Are Protesters Motivated to Vote?
The Atlantic explores whether young protesters are motivated to vote.
The Black Lives Matter movement and others in recent years have brought to the forefront some of the issues important to African-American and other minority communities.
But a writer for “The Atlantic” suggests that the protests by young black voters especially may be taking away the sense of responsibility and interest in actually voting during elections. Theodore “Ted” Johnson is a writer, former naval officer, White House fellow and professor at the Naval War College. He joins Detroit Today host Stephen Henderson to discuss his article, “The New Look of the Post-Obama Electorate”.
Here is a segment from his article:
African American voters, frustrated by the government’s lack of responsiveness to decades of socioeconomic disparities, felt that a black president could give them special attention and understand black America’s grievances better than any other. They didn’t assume, much less expect or desire, that Obama’s election would translate into a glut of administrative and legislative actions geared toward black people. It wasn’t favoritism African Americans sought; they simply wanted an acknowledgement that structural racism is real and some executive resolve to address it from the first president to have experienced it firsthand. But things haven’t gone quite as they had hoped. And frustration has given rise to a new generation of black voters and activists, a generation who uses more overt and dynamic techniques to influence the political agenda.
