My fellow Americans,

My name is Erica Jacobs. I am a cis, white, straight affluent woman born, raised and still residing in Southern California.

I come from a family of divorce and my parents shared custody of me as they were each able to live close to each other.

My mother had a lot of financial help from her well-off Jewish parents as she kinda bounced around in secretarial positions until she found her passion for Personal Training and a new husband who made a good living.

My dad made a good living as the Regional Manager of a waterbed and furniture manufacturing company. (He was friends with the Sit & Sleep “freeee!” guy).

I attended school in a small, very well resourced district; mostly white students, only a handful of Black students and several non-Black POC.

As a child of the 90’s, our parents and teachers taught us Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks ended racism and that we should be nice to everyone equally, but omitted the gentrification in our own town.

Our parents and teachers told us how important college is, but never mentioned student debt (because that didn’t exist for their’ generation.)

We were scared, (or D.A.R.E.’d) into not doing drugs by police officers who visited our school, but weren’t made aware of how drugs were used to pacify and destroy Native American communities or how the “war on drugs” fuels the School to Prison Pipeline in Black and poor communities.

We were never told to get involved as citizens, as participants in the ongoing creation —and necessary destruction— of the world. (Although at one point we did have a school compost bin.)

We were shown sex education programs that portrayed straight, white couples having a baby. We were taught about condoms, but not consent; pubic hair but not pleasure. Girls couldn’t dress like a whore (i.e. spaghetti straps) and boys could’t dress like thugs (we all know what that means).

We were taught that rape is when a woman says no only by kicking and screaming for help, but not that any kind of ‘no’ or more importantly, the absence of a “hell yes!” is also sexual assault.

We pledged allegiance to the flag of a country stolen from Native Americans, but read books about an exceptional rapport between Indians and Pilgrims.

In fact, this happened one Thanksgiving:

Problematic Thanksgiving ‘93: me and dad dressed as pilgrims

Problematic Thanksgiving ‘93 + George Lucas look-alike.

We built dioramas of teepees and California Missions. We drew life size portraits of presidents past and glorified their achievements without any comprehensive understanding of how their decisions positively impacted some and annihilated others.

My father died suddenly when I was twenty and I inherited his wealth.

My money has grown more during a global health and economic crisis than any other time. I am richer, because banks receive favor over actual people.

I lived 32 years as a nice white woman before understanding the privileges of that identity bestowed unto me until 18 months ago; before recognizing the role I play in upholding systemic racism and white supremacy. But once I saw, I couldn’t unsee.

These last 7 months in particular have show me, in real time, these systems at work, and the fervent denial of these systems by people I care about.

Four years ago, I called my white friend to “confirm” that our vote wouldn’t make a difference, that it doesn’t matter, that we didn’t have a good choice to make anyway.

My white friend let us both off the hook for voting, so we didn’t vote.

Four years ago I watched my Jewish Bronx-bred mother vote for trump because, “erica, he’s a New Yorker! That’s how we talk! And that Hillary...she’s a crook!”

Four years ago, I was a nice white yoga teacher who once spoke of racism to my class as a past issue. I made the fitness space safe and comfy for people who look like me.

and on..and on..and on...

Four years ago, I voted for trump by not voting at all.

And that choice didn’t affect me—not in the slightest. It didn’t affect me any more than the War on Drugs, or the school to prison pipeline or redlining or whether or not abortion clinics stay open.

But it damn well affected poor people, people of color (particularly Black and Indigenous folks), folks in the LGBTQIA+ community, especially Trans folks, the elderly and the disabled.

It seems that white, cis, straight members of my generation have cultivated a nasty habit of speaking false rhetoric over an alleged rigged political system as an excuse to not exercise our right to vote.

If “Millennial” was a math equation, it would look like:

Residual Hippie rebellion of the 1960’s + participation trophies = a good excuse to not give a shit about how government or community works.

It’s not entirely our fault, however. Michelle Obama makes an excellent point on this episode of her podcast (36:20sec in) about how Government does not and has never had a marketing budget—there’s no structure for advertising and communicating effectively what exactly Government does and who it serves when run well. Michelle goes on to say most young folks know more about the cereal we are eating and the car we drive than we do about what Government actually does for us.

Yet…of all the learning, internal dismantling and observing I’ve done these last 7 months, both the present and history truly do suggest a total abuse of power by so many leaders; such cruelty, injustice and blatant racism, giving way to sexism, misogyny and homophobia. It’s also clear to me that where capitalism thrives, an earnest democracy cannot. A capitalist society demands a system of crime and punishment; cheap labor and maximum profit; haves and the have-nots. A democracy relies on hearing and responding to the cry of its people…everyone. everyone. everyone. Both cannot co-exist.

Capitalism jams the “you can have it all” hyberbole down our throat. The more we have, the more we want, until we have everything. When there’s nothing left to want, we are left with a despair that often results in depression, anxiety, a hunger for power or any validation of self worth..because your toys won’t save you and they definitely won’t love you. Hell, you might even resort to running for President to reclaim your sense of value.

All this to say…

There are inherent flaws in our system because the system wasn’t built with the care of humanity in mind. We’ve inherited a cancerous course of action with tiny blips of right-doing and decent leaders here and there. We cannot vote in a cure for the cancer on Nov. 3rd, but we can stop the bleeding from the fresh four year-old gunshot wound to the most vulnerable and marginalized among us.

Now is not the time to be cute or resistant or make a statement or use your privilege to claim the system is rigged anyway. As I said, the whole thing IS rigged; from the acquisition of the soil we sleep on to our access to kale, our inhumane, racist distribution system provides us with choices to go Keto, Vegan and Whole 30, and renders poor people and people of color without adequate nutrition or any food at all.

*I literally have the privilege (thanks to Diet Culture —which stems from anti-Blackness— to voluntarily remove nutrients and add them back in at my leisure.

It’s. All. Rigged. And we still have to vote.

“but we’re not JUST electing a President...”

Voting isn’t solely for electing the President, but all the officials he will then elect and all our local governments. We must educate ourselves on and understand the trickle down effect.

A vote for Biden means a vote to bring more people of color and Black voices into the government who will help hold the President accountable. Let me be clear: It’s not that Biden will do the just and equitable work of Antiracism on his own accord (cuz, you know, straight, white man), but we will hold him accountable to elect people who will.

The more sound, equity-driven and humanity-minded leaders and Govt. officials Biden will certainly be pressured to elect will give everyone access to keeping our government and the powers that be accountable. Should I say accountable one more time? Accountable.

As white people, we’ve signed more petitions, listened to more Black voices and hopefully examined our origins, both personal and national, in the last 4 months than any other time.

We will keep getting better and better showing up in real tangible ways to cultivate the humanity that was not bestowed onto us by our ancestors.

Lastly, in the early 90’s during the Crack Baby epidemic —which has been debunked numerous times—Hillary Clinton spoke of the Black community as a people who must be “brought to heel”. Heel. Like a dog.

Imagine a country where we change one letter in that word. Imagine the difference between the country we live in currently and one where we have collective agency to replace an “e” with an “a”.

So like I said,

four years ago, I voted for trump by not voting at all.

I will not make that mistake again.