Councilman urges minorities to take advantage of opportunity to vote

Massive voter registration drives and other efforts to get blacks to vote such as P. Diddy's "Vote or Die" advertising campaign characterized the 2004 presidential election, but City Councilman Steven Haynes said they weren't enough.

"We forgot," Haynes said. "Between the parties, pollsters and the weekend hip-hop extravaganzas, we forgot. While smoozing with the big shots and listening to our supposed black leaders, we forgot the simplest and most powerful thing in the world: the casting of our ballots."

Haynes spoke Monday afternoon in the Student Center Ohio Room about black voter participation and why it is important for blacks to vote. Haynes said blacks should be more involved with politics because of the sacrifices their ancestors made so they could have that opportunity and because their voices do make a difference.

"We take for granted the sacrifices made by our ancestors to get us this far in this country." Haynes said. "We had a great opportunity, in this election cycle, to show both parties the fact that African-American votes simply should not be written off or considered in one party's pocket but not in the others."

Although 40 years have passed since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which gave blacks the right to vote, Haynes said blacks have digressed in their participation in politics. He said by not voting, blacks are ignoring their history and disenfranchising themselves.

"We have a tendency to allow ourselves to be pigeonholed as a minority race," Haynes said. "We cannot become disenfranchised if we participate. We cannot be ignored if we congregate as a people, and we cannot be held down if we are motivated to make positive changes."

Haynes said his father taught him the inner-workings of local politics and gave him an appreciation for politics as a whole and said new and innovative ways must be found to pass this appreciation to future generations.

Faye Joyner-Keenee, a field representative for student support services who attended the lecture, said she thinks passing this value to younger generations is harder because they have not had to experience struggle.

"Students now have a flower bed of ease," Joyner-Keenee said. "You really don't know how hurtful and degrading that time was in trying to get voting rights." While it may be difficult, Haynes said the first step in getting young voters interested starts at home.

"You can't save the whole world," Haynes said. "But you have to start out in your little corner."