Across a wide range of fields, organizers say the solution to driving voter turnout is education. Various grassroots organizations are holding community voter registration drives, creating voter guides, and even helping residents mail in their ballots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One active community organization is Mother Brown\u2019s, a program under the United Council of Human Services (UCHS) that feeds people in the community, providing three meals a day, transitional housing, case management, and more to people experiencing homelessness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI’m a political science major, so I knew how important it was for people to vote,\u201d said the director of the UCHS, Gwendolyn Westbrook. \u201cEvery day when I first started, I would go downstairs to where the dining room was, and explain to people that they had to vote; the only way we were ever gonna get any place was if they voted.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Westbrook helped hundreds who came through the doors of Mother Brown\u2019s register each year and mail their ballots. Arieann Harrison, who works at Mother Brown\u2019s, would explain ballot measures and difficult words to those with questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With COVID-19 restrictions, Mother Brown\u2019s now offers takeout only, but Westbrook said she has more clients than ever, and her efforts to get them to vote haven\u2019t stopped. Early this month her step-daughter Kescha Mason, with Delta Sigma Theta sorority\u2019s alumnae chapter, co-led a voter registration drive out front of UCHS, debunking myths about voting and sending a voter awareness car caravan through District 10. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Issues <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Westbrook believes people are tired enough to vote. \u201cIt\u2019s not just Trump, I think it’s a whole gamut of issues that people are now starting to become very aware of,\u201d Westbrook said. Several propositions regarding housing, Prop 23 on kidney dialysis, and ever-present racism and police violence have a direct effect on her clients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Assistant editor of the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper, Keith \u2018Malik\u2019 Washington, hopes his media work will help show the community what\u2019s important: measures like Prop 16, which could afford many minorities better chances at school and career opportunities through affirmative action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Washington and Nube Brown, his fianc\u00e9e and managing editor, wrote a story in SF Bay View titled \u201cBlack Votes Matter!\u201d outlining issues that specifically affect the Bayview: outsourcing of construction jobs, the undocumented population struggling to find food, and the toxicity of Hunters Point Shipyard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Arieann Harrison hopes the Bayview is represented in future hiring, and protected properly for dangerous jobs. \u201cWhen it comes to the cleanup and management of [the shipyard], it should be done right,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to her work at Mother Brown\u2019s, Harrison is currently founding a scholarship in honor of her mother, a well-known environmentalist who worked in the toxic shipyard as a young girl and eventually developed severe lung damage. She is involved with the non-profit Greenaction, which advocates for environmental justice, especially amongst minority communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Education<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n At Mother Brown\u2019s and SF Bay View, they agree that education on the power of voting and the issues at hand is critical. This education must start as early as elementary school, said District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, and not just during election time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Census data shows the population of 15 to 17 year olds in the Bayview is far higher than the rest of the city, and Walton hopes Prop 18\u2014which will allow 17-year-olds to vote in certain cases\u2014will help more people in the neighborhood become lifetime voters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI truly believe the earlier you start, the more you will maintain a habit, and a pattern of voting,\u201d Walton said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Walton has participated in voter registration drives in Bayview\u2019s Mendell Plaza and done walks through the neighborhood to promote voting, alongside grassroots organizations like Megablack SF, which pushes for visibility and protections for Black San Franciscans and SF Black Wall Street, founded in response to COVID-19\u2019s economic impact on Black businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Oppression<\/strong> and voter<\/strong> suppression<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And the Black community isn\u2019t the only one being affected by issues on the ballot. \u201cThe policy violence, environmental violence, medical violence, racism, white supremacy, and our fight against that,\u201d Brown said, is creating a natural alliance between all oppressed people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The concept of voting is wrought with trauma for the Black community, Brown and Washington said, so voter participation is a complicated thing. \u201cWe put all of our efforts into voting, and we still can’t get our needs met,\u201d Brown said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On top of losing the motivation to vote, countless studies have shown that the Black community often can\u2019t vote: they\u2019re policed and incarcerated disproportionately compared with other populations. Having just been released from federal prison himself in September, Washington is also a supporter of Prop 17, which will restore voting rights to parolees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBlack people as a whole, with the mass incarceration in America, we’ve been disenfranchised. So just that being able to get your voting rights back, that’s huge,\u201d Washington said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Prop 17 is only a step in the right direction. \u201cThere’s a lot of obstacles in the way of people who are getting out of prison to make a smooth and successful transition back into society.\u201d Washington is living in a Tenderloin halfway house, unable to find a place to live with his fianc\u00e9e. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The SF Bay View has a designated section for prisoners\u2019 stories, which is where Washington got involved with the paper several years ago. Meanwhile Brown hosts a radio show advocating for prisoners and a monthly event called \u201cLiberate the Caged Voices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDisenfranchisement, that\u2019s just straight civil death,\u201d Brown said. She believes all disenfranchisement is a form of exploitation: prisoners are counted as residents of where they are imprisoned, not their home communities. This causes underrepresentation in their true home, and through artificially inflated numbers, gives political power to more rural white communities where prisoners are often held. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Washington and Brown are getting to know their new community, and trying to raise awareness at the same time. \u201cSince I’ve been out, I hit the ground running, like sprinting,\u201d Washington said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With countless issues on the table, residents of the Bayview neighborhood are organizing and educating those in their community to get more people to the polls (or mailboxes) this election, hoping for change this time around. Historically, parts of the Bayview have had lower voter turnout compared to other areas of San Francisco. The Bayview […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":45794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[18605],"coauthors":[18445],"class_list":["post-45793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-election-2020","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/eltecolote.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/2020_Oct_16_Bayview-1_web.jpg?resize=370%2C556&quality=89&ssl=1\")
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