A Justified Fear

This morning as I woke up, I underwent my normal routine: sit up, listen to NPR, scroll through Twitter, and check the news on FlipBoard. As I was mindlessly working my way through social media, I read a brief story that peaked my interest.

A young woman voting in her first Presidential Election was met with hostility at a polling center in her home state of Texas. An older white man told her she wasn’t registered, despite the fact she had received a confirmation sample ballot weeks before. Following a few moments of confusion, the young woman turned and walked away.

After calling a voter’s protection hotline, she found an alternative center and cast her vote.

I took mental note of the series of tweets, not because it was a story I hadn’t heard before (unfortunately ones like this seem all too common), but rather because of one small detail. The woman was the child of two immigrants, both from Mexico.

I thought back to my experience at a polling center just a few days before. I was met with kind, smiling faces, and an emphatic group of citizens excited to complete their civic duty.

As a child of two immigrants myself, I couldn’t help but question the difference in our experiences. One could make the argument that location can account for the disparity; I was in an extremely liberal district in California. The Twitter user was in historically conservative Texas. Although location was absolutely a factor, the root of the issue is far more sinister.

Ultimately, the difference in treatment can be chalked up to the shade of my skin. If put in a lineup, nobody would pick me as a first generation American. My white privilege saves me from the harassment so many have to endure, despite the fact that my family’s history is less entrenched in this country than most.

President Trump would argue he has run and succeeded on an anti-immigration platform, but the reality isn’t so. He ran against Black and Brown people. My mother, father, and brother are all immigrants, but their whiteness has protected them from his ideologies.

This election is about empathy. Can your ability to connect with your countrymen and countrywomen transcend race, religion, and creed? Can you, as a liberal, conservative, or anything in between, think objectively about the history of the candidates in play? Can you feel and pray for those who have lost a loved one to the pandemic, even if their party isn’t the same as yours? Can you think of the children locked in cages not as animals, but as human beings seeking the same privileges your ancestors did when they came here?

The outcome of this election largely rests on the minorities poked and prodded at polling centers. The success of Donald Trump banks on a lack of participation from minority groups and younger generations. They hope to scare and intimidate those people out of voting for a better future. Stories like the one on my Twitter feed this morning display a growing sense of fear in the Trump camp –– fear that those who have been disenfranchised and cast aside for centuries are going to rise up and put a foot down –– fear that their inaction has finally summoned the countermovement of their nightmares –– fear that change is coming. They wouldn’t be making it hard for you to vote if they thought you couldn’t change the course of this country.

There’s no better time for them to be afraid.

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