Here & Now

Welcome to Noon Wednesday. I'm Marisa Wojcik, multimedia journalist with Here & Now on PBS Wisconsin. Today is August 5. Young people are showing up in abundance right now, both for the ballot box and for protests. Our guest today, Maya Neal is the Political Director of Leaders Igniting Transformation out of Milwaukee. They focus on engaging and training youth of color, to become leaders and organizers for their communities. And Maya joins us now. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. I wanna start... We talked about a recent Tufts University poll that says, young people believe they can lead change in this unprecedented election cycle. And that youth engagement is higher this year, than both in 2016 and even 2018. What is the power of the youth vote leading up to November? Yeah, It's very powerful. Young people have a lot of ideas and innovative goals that they want to achieve. And so are very embulging and excited about effecting those change. And then in terms of the election, the CIRCLE study showed that Wisconsin has the highest Youth Electoral Significance, in terms of the presidential election over any other state. So we see in Wisconsin alone, It's going to make a very big difference how young people vote. So we have to be aware of that and act accordingly. Exactly what does that mean? Highest electoral significant score. And what does that mean for the role of this voting block in Wisconsin and Milwaukee? So the electoral significance means, how big of a difference young people are going to make in the election and how powerful, their votes going to be in terms of the outcomes of the presidential election. So knowing that it means that this voting block could change the outcome, and Wisconsin is a state that flipped in the last presidential election. And instead of voting blues, I had done the previous selection, and voted red. And so we're in this time where the outcome is uncertain, we're a swing state, as they would say. So it's important to take account for all of the different influences, that young people are definitely a very significant influence in Wisconsin, and especially in Milwaukee. Your organization focuses on training young people of color, to become leaders and organizers through programs like black Hogwarts and Youth Leadership Series. Why is this model of empowering young leaders particularly important to you, and for leaders Igniting Transformation? At LIT we organize for young black and brown political power. And a part of that is the organizing and the strategy that we do to affect change. But the other part is learning all about all of that stuff. So learning about the issues, developing skills and capacity, among young black and brown folks in Milwaukee and all over Wisconsin, so that we can be the leaders of this change so that we are the next wave of activists, leaders, elected officials, organizers. And is it organizing around any specific parties and candidates, or is it kind of just issues that are important to youth? At the core of our organizing, we're looking for an equitable society and a society that serves justice to the black and brown people, to the LGBTQ community, to migrants, to workers, to students, to all of these populations that have been disenfranchised and marginalized, and in terms of politics and positive outcomes in our society. So we center that. And we center the young folks that we work with and what they are looking for. So we center the solutions. We're not focused on a specific party or candidate, but we're focused on our elected officials, serving young people and being accountable to the folks who elect them, and the constituents that they serve. So I would say it's more so oriented by our goals and by the solutions we know will change our society. Do you think young people and their voices and particularly young people of color, do you think they get written off and they're not being heard? Absolutely. I see that's a major problem in politics, So first I'll say young people have the ideas. We have the ideas, the innovation and the creativity to change things. And we know what we need because it affects us. Despite knowing all of that and having the ability and the potential to play a role in the politics that affect us, young folks aren't often given the opportunities to do so. Excluded from opportunities to participate or be heard. And so the issue is not that young people aren't interested in the economy, and education, and ending racism and discrimination. Is that we're not given the power to, and our energy isn't acknowledged in the politics that could change that. And in effect could have a longer trajectory as they get older, and potentially carry on that work. Yeah, absolutely. I see young people as the present and the future. They have the ideas and abilities to participate now, and if we think of starting with young people and developing our political consciousness and participation and engagement now, throughout our lifetimes, then we're carrying that as an important act and participating more and ending those barriers that we see. Your organization in the past has organized around school to prison pipeline, and ending police presence in high schools. What do you think the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement now, will have on this election, and how younger voters are engaging, and how your organization is engaging young people around you. So in terms of the election now, I think it's putting the urgency that young people and people of color and other marginalized communities have seen for years. That's putting that in the light for everyone to see. Change is a matter of life or death for our communities. And this movement, the reason that we amplify these terrible instances of police brutality and white supremacy, is because they tell the story of the way that our lives are in danger by the current politics we play now, and it can't continue. So it's really shed a light in this specific moment and in the past several years, on why we need change and how urgent it is. So I think it's really influencing people to take the vote seriously and to recognize that the people that are up for election, and the people that currently hold offices, need to be a part of solving this, and needs to be a part of that change. Which is also a part of how it's influencing our work, because we're strategizing, organizing around the momentum from this current moment, to be able to influence some more sustainable changes, and legislative and budgetary changes, that are gonna solve a lot of the problems our communities are facing. How does LIT engage with the Black Lives Matter movement in Milwaukee specifically? That's a great question. And it's pretty cool because our organization includes several different avenues for organizing. So we do cultural high school, college and political or civic organizing. And so each of those departments works with different groups of young people to organize and affect change. So that's meant a couple of things in this moment in Milwaukee. So one thing was our high school department organized and successfully saw the Milwaukee Public School Board, both in terms of ending contracts with the Milwaukee Police Department. And so there was a rally around that as a part of the protest occurring in Milwaukee now. And then also our Cultural Organizing Department has an installation and it's up now. But they did an art installation with some of the young artists that they work with, 32nd and Center Street, to recognize all the lives that we have lost. So it features 200 notes with the names of 200 folks lost, to these systems of white supremacy. And so that art installation was a part of that, and brought the community together to acknowledge this moment in the past. So that's still up on 32nd Center in Milwaukee. As you said, Wisconsin is seen as a swing state, and many have pointed the finger at Milwaukee specifically and Milwaukee black voters, for not turning out to vote in the 2016 presidential election, as the reason Trump took Wisconsin. Do you think that's fair? Not at all. That's a very unfortunate assessment of what went down. And I think the most important thing that we can take away, from the 2016 election and how young people and how black voters voted, was that mediocre candidates, and just showing up when it's election time, and excluding folks from what happens next after elections. Putting up the wall after you get the vote, none of that's going to work, and it's only going to harm us. So we need to affect change in the way that we're doing things, and the way that we might be gatekeeping folks out of politics, because then that results in people not being motivated to go vote for a candidate that they don't feel represents them, and using this bad or worse, which one are you gonna vote for. Is not gonna be (chuckles) enough to move people to the polls. Nobody wants to go out and vote for that, what we should be saying is, okay, how can you, serve the people who you want to vote for you. If you want Milwaukee, you want black voters to vote for you, let me know what you're gonna do for them. Why should we vote for you? It's not just felt for this person 'cause they're better than the other. There should be more meaning behind their votes. So I think that really was the lesson that I took from 2016 and that all folks should recognize, that it wasn't Milwaukee's fault or black folks faults, because we weren't the ones turning God on high percentages to vote for Trump. Does that mean that you are looking more at local elections, or is the presidential election and state and local elections all equally important? I would say, it depends on your opinion on that. I think they're all important in some way. And I think that what's important is to be involved and being critical of okay, how are we gonna hold folks accountable? What can we do in addition to getting out to the polls, what else are we doing to affect change in our society. So I think all of those offices at every level plays an important role and that we as voters, should be a part of voting and for those offices as well as holding those officials accountable, and organizing to ensure that we see the change we want. So for you and for LIT, it's about the longer tail as well. What happens after the election. Absolutely. So voter disenfranchisement is no stranger to Wisconsin even prior to COVID-19. So how will the pandemic impact these voting blocks to vote in November? That's a great question because we definitely saw it impact the vote in April. We don't wanna repeat of that election where we sent folks to... in Milwaukee for example, five polling places(chuckles) for the entire city in the midst of a pandemic. That was not okay. And so in this November election, we've really been pushing in our outreach efforts and online efforts to get folks to vote absentee. And in terms of doing that, we also need our commissions, our election commissions, and local leaders to ensure that that's a priority. That getting folks that access and that the information about how to do it, what the deadlines are, which needs to be ready, all that information is widely accessible and communicated to everybody. Because in addition to like you said, those already existing barriers of tricky voter ID laws, and unclear information, you also have the situation of this current moment where going to the polls is a big deal, and is also a health risk. And so we need to know that our election commissions are gonna be funded enough to protect poll workers, pay them enough, to ensure that everything's sanitary. And then we also need to know that absentee ballots are getting out to everybody that we have innovations. Is like for example, they've added a barcode to the absentee ballot, that allows them to track it a lot more accurately. So changes like that are gonna make voting in this context, a lot safer and a lot more efficient, but only if we make them. So we have to be intentional about how we're approaching access in this election. And speaking of absentee ballots, the deadline to request an absentee ballot for the primary elections is coming up. Right? Yeah, It's tomorrow. Everybody get your ballots requested. All right, Maya Neal. Thank you so, so much for joining us today. Absolutely, thank you for having me. Everybody request and return your ballots and vote November 2. (laughing) For more from Here & Now and PBS Wisconsin, you can visit www.pbswisconsin.org. And thank you so much for joining us, on Noon Wednesday.