Fighting White Supremacy: Being informed for local elections

Yes, I am still obsessing over local school board elections, though with good reason. However, Ballots are due Tuesday by 5 PM, and I am hoping to move on soon. Still, I am learning a lot from this process.

One lesson is how easy it is not to know. 

In general, the bad actors are going to be far better organized, and that requires more effort from people of good will.

I remember reading an opinion piece from a woman whose extended family and neighbors would get together before elections to talk about the various measures. Previously everyone had been assigned to research one and explain the ins and outs of it. The purpose was not to convince the other attendees to vote one way or the other, but to reduce the time that each participant had to spend researching. 

It could also have easily helped in building a sense of community.

There is no reason this could not be done with candidates.

Someone could research the incumbent district attorney, and what policies they have been pursuing.

If there is a library candidate who is in favor of moving everything to e-books, someone should notice that.

Researching school board candidates could be a matter of not just seeing what they say, but also how it relates to the actual policies. For example, at least one candidate has been making claims about the Sex Ed material that are demonstrably false, though it does take someone going over the material to know that the claims are false. For someone who has children in school, knowing more about the Sex Ed material is not a bad idea anyway.

That is the thing: there is so much to know about this world -- much of it important -- and so little time to know it.

We can help each other with this.

It does require some care.

It is easy to fall down rabbit holes of disinformation today. Some agreements on what sources of information can be trusted, and how to verify, is in order. 

In addition, while it is certainly possible to have groups where not everyone feels or votes the same way, if there is fundamental disagreement, like that talking about race makes you the real racist, or that letting kids know there is such a thing as sex is dangerous, those are the kind of things that could easily derail attempts at reasonable discussion.

Those are not insurmountable obstacles though; just things to keep in mind.

And as we work together on being more informed and better able to participate in our communities, then surely we are also building better communities.