To My White Friends, Family, Progressives, Liberals, Moderates, and Reformists:

Like many Black children, I was raised with the parental refrain: You have to work twice as hard as any white person to get half as far. This refrain was said matter-of-factly in my home, an acknowledgment of the power of white supremacy and a tacit acceptance that the best we could hope for was to survive—not change—an unjust system. When I was in middle school and a white friend would get in a schoolyard fight or bring home a bad report card, my parents would remind me: “You cannot do that.” And when I turned 40 and thought about leaving my job to explore consulting and writing projects, I heard myself repeating the same refrain: “You cannot do that—leave a job without having a job!?”

This refrain is the crowning achievement of racism. We internalize it. And unless we change the external reality—the structures, policies and laws—that uphold racism, a Black person will never be equal and free in our state or state of mind.

While my parents, both Black immigrants, raised me to never forget the power of whiteness, they also raised me to never beg from or make a plea to white people. I am breaking that rule today, because I believe this election will be heavily determined by how California’s highest propensity voters choose to vote. So, this is my unapologetic plea to my educated white folks—moderates, liberals, progressives, reformists—in California:

Show up.
Vote racism out and vote racial justice in.
Educate and persuade others in your community to vote for racial justice.
Put your money where your mouth is by funding racial justice ballot measures.

What was different in the wake of George Floyd’s murder—rather than, say, in the wake of Rodney King’s beating—is that white folks didn’t stay home. They flooded the streets seeking to fight the racist systems that are suffocating Black people. Now, I am asking you to take the courage that propelled you into the streets amid a pandemic, where you marched and formed human shields, and walk to the ballot (mail)box to vote YES for racial justice propositions.

My people aren’t just dying from police brutality. We are dying from something more pernicious. We are sleeping and dying in the streets. Our dreams are dying in failing public schools. We are working on the frontlines of a pandemic, getting sick, unemployed, evicted. Black people account for roughly 6.5 percent of the state’s population, yet we represent nearly 40 percent of the homeless and over 28 percent of the incarcerated. Compared to whites, we are more than twice as likely to die from COVID-19. If you believe that Black Lives Matter, then you have to change the structures and institutions that are perpetuating our Black oppression.

Here are three ways you can “vote the talk” of racial justice this election season:

Vote YES on Proposition 15, which will increase funding for public schools, community colleges, and other public services by requiring commercial property owners to pay their fair share of taxes based on present market value.

In 1978, California passed a law freezing all property taxes, including commercial property, at the 1976 assessment rate. Before this law passed and when the majority of public school students in the state were white, California led the nation in dollars spent per student. There were few, if any, structures in place focused on keeping schools accountable for serving Black and Brown students. Today, most California public school students are Brown, we have more accountability structures in place than we did in the seventies, and yet the state is ranked 41st in the country for state funding on public education. What is the difference between then and now, you ask? When our public schools stopped being majority white, the public voted to reduce its funding. The message in that decision—which was certainly internalized by the families it affected—was that Black and Brown children aren’t as valued or valuable as white children.

Let me be the first to admit that the problems facing our current public education system are not just about funding and resources; they are about bad policies that set low expectations for ensuring our public schools protect and serve our Black and Brown students and families. To better serve our students, we need more resources, more support, higher expectations and increased accountability for our schools. By voting yes on Prop 15, you are saying that we have denied Black and Brown students comparable public investment to that of white students and it’s time to adopt a more fair tax and investment policy. Learn more about Yes on Prop 15 at Schools and Communities First.

Vote YES on Measure J (for those living in L.A. County). Individual acts of police harassment and brutality against Black people have been recorded and unrecorded since Jim Crow. Today, we live in a state that has led the nation in the mass incarceration of Black people. Measure J is a modest and critical step toward repairing the damage over-policing and mass incarceration has had on our Black communities. L.A. County currently spends 42 percent of its $1.75 billion budget on law enforcement and the legal system. Measure J would require that 10 percent of that existing budget be spent on prevention services like community counseling, mental health care, youth development, investment in small businesses, and affordable housing. Learn more at Yes on Measure J.

Vote YES on Prop 16. California used to consider race and gender during policy makers’ decision-making about hiring, contracts, and education. This was repealed in 1996, making California one of only ten states that bans the use of affirmative action. The argument for ending affirmative action was that it was no longer needed and was, itself, a form of reverse racism that—wait for it—favored Blacks at the expense of other races. This deeply flawed logic does not consider how structural racism has created perpetual and unspoken white affirmative action, leading white people to be hired for jobs, given lucrative contracts, and admitted to colleges at staggeringly higher rates than non-whites. After all, ending affirmative action in 1996 did not end the clearly preferential treatment whites (particularly white men) have enjoyed in applications to housing, bank loans, colleges, and jobs. In fact, after the repeal of affirmative action, Black, Latinx, and Native American college enrollment dropped by 12 percent. Prop 16 simply acknowledges that a powerful form of white affirmative action has always existed; we see it in our colleges, companies, economy, and in the White House. This new proposition seeks to level the playing field by enabling policy makers to consider racial diversity and equity in the critical decisions they make. To learn more, visit: Yes on Prop 16 Opportunity for All.

There are other critical ballot propositions and candidates that stand for racial justice and equity (bail reform, rent control and voting rights to name a few!), though this blog focuses on three ballot measures that offer clear (and, I’d argue, modest) structural solutions to the problems that propelled many of us to march for Black Lives.

To learn more about these and other racial justice ballot measures, check out Power California’s voter guide, which outlines the propositions our youth of color urge California to support. I’m also a big fan of the voter analysis and guide developed by Black Women for Wellness.

I hope you vote with racial justice in your heart and that you donate today to help these campaigns reach more voters. I invite you to share this post with others in our California community.

Artwork by the amazing Shauna Dixon, a Black high school student in Las Vegas, Nevada.

To read more about the statistics in this post, please check-out the reports below:

“U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: California.” Census Bureau QuickFacts, www.census.gov/quickfacts/CA.
Report And Recommendations Of The Ad Hoc Committee On Black People Experiencing Homelessness. Los Angeles Home Services Authority, Dec. 2018, www.lahsa.org/documents?id=2823-report-and-recommendations-of-the-ad-hoc-committee-on-black-people-experiencing-homelessness.pdf.
Nellis, Ashley, and Josh Rovner. “The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons.” The Sentencing Project, 10 Jan. 2019, www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons/.
“COVID-19 Hospitalization and Death by Race/Ethnicity.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-race-ethnicity.html.
Reuben, Kim, et al. “California's K-12 Education Needs.” Urban Institute, July 2020, www.siliconvalleycf.org/sites/default/files/documents/scf/scf-ca-education-brief-final.pdf.
Blemmer, Zachary. "UC Affirmative Action" (PDF). Institutional Research and Academic Planning. University of California Office of the President. 24 August 2020.