"I didn't know where to go," "I didn't know
who to vote for,", "I have classes [too much to do] to figure all
that stuff out."
These are just a few of the responses given when a friend
of mine ask student athletes if they took time to vote during the primary
election on November 4th. Not one person on the team voted!
This shocked me; on so many levels. In my experience as a
professor I've seen coaches walk athletes to class (and remain there for the
duration), switch academic advisors (in my opinion partly to ensure academic
success but mostly to insure NCAA compliance) and have enlisted the help of
faculty mentors to assist athletes with any and everything possible. While
there is a national debate over whether college athletes should get paid or if
these privileged individuals are already getting their just reward one thing
that most of us can probably agree on is that they deserve a holistic mentoring
and educational experience that includes (at some point) talking about their
moral and civic obligation to the world in which they live. I'm
not saying the coaches are at fault or should bear the responsibility of having
to educate athletes about the electoral process but I can safely assume that (a)
the coach-athlete relationship is such that topics outside of sports can be
broached and (b) coaches actually care about their athletes beyond the playing
field.
Note that in my opening I didn't refer to the comments of
the student athletes as excuses, rather their responses. I do so with the
intention of opening the door to a dialogue that must happen in order to make
sure that countless numbers of other students don't respond this way in the future. It’s so easy to point the finger of
blame and say that they are adults and should be responsible enough to do what
is right, are a part of this lazy-entitled group of youth, so easy to pull the
race card (the students were both black and white...but I'll interject my
race-bases editorial later), or that socio-economic and generational
underpinnings have impacted the way these young people think.
For the last three days my Twitter and Instagram have been
filled with commentary about voting. I use both of these social media platforms
to stay in tuned to what’s going on with my students. With that being said, I
find it hard to believe that none of these student athletes got the message,
which for many of the folks that I follow was not about who to vote for but the
fact that it is your responsibility. In
my opinion, regardless of your race, socio-economic background or other personal
narrative, these students were probably given a nudge by someone to go to the
polls; which leads me to another thought. Who then is responsible for talking to our students about their civic
responsibility? Does this lie solely on the shoulders of academicians who teach
history, political science and other humanities courses that focus our role in
society or was that the lesson to be provided by the twelfth grade social studies
teaches with the hope that he or she empowered students enough to want to vote
and be accounted for?
According to the Pew Center for Research the Millennial
generation has fewer attachments to traditional political institutions, but
they connect to personalized networks of friends, colleagues and affinity
groups through social and digital media. Half of Millennials now describe
themselves as political independents. This research not only supports my claim
that social media may be a source of information and education for today’s
youth but also raises significant questions about the degree to which they will
commit to any form of political involvement and overall trust in the system.
There are more than 460,000 NCAA athletes in this country
(NCAA.org). If I were to put forth a hypothesis that a percentage of this
population votes in a manner that would yield me an error rate of +3%
that would mean that approximately 4,400 of these athletes cast their vote in
this primary. I don’t know about you but I think 3% is deplorable. Hypothetically this data can be generalized to
an even larger population of students yielding an even greater number of young
people who are not accounted for (or accountable for that matter) and who have
their lack of responsiveness to yet another midterm election viewed as
plain irresponsible.
I would be remiss if I didn’t address the fact that our
students are adults and have some level of responsibility in this. The Millennials
played a big role in the resurgence of the Democratic Party in the 2006 and
2008 elections, but their attachment to the Democratic Party weakened markedly
over the course of 2009. Maybe this is the way this generation is showing their
displeasure with the political system but does that mean you don’t vote? Is
that how you send a message to our elected officials? Whether the non-voting
students realize it or not, the balance of power in the Senate has shifted and
will have an impact on them but like most students I encounter, they’ll
probably blame their problems on poor classroom instruction and not politics.
At some point, young people have to realize that voting is about more than
voting. It’s about being involved at the
grassroots level, reading more than Madame Noire or Bossip.com (nothing wrong
with these blogs...my students refer to them as a source of news and information
all the time...but I digress), asking the right questions and making the connection
between local and national politics. Sure it may be hard for even the brightest
of minds to weed through the propaganda, mudslinging and sensationalism
associated with politics but it has to be done.
With regard to race, I have to touch on this, after all I’m
black! I don’t feel like I have a black agenda thing going on (for those of you
who may think so) but I’m a black woman, with black children who was educated
by black parents and who attended three universities, two of which were HBCUs
and who is an educator at an HBCU. Part
of my mission is to educate students, to prepare them to be successful and
concerned about a diverse, global, technologically entrenched society and to want
to make a difference; not just in their bank accounts, but for the marginalized
and voiceless around them. Do I place
emphasis on black students? Yes! About 90% of my students are black and I am
committed to helping people who look like me.
At this point I hope my fellow politicos and fellow
academicians are ready to chime in and prove me wrong. That’s exactly what I’d
like to read...a thread of responses that say otherwise, but I’m not sure that
is the case.
While my commentary initially focused on the fact that an
entire athletic team made the choice not to vote or found it problematic the
issue is larger than one athletic team, it’s about a generation of young people
who no longer want to be viewed as apathetic or as individuals who hold onto
the race card and slam it down on the table especially when it comes to
politics. It’s time to show the world
that you do give a damn about yourself and others in more than just a
materialistic way.
Young people (I’m talking to the ones who need to read this
but probably won’t)…you owe it to yourself to do your research, find out the
facts for yourself and again I say ask the right questions and then and only
then if you choose not to vote no one can say that you did it from a point of
ignorance or sheer laziness.
I will continue to believe that it takes a village to raise
a child and it takes a community of educators to prepare our young people to
have the mindset to want to find the answers to the questions that will change
their lives. I’m praying that 2016 yields
different results. Millennials RISE UP!