Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritun Day, a show where we reimagine the worst citizen as a verb and remind ourselves how to wield our collective power. I'm Baritone Day. This year, the name Abrahm x Kendy has become very popular. You might remember that period this summer when the top selling books in the US went from how to Bake sour dough Bread to how to be an Anti Racist.
Dr Kendy wrote how to be an Anti Racist, But before the coronavirus landed in the US way back on January seven of this year, I was focused on another piece by Dr Kendy, an article in the Atlantic called The Other Swing Voter. Here's an excerpt. The common conception of the swing voter is one who shifts between voting Republican and voting Democrat. The center right or center left.
Voters are typically white and older. Meanwhile, people of color and young people and especially young people of color, are more likely than white people and older people to swing between voting Democrat and not voting or voting third party.
These are America's other swing voters. Othered because they are typically young and not white, Othered because they are hardly recognized at the table of political agency, othered because they are primarily recognized at the table of political shame when they don't vote, other because Americans refuse to recognize how
voter suppression and depression affect their agency. I wanted to talk about these other swing voters and since new infrastructure has allowed grassroots organizations to engage these voters or non voters in new ways that include building long term relationships and investing in the political education of people we all
too often ignore. This election could see the largest percentage of voter turnout ever, and that's due in large part to the work of organizations like Voto Latino, run by Maria Terressa Kumar, who we had on this show in episode ten. It's also due to the work of smaller groups, local groups on the ground, groups like Black Leaders Organizing
Communities a k A BLOCK in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I got a chance to speak with Angela Lang Blocks executive director, who's been laying the foundation in Milwaukee since I wanted to understand what has changed between and today, why Block has had such success in engaging with non voters in their community, and how they're preparing for November three and beyond.
My name is Angela Lang and I am the founder and executive director of Black Black Leaders Organizing for Communities based in Milwaukee, and we are a year round civic engagement organization making sure that people understand the political process and how to get involved and understand the agency that they have to make a change in their own community. Can you tell me the story of why you created
block and why whatever existed didn't feel like enough to you? Yeah? So, in Seen, it was a heartbreak for us one the outcome of the election, but then also in the weeks afterwards, everyone was pointing the finger at us, specifically black folks, and if you know, if those blacks would have just
shown up, we wouldn't be in the situation. Those were exact quotes of what we were hearing, the microaggressions, the problematic language, and it was very frustrating to hear when you say that you're talking about those blacks in Milwaukee specifically,
or Wisconsin or Milwaukee specifically. But I think people generally we're targeting the black community and the black vote in the state of Wisconsin, but a lot of times people know that they're they're using code for specifically Milwaukee, which is the largest concentration of black folks in the state
of Wisconsin. And so it was incredibly frustrating and hurtful to know that we are some of the most disenfranchised and least engaged, but yet we were to blame for the outcome of this election, and it was important for us to not wait for a candidate, a party, or
an elected official to engage us. We were going to do that work ourselves, and that we were going to train folks from the community to have conversations about political process, how to get involved, what's the difference between a state senator and a U. S Senator, and the difference between city government and county government, and how can we actually make a change based off of the issues that we
care about. And so we wanted to really kind of build something that I think was missing a little bit in twenty sixteen. And so we've been working, you know, the last almost three years for this moment. But we're so much more than elections. We want to make sure that we're engaging people in between election cycles, caring about issues,
bringing community members together. Last summer, we were able to do a lot of cookouts, a lot of barbecues, just to bring neighbors together, to talk about their issues, just to do something positive in the community. How did you get into this work? To Angela, what's your bag? I didn't intend to. I will say that my family knew long before I did. Always thought I was going to be a doctor. I said, I wanted to do doctors
without borders. That's when I entered college. As in my undergrad I was like, I'm gonna be a pre med major. And I've always been fond of politics, always been like more active. I was the nerd. I was class president of middle school, right. I was that like nerdy Parson middle school class president's duties. Oh you organized the dance, you organized the canned food drive, you do that type of stuff. And I was always really interested in it, but I didn't think I would make a career out
of it, and I didn't know what organizing was. And then I was doing a lot of nonpartisan work on campus, a lot of you know, know your rights, making sure that students have the correct idea to vote, a lot of just nonpartisan voter registration. And then in when Scott Walker was elected governor, that really kind of shifted things. Folks remember there are lots of protests in the Capitol. We slept over in the Capitol. I was still remember
that cold linoleum floor in Madison. I remember protesting not just for student rights, but for rights of workers and collective bargaining, and seeing the student movement kind of really converge with the labor movement. And that's really where I got a crash course and organizing. My first job out
of college was for the Service Employees International Union. When I was at SCIU of the whole goal was to get in the door, have a conversation, and to learn how people view themselves politically too, And I learned a lot that people were like, oh, I'm not political, but yet Yeah, just had a forty five conversation about how child care should be free, how yes we should raise
the minimum ways. I want to talk about black folks and assumptions with elections because my observation experience has been, you know, a politician rolls through every four years, maybe every two in this sort of church plate passing mode, and you deposit your votes here please, And you have been using this phrase of year round engagement. How is blocks model different from the type of voter mobilization we're used to seeing, experiencing, or reading about in terms of
the black community. Yeah, I think in a lot of senses, our level of engagement is incredibly different. We're trying to swipt this model on its head. I think a lot of times candidates, as you mentioned, come in a couple of weeks or a couple of months before an election and say, hey, vote for me, and we haven't seen you since the last time you said hey, vote for me. We don't know what you did, we don't know why
you actually deserve our votes. And so we're trying to flip that model and say you want our vote, come get our vote. We want to make sure that you're talking to us, you have an understanding of our issues, and you're engaged and having a deep, meaningful conversation and building that trust in our community. And that's not something you can do a month or so before an election. And so what we try to do is that we
want to kind of center that community power. And something that we also try to note as well is that there are people who haven't had their voting rights restored yet unfortunately, but they deserve a conversation, They deserve you listening to their issues just like anyone else should. And so I'm proud to say that in twenty nineteen, we had three presidential candidates visit us and knocked doors with us.
We had folks engaged with us in twenty nineteen because they understood that you cannot just come in in October of making your first rounds of introductions to us and thinking that's going to be enough. What is it like for the black Milwaukee resident to have a full year before an election or even more, someone knock on their door and ask them what their concerns are, what their dreams are, what their fears are. I think it's a
huge difference. There are times that people don't even get that door knock, let alone if they do one that asked them what they care about, what their hopes are, what their dreams are, what it looks like for our communities to thrive. There are folks shortly after we've started knocking in that said, I've lived in this house five ten years, and you're the first person to knock on my door. We exclude people so much because they're not seen as the regular voter, and they just don't get
that touch at all. And we want to make sure that we're spending our time talking to the folks that are being left behind being able to have those conversations on a year on basis, And I tell folks that we have to have three separate conversations. On one hand, we want to turn a non voter into a voter after you know, we have that really big conversation that's not an easy conversation. Then we want to make sure that people understand the political process and where they fit in.
They understand why they're voting for someone for the State Supreme Court because they understand what the state Supreme Court does. We want them to understand the broader process. And then lastly, we want them to vote for the candidates that we've and are advocating the most for our communities. So these are three separate conversations that we can't start to have around this time. You know, three weeks before an election. It takes a lot to move people from being a
non voter to a voter. There are people that say that they are skeptical, they don't think that their voice or their vote even matters. Those are big conversations, and we don't believe that you should shame people for not voting. There is a reason, and we want to get to the core of that reason. Let's have the conversation, why are you a non voter? Why do you think it's
important for you to have your voice heard? Are there other ways that we can get you to be civically engaged so you see how the process works and hopefully at some point that process for you does include voting. And so we want to meet people where they're at and have those honest conversations. And I think that's something that a lot of times organizations don't have time to do or just don't prioritize how they're having those conversations.
What have you learned as the main reasons people remain in that non voter category and would have been some of the more active ways of helping move them into the voter category. Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I've learned over the last several years, even before I joined Block, is that people aren't apathetic. And I think there's this idea that if you don't vote, then you must not care, you must be apathetic. And there hasn't been a person that I talk to you that said
I'm apathetic. I just don't care. They have issues that they care about. They may not see how those issues relate in a broader political sense of voting, But everybody cares about something and it's on us to make sure that we're getting to the heart of what that is.
And I think, you know, that's something that's very beautiful and special, and I tell people all the time this is my favorite part of the job, is that I get a chance to be able to bear witness and play a small role in that light bulb going off on people understanding the agency that they have in a political system that often tells us that we don't have any to have people understand how to make their voice heard in the city budget hearing, for example, or to
you know, sit in front of a presidential candidate and said, what are you gonna do for my community? You need to listen to me. And they may not even have their voting rights restored yet, but they still have that power and are able to claim and take up that space. And I think that's really what's super important for us. And I think that's something also too that I'm very proud of as well. What's on the minds of the people in the black Milwaukee community. What are the issues.
What are you learning when you knock doors and engage with folks. Yeah, I think what's the most fascinating about this particular cycle is that people are experiencing the effects of the federal government and know that the federal government is to blame for some of the issues that they're experiencing right now. If people are having a hard time dealing with the effects of COVID, whether that's financially or that's due to mental health, they know who to blame.
And I think a lot of times the federal government feels very far removed from our issues. We don't always feel the impact right away unless you're paying attention very closely and watching c SPAN all day every day. But people know now when those benefits ran out, they knew it was Congress that was stalled and not able to
pass another package to extend those unemployment benefits. If there's another you know, stimulus and people are able to get another check, people know it is their congress person that is doing these negotiations. In addition to this current administration, so we're actually watching things play out in real time in ways that we haven't really seen before. So a lot of the issues, whether it's financially or anything that's related to COVID, I think is immediately on folks mind.
And also, you know, people care about things like healthcare. You know, I think a lot of times people don't think of healthcare as a black issue. And I tell folks all the time, like, yes, you know, mass incarceration is something that is intimately connected to our community in ways that are different from other communities. But we also care about education and things like healthcare and those quote
mainstream issues, We also care about them as well. You use this phrase earlier, and I think maybe it's a question you ask people what would it mean for your community to thrive? Could you tell me about the origin of that question. I've done door to door just for some context. I've been sent out by campaigns and I get a checklist and it's like, what do you think
about this? How would you rate your feelings. I'm like a door to door poster and I've never been asked to ask someone what would it take for their community to thrive? So what's the origin of that question and what are you learning in terms of the answers? Yeah, we knew immediately based off of that we wanted to do things differently, and one of those things was really digging deep in and building trust. And that also means
getting to know what people care about. I think there's a lot of times we run poles, you know, we think that we know we're making these assumptions, Oh, we know the black community they only care about criminal justice because half of them are locked up, right, Like, we make these assumptions all the time without actually asking people what do they care about. We try to sell them on things. We knock on their door and say, hey, you know, vote for this person and sign this petition,
come join me doing acts. But how many times do we knock a door and say, hey, what do you care about? And so we knew that we needed to build trust as a new organization, and we wanted to establish those relationships. So we started when we knocked doors in November of seventeen and we just opened up with that question what does it look like for the black community to thrive? And people were looking at us crazy, they were skeptical. They were like, what do you really want?
Why are you really here? And we said, no, we want to hear about what are the issues that matter to you the most? And people struggle because they weren't used to even thinking about thriving, let alone ask that question from a stranger. A lot of times in our community, we're trying to survive day to day, hoping that interactions from the police don't end up in us being murdered. That we can you know, like last that extra hundred dollars to provide for our family until we get paid
on Friday. You know, those are those things, and so it provides us an opportunity to to say about our dreams, to think about the world that we want to live in. And there are times people say, well, I think we need a speed bump, and we're like, okay, let's get you. Let's speed bump. I don't know if that's thriving, but let's get you that speed bump, and let's have a conversation that you feel that your community isn't being invested in the same way that other suburbs are. Maybe that's
a bigger issue. Let's have that conversation as well, in addition to getting you that speed bump. So we've heard everything from really micro level issues to really macro level issues and how people really want to get involved and advocate for their their neighborhoods too, and once you unlock that, once you've got people sharing their dreams and their hopes and their thrive manifestoes, what happens with all that energy. Yeah, So one of the big things that translated out of
that was our our now Block agenda. So we have been having these conversations in the field for so long. Last year we said we wanted to make sure that we're consolidating what we're hearing. So we started to kind of hear some different themes around healthcare, around transportation, education, and last fall, almost about a year ago, we had a series of people's assemblies and there are ten different issue areas and themes that we've heard, and we had
butcher paper everywhere. We had our team facilitate small group discussions on the Saturday, and we said, okay, as it relates to education, what do we want to keep, what do we want to amend, what do we want to make better? What do we need to protect? And we just captured as much of the conversation as we could. Our political director went back compiled it into a draft agenda, and then we came back with the same group a couple of weeks later and said Hey, it's now on paper.
What does this look like? What does this feel like? Does this feel good? Do we need to make any edits? And we ratify it as a community and it's meant to be a living document to grow and change as the needs of the community change. But that was one step, and that's really kind of is how we're centering our our policy work. Blocks started knocking on doors in November, which is well ahead of the typical timing for a
election cycle. What position are you in now? How does Milwaukee and Black Milwaukee look from a voter engagement perspective versus four years ago? I think that we are in a better position. There's infrastructure that exists now that didn't exist in whether that is you know, groups like ours leaders igniting transformation, A lot of other groups are doing
that work. And we also used the last four years as different benchmarks and tests we played in every single election, whether it was the state Supreme Court that no one really you know, paid attention to in or whether it was the Shareff's race that was getting overlooked in the
midst of a really crowded gubernatorial primary. We wanted to make sure that we were talking about the down ballot races that seem to be forgotten, and we've had fellowship programs who were able to train hundreds of people between then and now about the deeper political process and having folks turn out in ways that they haven't turned out before to see, you know, so many people turn out and testify as a city budget hearing that typically are overlooked,
you know, was a testament that more people are paying attention and more people are pushing back and asking questions and making sure that their voices are heard. So I think a lot has happened in the last four years just in our world, in our city. And then I also think that there's just a lot of infrastructure that has been working very, very hard to connect with our community to make sure that people are active. We were
really excited shameless plug. Last week, MSNBC actually did a profile on two of our lead ambassadors who did not vote in and not only are voting this year, their whole job now is to organize other people to vote. You use the word ambassadors to refer to people who work with the organization. What is your training model, how do you get done, what you get done, and and how different is it from the other groups. You've been a part of our seen Yeah, we really really value
leadership development. We want to make sure that we're digging deeper having quality type of conversations. And and I've worked for organizations where someone will come in, apply for your job, fill out an application, get interviewed, do a brief training, and we send them out on doors within an hour from applying to being out on doors. We're pushing people out because we need to hit as many doors as possible.
I know some folks that wouldn't even pay for chairs in their offices because they wanted people to be in and out so quickly. We are very different. We wanted to make sure our team is fully educated. We wanted them to have more meaningful conversations on doors. So instead of saying, hey, we vote for the sheriff, we're saying, hey, do you know what the sheriff does? Do you know their jurisdiction. We're able to do some of that political
education on training, which means we're constantly role playing. We're constantly workshopping any issues that we're having or we're hearing in the field. We're constantly educating ourselves. If there is an ad that came out we talk about it, we analyze it. If there's a poll that comes up, we analyze it because we want to raise everyone's consciousness as well. And so we put our team through at least thirty hours of training before they're even knock a door. Um
Zo thirty hours three zero. And like I said, I've been a part of canvas programs where you're in and out within an hour. You know, you're trying to get people to vote for your candidate, but we're not talking about the issues. We're not talking about the jurisdiction, the roles and responsibility of that office. Why should I just tell people to vote for a U. S. Senator if they don't have any concept of what the U. S.
Senate does and how it directly impacts their lives. And so we want them to be able to have those types of conversations because we want to be able to build the awareness and the analysis in this culture of civic engagement in our community, and that an election is a tool to do so. But really it is, it's just one pathway. We want to make sure that people understand their civic engagement rights and how to be a
part of it on a year round basis. Whether it's the city budget hearings, or it's voting or anything in between, and so we take that extra time. I think that's something that we are really proud of by digging d been having fellowship programs, We've been doing Civics Jeopardy via Facebook Live. That's one of the ways we train our folks. And there's different categories, you know, legislative, judicial, block history, and that's how we kind of keep our stuff fresh
and keep it fun. So it's not just dry trainings who were constantly able to keep each other on our toes. I want to know more about Civics Jeopardy. How often do you do that? So every Friday in October, but we've been Facebook living it. Last week was our first week and we're gonna be having some special guests as well, some local elected officials to kind of help out and to be you know, a guest host and to read
some of the issues and some of the questions. So it's something that we we do want a regular basis and it allows us to be able to have fun as well as kind of you know, stay fresh on some of the dates and everything that keeps changing. Civics is not easy to keep up with when they constantly keep trying to change the rules. So this is a good way to stay on top of it. Is that open to the public. Anybody can tune into your Facebook page and watch Dame. Yes every Friday, I say, around
new but we're give us to like twelve fifteen. We're running a little bit behind, a little bit on some days. But yeah, check out our our Facebook live We had the first one just air and you can still check out our live video. Oh thank you for that. I was reading Milwaukee Magazine the other day, as I do sometimes, and I saw a quote from you in there where you said, I tell people all the time, Milwaukee breaks my heart and inspires me every day. Can you expand
on that. I've never lived anywhere else. I'm born and raised in Milwaukee. I was one of those teenagers I wanted to move far away full disclosure. As much as I've got Milwaukee, there was a point in time where I wanted to leave. I wanted to be that eighteen year old that went to the big city, and that went and moved to New York and you know, became a doctor and went to Columbia, and that did not
work out. I had a route awakening. I was humbled greatly that Columbia, being my dream school, I didn't get into and I didn't know what to do. I was really devastating because it was really banking on going to New York and I stayed in Milwaukee, and it was the best decision that I made, And it is now a conscious decision of why I stay here. And I
think it's because there's so many resilient people. And I tell folks all the time, like, I could leave, but I don't know if I would feel as comfortable organizing somewhere else. It's very intimate, it's very personal all the
the challenges that we're experiencing. It hits different when you're born and raised in the same place that you're doing your organizing and to see all the challenges you know, home to one of the most incarcerated zip codes, Wisconsin being the worst place to raise a black child, all of those things, I'm like, how do I still live here? But at the same time, there's so much work to
be done. I'm not arrogant enough to think that I'm solely the sole person to fix those issues, but I want to do what I can because I feel like Milwaukee helped raise me, and I feel like there's just a lot of resilience and a lot of beautiful people, and there's a lot of potential that I think is untapped in Milwaukee, and I want to make sure that it is the best place that it could possibly be
for everyone, including a black community. So meanwhile, groups like Block based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and others in cities across the country have been doing the very hard work to turn non voters into voters. They're helping people see how the political process connects to things they care about. And I loved that they started on this election three years ago, going door to door asking people what it looks like
to thrive, creating a community vision and manifesto. While groups like Block invite more people into the political process, others are working to make sure they can actually cast those votes and have them counted. We have the fortune of speaking with Quentin Palfrey about efforts to protect our right to vote. He's the chair of Voter Protection Core, a grassroots organization that was founded after by data scientists and lawyers to help protect and defend people's rights to vote,
especially communities of color. So the Voter Protection CORES was launched last year, and this is my fifth presidential cycle working on voter protection issues. And over the last few cycles, we've learned some things about some of the problems that can come up in elections. And so last year a bunch of us who were involved in the Obama campaign and the Carry campaign and Clinton campaign got together and said, you know, maybe we ought to get out ahead of
some of these problems. Maybe we ought to try and solve the things that can be solved in advance, and maybe we ought to combine some of the legal expertise that we have in the voter protection community with some data expertise. So we formed a partnership with the Carnegie Mellon University and tried to look at the places where voters faced most obstacles and started to target some of our activities towards the places that were most likely to
be a problem in the elections. So essentially, what the Voter Protection Core is is a network of lawyers and data scientists who are trying to identify the obstacles that voters face to registering, voting and having their votes count, and then try to head off those kinds of problems you mentioned protecting people's registration, there's sort of voting activity and the count. Can you dive into what exactly you're trying to protect In our country, we have a shameful
legacy of racial bias in our elections. Communities of color, younger people, people who tend to move around a lot, tend to run into problems in our system that aren't faced by other people in the system. So think about this spring voters waiting for four or five hours in a number of African American communities during the primaries. That's been endemic to our system for a long period of time.
Voters of color have faced voter purges for many years, face voter suppression, have faced legislation that aims to make it harder for them to register and vote. And so we've got these really shameful inequalities in our system. Some
of them are caused by intentional voter suppression. So, unfortunately, we now have a president and some allies who have weaponized lies about voter fraud in order to make it harder for people to vote, and particularly communities that the president as allies think will will not vote for them in the election. Um, so they're using voter suppression as a campaign tactic. So your organization is a network of lawyers, of data scientists, it's a nerd network. It's an exactingly
powerful network of thoughtful people. And you're on the ground in a bunch of places. What are you seeing on the ground? Where are you seeing it that concerns you the most? So I think that you have to understand. And the people are voting in a bunch of different ways,
and so the challenges come up in different context. So I'm very interested in making sure that in person voting works well because we've seen that African American students, the homeless, and Native Americans have a tendency to use in person voting options at a higher rate and to be disproportionately impacted when there are long lines or when they're polling
place closures. So one of the things that we've spent a lot of time doing is making sure that there are enough poll workers, because we know that when their poll workers shortages their long lines, we know that when their long lines, the vote is suppressed. So making sure that there are enough poll workers to avoid the kind of debacle we had, for example, in the African American communities in Milwaukee during the primaries, or that we've seen repeatedly in Georgia, that we saw in the Vada, that
we saw in Philadelphia. We need to make sure that there are enough election officials so that people can wait in shorter lines. We need to make sure that they're not shutting down polling places. I mentioned Milwaukee in their primary. They went from a hundred and eighty polling places in the primary to five in this election, and you saw people waited in really long lines. Some people may have contracted coronavirus as a result of voting. Those are very
bad outcomes. We need to make sure that we keep the polls open. On the vote by mail side, vote by mail is an extremely effective way for people to vote. Every serious scholar who's looked at this from the Brennan Center, the Bipartisan Policy Center, from the Voter Protection Course has concluded that this is a safe and effective way to vote. But not all of the states that are ramping up their vote by mail system know how to do it
well yet. So the states that have done it well historically are really good at it, but some of the states that are starting for the first time are rejecting a lot of ballots for really stupid reasons, and a lot of voters who are casting valid ballots are running into rejection rates that are much higher than they ought to be. What's a high rejection rate. Well, so, in the states that do a good job of administering elections vote by mail, the rights rejection can do less than
one percent. And you know, we have this tradition in the voting law community of honoring the intent of the voter and not rejecting a validly cast ballot because of some minor procedural requirement. In the New York primary, almost one in five ballots were rejected. It's almost ballots were rejected. We're seeing in Philadelphia and in Pennsylvania rejection of ballots
because they're called naked ballots. People didn't use the proper envelopes, and you know, we were worried that more than a thousand people could be disenfranchised because of a really foolish question around like which envelope did you use? So I think those are the kinds of things we need to
teach election officials how to do better over time. But to your initial point, you know, some of those things are no longer fixable, and so what you have to focus on now is teaching voters how to do it and making sure that we bring down those rejection rates just by making through voter education. What has you the most excited or hopeful in terms of our ability to preserve the legitimacy of our electoral system. I'll say two things.
The first is the one that I started with, which is this notion that we actually are starting to have new candidates, new voters, new people involved in our elections. It's been really exciting to see an emergence of much more diverse voice, of younger voices, more gender balanced candidates,
new voters. There's a real energy and if you sort of think about where our country is going, you know, the views of younger people, even in the red est states, if you look at the demographics of some of the states that have been traditionally I think the future is progressive and the future is more diverse and more gender balance,
and I think that that's really exciting. We are in an election period where people are already voting, so the idea of election day is more like election season, and I think of November three as a voting deadline, not a voting day. What is your advice for how we can prepare ourselves what we should expect at the end
of November three. I think you're entirely right that because of the pandemic and because of some of the changes that we've made to our election system, we should be thinking about this as an election period, not in election day. And one of the things that I think we ought to do is change our view of what election night
is going to look like. So we have this picture that somebody is going to stand up in front of these maps on cable TV, and we're gonna watch it, and then we're either going to be very happy or very sad by the end of the night, but we're basically going to know how the election is going to turn out. And that's not the way it's going to be this year, because there are a lot of states, for good reasons, that are going to accept ballots that are postmarked on election day but received a couple of
days afterwards. And I think it's gonna be really important for us to shift our view and say, actually, we should wait, we should be patient, we should not declare victory or defeat until all of those ballots are counted.
I also think that there's good reason to suggest that a lot of the Trump voters are going to vote in person, and those votes are going to be counted earlier, and that the Biden vote is going to be a little bit more spread out, and so some of the votes that are going to be counted in the days after election day may well be for Biden and harrass, and so the narrative across the week may shift a
little bit. I think that we should be very vigilant against Donald Trump and the Turr in general, Barr and some of their allies saying, actually, election results are final immediately if they look a little bit more pro Trump than the polls have looked, because that's actually to be expected. And there's been some some talk of this notion of a red mirage. But I think that the way to think about that is that we ought to be patient
and count all of the votes. That's important in the democracy, and wait until all of the votes are counted before we form an assessment as to who won. What can someone do who hears this isn't a lawyer or an election lawyer or a data scientist to leave it all in the field in this area? What does that mean? So? First of all, there are lots of ways for you to get involved with our organization. It's voter dash Protection
dot org. We'd love to have your help. But more broadly, I think that you should think about using your time and your money to make sure that this election reflects your values. And using your time, I think means helping to get out the vote. It means helping to recruit poll workers or to monitor at the polls. There are opportunities within both the nonpartisan sector there's the Election Protection Coalition and within the campaign, within the Biden Harris campaign
to to work as a poll monitor. And if you have resources, I do think that this is a time to dig deep and contribute those resources to organizations or campaigns that reflect your values. Oh that is a simple and hard to ask, but very important one. Quentin. I want to thank you for your time. There's been a
terrific conversation. I really appreciate you having me on. Many of the voter suppression tactics and scenarios that Quentin and Voter Protection Corps are fighting exists at just one level in the system, but this is and as we know, there are many levels, which means Angela and Block have found themselves preparing the black community for things she never
thought she would have to consider. A lot of us are seeing headlines and images of what the situation on the ground is in Wisconsin and in Milwaukee, long lines. You read about various efforts to make it harder to vote this time in particular, what are you seeing in terms of the challenge of voting in the pandemic especially, and and how are you all trying to overcome any of those new obstacles. We're anticipating, you know, any potentially long lines, so we want to make sure that folks
are early voting or voting absentee. We also just don't know what's going to happen on election day. We've seen in presidential elections if there's long lines, people have to wait a while. But we're also preparing for any voter intimidation that's going to happen at the polls. Realistically speaking, we heard the president talking about having his supporters poll watch, and pole observed. We also know that his supporters can be incredibly violent and incredibly dangerous, so we're preparing for
those things. But ultimately people were asking, hey, you know we have five polling places open in April. Are we sure that's not gonna happen no November. People have been making plans since our disastrous election in April, and people are like, okay, basically, come hell or high water. I couldn't vote in April, but I'm going to vote in November.
And we saw people starting to make plans sense then, and I think people are really fired up and people will feel very very strongly about making sure that they make a plan, they make a backup plan, and they're making sure that their voices are heard. It's like disaster prep. That's that's really it shouldn't be that way, But to deny it is to not be prepared. I want to touch on this political violence point with you because you've got Kenosha, which the country is very familiar with in
terms of written house. You've got wad with Toosa and and recent incidents with the police killing someone in folks you know, going out to protests and being hit with more violence from the police. And then you mentioned the president and his support is being willing to use violence. How do you prepare your communities to protect themselves in a political environment that often goes beyond tough talk to
actual violent action. Yeah, that's a really good question, one I didn't anticipate to have to do when I was making my New Year's resolutions and preparing for the year. You know, the amount of meetings and conversations I've had about white militia folks, it's been astounding, It's and I
didn't expect to be having these types of conversations. We're working with our folks from our national affiliate, the Center for Popular Democracy, to do what we're calling voter guardian trainings, making sure people understand the basic ins and out casting a provisional ballot in case there's any you know, logistical issues that come up with people casting their ballot, but also being prepared to de escalate if any conflict arises, making sure that if there is a conflict, the first
line and defense isn't to call the police. Is there a way that we can deescalate, you know, internally, so people can stand in line and to make their voice
heard safely. We're talking about all those things. We have those trainings, our team and I know my myself personally have gone through easily ten hours of digital security training, which can be kind of frightening and kind of triggering to think about, how do you keep yourself safe, understanding that white militias and the Proud Boys are on standby, and to do this work. You know, you don't want to freak people out, but you want to be honest
that this work goes and disrupts the status quo. And anytime you go against the status quo, we've seen what that looks like in history. So trying to prepare our folks and saying, you know, we're on the right side of history, but that also means it comes with some challenges, and sometimes it feels like there's a target on our back, and it's been really tough. You know, honestly, the last couple of months and thinking about those things have been
incredibly difficult. And it's strange to know that there's a you know, a threat on your organization or there's a threat to you personally, just given the fact that you just want to empower people and just make sure that
their voices are heard. So it's it's been a challenge and one that we're trying to navigate, I think in real time, and you know, everyone's priority is making sure that we're we're keeping everyone safe and we're still you know, doing the best that we can to speak true to power to just like our ancestors have done in our civil rights icons as well. We have a view on this show that the word citizen is less useful as a legal status than it is as a verb and
a steat of actions. That we citizen, it is to citizens our purpose here. How would you define the word citizen if you were to interpret it as a verb? Yeah, I would define citizen as a person without boundaries, right. I think a lot of times people here citizen and
they always think of geographical boundaries. But what does it mean to be a citizen of the society and as a citizen of this world and want to contribute in a way that you are able to be liberated and free and live your true and full self while also being able to participate in a representative, participatory democracy without any challenges or barriers. Do you want your voice heard? Your voice matters just as much as you know a billionaire who builds their wealth off of the backs of
the working class. At the same time, you are able to make your voice heard and live freely and in a way where your rights, your body, who you love, how you express yourself isn't regulated through the government that doesn't look like you, that doesn't represent you, but decides to tell you what you should do with your body and your expression. To me, that's what it means to be a citizen of this world and of the society. People want to help Angela. I get asked a lot.
I live in New York or I live in California. What can I do? How can I make sure that every vote is kind of How do I support Wisconsin? What do you say to people who want to help? Do you have specific things you need people to do, whether they live in Wisconsin or not. Yeah, so there's a couple different ways we tell folks that they could be helpful. One, I would be a bad executive director if I didn't make a fundraising pitch. There's ways that
people can support us on our website. We have both nonpartisan and partisan capabilities, and we divide up our donations appropriately in that way too. You know, are there folks that you think that we should get to know? Do you have a rich uncle, does your brother make a podcast? And do you think that I'd be a great guest?
Or are there other organizations you know, either locally or nationally that you think that we should be collaborating with we'd love to be able to get connected to other folks. And then lastly, is that in this time where everyone is having difficult conversations or I hope everyone is having difficult conversations, being able to center and amplify the work and lived experiences of our community and so being able to amplify and share our content one so more people
can hear about us. But too, I think we're all being collectively gas lit about some of these situations that
we're in. People think that racism is still not a problem in our country, and people respond, but when you say black lives matter, and so by being able to really center and amplify the lived experiences of our community through our social media is also helpful if people want to to help out specifically on election day, you know, we want to make sure that we have enough voter guardians at polling places to de escalate where possible, So
feel free to send us a message. We're putting all those plans together, so people can d m us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or you can send us a note through our website at block by block dot org and that's Bloc b y Bloc Data Org is there anything else you want to make sure to mention or to address
with this moment. I think the only thing that I would mention is that we're living in these really dark, troubled, unprecedented times and we just need to show up as real people and allow ourselves the grace to feel what we're feeling, to know that is not normal. To have conversations about white militia are not normal. To have people openly killing and shooting protesters at seventeen years old is not normal, and we should never get used to this.
We have a choice to really decide who we want to be as a country and how we show up in this work. You know. I think shortly after the murders of Brianna Taylor and George Floyd, people were buying the book White Fragility. People are buying all these books, and I hope that people are reading them. They're doing the work, and they're not just collecting dust after they posted them on Instagram claiming to be woke, but are
actually doing that tough work. Because this moment that we're in is what happens when privilege goes unchecked for years and decades, and this is our moment to really create a vision of a world that we want to live in, and we get to start over. We get to reimagine, you know, what safety is, maybe without the police, and we get to really kind of dream without any limitations. But that means that we have to do that work as well internally, all right, in terms of that content,
I know I'm checking out Civics Jeopardy. First of my thank you Angela for the time, thank you for the insight um and and thank you for the work that you're doing and that you're a part of. Thank you, I appreciate it, and thanks for having me on to tell our story too. Thank you to Angela Lang and Quincon pow Free for joining us. You can follow Angela and Block by Block on the social She is Angela underscored Lange. The organization is Block by Block m k E. That's b l oc b y Bloc m k E.
That's on Twitter. You can also find them on the regular Free and Open Internet at block by Block dot org. Again that's bloc b y bloc. Follow Quincon and the Voter Protection Core on Twitter, q poal free and Protect the Vote or the respective handles, and again you can visit that website don't forget about websites, y'all, voter dash
Detection dot org. As always, we post this episode extra notes transcript developed by robots at how to citizen dot com, and as always, we ask you to leave a rating or review wherever you are listening to this podcast because it helps introduce people to us. Here are the actions the moment you've been waiting for. What is barrattune they're
gonna ask us to do? All? Right? First up internal actions, and by internal as a refresher, we mean that these are actions that help you reflect on yourself, explored your emotions and your experiences. Or there are actions that are personal and don't necessarily involve other people. Got too up for you this time? First answer this question, it's the block question. What does it mean for your community to thrive? Could be speed bumps, probably more, think about it, write
it down, think about it and more. The second internal action we want to return to June. Remember when we were all black Lives Matter and hashtag and turn my I G Square black. We bought a lot of books on anti racism. Have we read them? Now is a good time to check back in doing some of that internal work to make this Land, More Free, and more fair. Read those books. Support the organizations you said you would support the black community in the way you said you would.
This is a good time to revisit and re engage on the external actions. These are public facing for the most part, they involved other human beings. Interactive three for you here one just support Block in Milwaukee blocked by
block dot org slash donation. This is the sort of group that actually makes change happen, and I, for one, am very frustrated and annoyed at certain elements of the nonprofit political philanthropic world that just pile money and resources on the people who are not in the community, who do not know what they're talking about. But because they worked on some campaign eight, ten, twelve years ago, they
still get all the goods. Let's support Angela and her team at Block again blocked by blocked out org slash donations in Milwaukee. If you are there or no people there, encourage them or yourself. Become a voter guardian again. This is a Block's website. These are people who are going to monitor the polls for intimidation, and they're trained to de escalate situations instead of calling the police. So it's
like a two fer. We know that the President is out here encouraging a level of nonsense and tom foolery at the polls, and we don't want to encourage conflict around that. We want to de escalate. Again. I trust Block to do this the right way, so support them and their efforts in Milwaukee to do the same. Finally, volunteer to be a poll worker. Where we've asked before, we will ask again. You literally can't have too many in a pandemic. More poll workers means shorter lines and
also shorter shifts for poll workers, reducing everyone's exposure. Voter Protection Corps is running a program to encourage people to do this, so check out voter dash Protection dot org slash be a poll worker. If you do any of these things, let a brother know. Shoot me an email action at how to citizen dot com mentioned in the subject line voting or making our presence felt, which is the title of this episode, And whether you tell me personally or not, tell somebody, tell a friend, tell a
family member, do that old school chain email. Have you voted yet? Send it on to ten people and tell them what you did. In this particular episode, we encourage you to the hashtag how to Citizen if you take it to the socials and you can email us broadly comments at how to citizen dot com. If there's an organization, a person and effort you think fits in this show, we want you to let us know. You can visit my website, sign up from a newsletter, find out about
upcoming events. It's all the how do citizen dot com. And I'm on Instagram at Barrattune Day. I'm on Patreon slash Barrattune Day. You can even text me right now two o eight nine four eight eight four four drop the worst citizen in I text out that are the first people to learn about the upcoming tapings of the show. They get the zoom link a little earlier because honestly, it's just easier for me to text it out than spending up the whole email list thing, which comes, you know,
a day and a few hours later. All Right, that's it. How This Citizen with barrattun Day is a production of I Heart Radio Podcasts. Executive produced by Miles Gray, Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart and Barrattune Day Thursday produced by Joel Smith, edited by Justine Smith. Powered by you