by Julianne Malveaux
(Trice Edney Wire)-The man is tall, chocolate black, with a crown of silver hair. He cocks his head some kind of way, like he is moving on purpose. If I go to the gym early, I see him, walking down the block around 5:15. Sometimes we say hey to each other, sometimes we don’t. I don’t know his name.
One day, grinning, he walks up to me and hands me a coffee. You look like the kind of lady who likes sugar and cream in her coffee, he says. I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m a tea woman, so I accept the cup gratefully. We do the small talk thing, still not exchanging names, and we easily fall into talk about the election. Yeah, I’m gonna vote for her, he says. But I don’t understand why election day is not a holiday. What do you mean, I say. Think about it. It’s a pain to vote on a Tuesday. You could vote absentee or something, I say. Yeah, but our government could make voting a priority. I’m still sipping the too-sweet coffee, late for the gym now. Well, bro, I say, you have a point.
He does. Voting should be a celebration of democracy. We should have the day off, not just to celebrate that which brings us together. There should be civic education. Conversations, broadcasts, more. Election Day should be a recognition of what citizenship means. It should be joyful and prideful, a reinforcement of who we are.
Those who know me well know that I don’t write these words easily. It has taken me a lifetime to appreciate our nation, despite its many flaws and virulent racism. I don’t pledge the flag and have written about why the words of the “pledge of allegiance” gall me. But the flip side is that I live here. My people built this. I can have ambivalence about our origins, our history of enslavement, our unequal justice, and at the same time appreciate “the experiment” of democracy.
Our so-called democracy has extremely imperfect origins. First, only propertied white men had the right to vote. And the system of the Electoral College gave population rich California the same sway in voting as population poor Idaho or Rhode Island. And Black folks were denied the right to vote through racism and chicanery. One of the ways to get past all of that would be to celebrate elections and to ensure that every eligible person had the opportunity to vote. I’m not sure that anything can “bring us together” but an election celebration might be a step in the right direction. It might remind us that no matter what divides us, the franchise binds us together.
Neighbor and I bump fists and part as I marinate these thoughts. I hustle to the gym, bubbling with ideas, especially as this 2024 election, “the most consequential of our lifetime” is underway. No matter what happens, what we know is that our country is woefully divided, and for good reason. Predatory capitalists have no. shame about exploiting workers. Drug companies have no regrets about charging too much money for too many essential drugs. Profit is king in these United States, and some make a profit while others are profit fodder. Can anything bring us together?
I happen to think that a national celebration of voting rights could be a step in the right direction. Cynic that I am, I realize the many flaws in this idea. Some people don’t want everyone to vote. Look at all the election suppression that we are experiencing. In some states people must travel miles to vote. In some states people are being purged from the polls, even though they are legally entitled to vote. But what if we made the right to vote a celebration, and confronted those who would deny the vote by reminding them that voting is our nation’s key value.
Let’s embrace this first Tuesday in November as a celebration. Let’s make it a national holiday. Let’s use it as a day to look each other in the eye and say, “this is what we have in common”. Now you could roast me on a spit before I’d consider voting for the Orange Man or chatting up one of his supporters. But I think of Dr. Maya Angelou and her beautiful inaugural poem, On the Pulse of Morning, at the Clinton inauguration.
This is what she wrote:
Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, and into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope—
Good morning.
In the name of Maya, and Clinton, and the Bush family, and Washington, and Eisenhower, and so many more, all forty-seven presidents, can we cleave to each other with civility and decency and say, with hope, good morning. Let’s make ELECTION DAY a national holiday. And thank you, neighbor, for the idea.
Dr. Julianne Malveaux is an economist and author.