade. They are not understanding these multisyllabic words, and what you end up doing is you're publishing these books and things that are just for you and your echo chamber. Make sure that your language is accessible, whatever you're showing. That's what activists do.
Feminista Jones:Like, when we make pamphlets, we make flyers, make them at a 6th grade reading level. You have to make sure that the people can consume the knowledge that you are trying to impart upon them and and get off your little clouds, your little elitist spaces. And I'm saying that I have a doctor of philosophy, and I I'm just like, no. We we're supposed to be doing this for the liberation of, you know, our people and for equality. If nobody can read and understand what you are writing, then what are they getting from it?
Feminista Jones:So that's how you get educated, right, rather than indoctrinated.
Emily Williams:Yeah. We need everybody to be able to come into political consciousness, right, and to be able to access that kind of political education.
Feminista Jones:Everybody. Right.
Emily Williams:So Feminista Jones, tell us where people can find you and your work online.
Feminista Jones:You can find me on threads at Feminista Jones. You can find my YouTube. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel, Feminista Jones. I do, you know, film reviews and stuff under Professor Cinephile. That's that's been really fun because I've really been digging into my my film bag.
Feminista Jones:But, yeah, I'm still FJ around most places. My website is still Feminista Jones.com, so you can reach out to me there.
Emily Williams:Thank you. Thank you so much. This has been wonderful. I loved getting to talk with Feminisa Jones. She doesn't pull any punches, and I appreciate that her point of view is really well founded in what's actually happening right now, not the idyllic perspective of what government is and how it functions that we were all taught as kids.
Emily Williams:For her, so much goes back to making sure everyone has a robust and accessible political education. Developing a political consciousness, that means being aware of how your government works, knowing the history of political movements, reading the works of activists and political thinkers, and cultivating an informed point of view is such an important part of activist work. And it's crucial if we ever hope to participate in an electoral process that can truly represent us and our values. Talking with feminists about the upcoming election, I knew that we'd get into specific issues that are deeply troubling voters and rightfully causing lots of folks to struggle with the decision of whether to vote for president at all. Yet I still found myself kind of surprised by the sobering moments of truth I felt during our conversation.
Emily Williams:When talking about the devastation in Gaza, a lot has been said about the potential for the suffering to worsen if Trump becomes president. But as Feminista pointed out and Reuters reported, it's the Biden administration that has sent more than 10,000, £2,000,000 bombs and tens of 1,000,000,000 of dollars in aid to support Israel's military campaign. At the time of our recording, the Harris Waltz campaign had not released their platform or posted it to the campaign website. They updated it in early September. But once their platform was published, we saw that there's very little difference between their policy on Gaza and the Biden administration's.
Emily Williams:So how convincing is it to say that Trump would be worse than the utter obliteration of universities, hospitals, religious spaces, historical sites, homes, and human lives that we've already witnessed in the last 11 months, especially now that we know vice president Harris has signaled that she'll continue the same policies responsible for that devastation if she's elected. Add that to the treatment of the uncommitted delegates at the DNC, a movement of Democratic voters over 700,000 strong, many in critical swing states who've been withholding their vote until their demands for a ceasefire and arms embargo were taken seriously. The DNC didn't allow them any primetime space to make their case to their own party members or adopt any of their suggested language into the Democratic party platform, And we'll hear more about that in our next episode. But if 3 quarters of a 1000000 votes on the line in this election, again, most in critical swing states, still won't move the needle with the Democratic Party, it's pretty hard to make sense of why they're not listening. With disappointments like that, it's hard not to believe that Feminista was right when she said that We The People don't have enough money to hold our elected leaders accountable because they are beholden not to their constituents or their party members, but rather to special interest groups and corporations.
Emily Williams:Groups of pockets so deep that politicians are incentivized to side with them over 100 of thousands of people. It's a bleak reminder that for everyday people and activists to exercise influence, we have to put our bodies on the line before we're taken seriously. So where do these sober assessments leave us? Do activists abandon their calling to push and agitate for the change they wanna see in the world when up against these kinds of odds? The truth is we can't give up.
Emily Williams:We have a calling and a responsibility to keep fighting for the better world that we know is possible. While we know that we have a tough choice to make in this upcoming election, we can't expect that voting for president alone will save us. So how do we not let our dismay overwhelm us but instead allow it to activate us? You could start a political education program in your community. You could run for a seat on your local school board or city council.
Emily Williams:You could resolve to organize with others and hold either candidate accountable when they get into office. What matters most is that we do something. These are the baby steps it takes to redesign a democracy we deserve. Because the future matters, we have to start now. Tell us, how are you feeling about voting in this year's presidential election?
Emily Williams:What are your top concerns and how do you plan to make your voice heard? Are you organizing? Tell us on IG at arcuscenterordropitinyour5starreviewoftheshow. And please visit us at arcuscenter.kzoo.edu. Many thanks to our guest, doctor Michelle Taylor, also known as Feminista Jones, for sharing her time and incredibly on point observations with us.
Emily Williams:You can find her on IG and YouTube at Feminista Jones and on her website, Feminista Jones.com. She also operates her own subscription based platform where her followers can hear her thoughts on everything from film to reproductive justice, and you can find some of her book recommendations linked in our show notes. Thanks for joining us on Beyond Voting. We'll see you next time. Beyond Voting is hosted by me, Emily Williams.
Emily Williams:Keisha TK Doutaz is our executive producer. Kristen Bennett is our producer, and this episode was written by Kristen Bennett and me. Many faces is our engineer. Marketing is courtesy of Fabian Mickens, and our music is provided by Motion Array. Special thanks to my team at the Arcus Center For Social Justice Leadership, Quintin, Crimson, Tamara, Winter, and Cara.
Emily Williams:Beyond voting is a production of Filo's Future Media.