As most of us are well aware, last Tuesday’s Midterm Elections marked an important reshaping of the political terrain in Washington D.C. and across the country. Some would argue that nowhere were the stakes higher than in Connecticut, where the governor’s race was determined by a mere handful of votes days after the election. However, I am not here to address the outcomes of the elections. Rather, I wish to draw attention to Wesleyan students’ dismaying lack of involvement in them.
One would think that at Wesleyan, of all places, most students 18 and over would be registered voters who partake in the election process. However, after speaking with numerous schoolmates, the contrary has become apparent. An alarming number of registered students failed to vote last week, in Middletown or elsewhere. And many others aren’t even registered.
This, in my view, is hypocritical of a student body that is so quick to label itself as politically active. For a school with a history, reputation, and self-image of political activism as impressive as ours, this is an ironic and disheartening reality. Consider the fact that our school was able to organize the sensational Affirmative Reaction campaign within a mere week. And within the past year, projects such as the Kibera School for Girls and the Media Project have gained national recognition. These are but a few examples of what we, as a school and individually, can do and have done.
We as a student body are informed on national and world affairs. Many of us are also passionate about the ideas of social justice, gender equality, etc. And yet, despite our history of leadership and the concern several of us had for these recent elections, many of us failed to partake in the most basic act of political activism: voting.
We cannot take this privilege for granted. Nor can we think that our votes don’t matter. There is little need to remind us that many crucial elections have been determined by margins of less than 1%—in smaller races, that could be the equivalent of one of our dorms. In other words, one person’s activism can and has been making a difference. And if we don’t participate in the process of electing our government officials, what right have we to complain about their actions? And, last, but certainly not least, so many youth in the world fight and die for the right to vote.
I hope that we as Wesleyan students will not only be politically active in our thoughts and our actions on campus, but much more so in the politics of our local and national communities. If we are to claim ourselves members of a politically active campus, we must actively promote change we see fit not only in the world at large, but also in the smaller communities we live in. And on a most basic level, voting does just that.
De Golia is a member of the class of 2013.
1 Comment
Casey Cacioppo
Gabriela speaks with youthful enthusiasm and passion. For her, politics was a living, breathing entity and it began at home…….come on, students, begin this tradition at school. There is nothing more cool than wearing a sticker on election day that says, I Voted!