This post appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.
By Alphonso David, New York Amsterdam News
We are less than four weeks from Election Day, and voter education is more important than ever. When it comes to engaging our community in the political process, the attention tends to be myopically focused on registration and voter suppression. While these are important, we have to focus on multiple issues simultaneously.
Given America’s long history of disenfranchising Black voters and the intensifying efforts from extremists to stop us from voting, the impulse is understandable. However, in this election, there is an equally important and unmet need to inform our community about the issues up and down the ballot that will affect us the most.
We have to cut through the noise. The sheer volume of election disinformation—and its disproportionate impact on our community—is troubling, but it is not new. In fact, it is a tradition that dates back to slavery, when slave owners regularly spread lies to Black people to suppress revolution. Today, those tactics have evolved to encourage apathy and disengagement from the political process.
With the advent of social media, Black audiences are being constantly targeted with false information and harmful narratives. At least 40 million Americans—nearly every Black person in the country—are regularly targeted and fed disinformation within Black online spaces, according to a June report published by Onyx Impact, a nonprofit organization working to combat disinformation in the Black community. As a result, many Black voters are being fed false information about key issues like public health and immigration, leading to more division and mistrust.
In this election, the stakes for ensuring we are informed about the issues and the candidates could not be higher. After all, we have two parties with fundamentally different definitions of “freedom.”
For example, take the freedom to learn about Black history. Last year, right-wing Republican state legislatures banned roughly 10,000 books in U.S. public schools, nearly tripling the number of banned books from previous years—and according to a PEN America survey, the biggest targets of these bans are books that tell our stories.
On reproductive freedom, ever since Trump-appointed Supreme Court judges overturned Roe v. Wade, state-level abortion bans are delaying critical care and leading to cruel, preventable deaths. In Texas alone, the rate of maternal mortality cases rose by 56% from 2019 to 2022, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same period, far outpacing a slower rise in maternal mortality across the nation. The recent heartbreaking story of a young Black woman from Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman—who died after not being able to access reproductive healthcare—paints a clear picture of the stakes of this election.
On the other hand, Kamala Harris and Democrats are focused on building an economy and country that will allow anyone—regardless of skin color—the freedom to reach their full potential. That includes the freedom to build wealth through homeownership and entrepreneurship, the freedom to care for our families with a stronger paid family leave program, and the freedom to live free from gun violence.
Right-wing extremists are working hard to make sure Black voters do not see that information, and because Black people in America are more likely than white Americans to get news from certain social media sites, such as Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, we have an enormous hill to climb.
The best way to fight disinformation is quite simple: Meet people where they are with clear and concise facts that can be spread with the help of credible messengers.
That’s exactly what our Paint the Polls initiative is focused on. Back in July, the Sundial Group of Companies, which includes ESSENCE, the Global Black Economic Forum, Girls United, AfroPunk, BeautyCon, Refinery29, and New Voices Foundation, announced a robust schedule of virtual events to help voters understand how the key policy issues affect our daily lives.
So far, we have seen a real appetite for our programming, with the first three events attracting hundreds of thousands of viewers. By focusing on the intersection of race and politics, we will bring greater attention to the issues facing our community. Our brands have a responsibility to educate our audiences because our power at the ballot box is one of our most precious rights.
In this election, the stakes could not be higher, so we are doing all we can to ensure the public has the information, resources, and support to exercise their freedom to vote to protect our future.
Help us spread the word. Visit www.paintthepollsblack.com to watch our previous town halls and sign up for upcoming events. You can also find all content on the Global Black Economic Forum’s YouTube page.
Alphonso David is a civil rights attorney and president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum.
