Note: if you want to skip ahead to the voter information, because that’s the most important part of today’s post, scroll down until you see bold text.
Today’s post was originally going to be about a lot of different things.
Initially, I was going to write a response piece to the 1776 commission and its call for patriotic interpretations of history that instill pride rather than hated for one’s country, to paraphrase Trump. I was going to talk about the importance of confronting histories of genocide, exploitation, and ecological degradation, among other things, not only as a starting point for healing, to summarize Amy Lonetree, but also because these atrocities are still happening.
Then Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away and Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett. So I thought I should write a piece that centered my own experiences with voluntary sterilization to demonstrate how having the freedom to make choices about my reproductive health has benefitted my life. I wanted to tell my story to both normalize exercising autonomy over one’s body, and to bring back some of the nuance that gets lost when choice, and by extension reproductive health, is reduced to a question of abortion.
Then the debate happened, and…I’ve got nothing. Well, nothing that hasn’t already been articulated in other essays and articles.
Then Trump got diagnosed with Covid, and in the wake of his publicity stunts, I thought about writing a piece expressing how angry I feel most of the time living in this pandemic. Angry that Brandon and I and countless others have been following protocols to keep everyone safe while others disregard those precautions, extending the overall duration of the pandemic for everybody. Angry for Brandon because he couldn’t go to Florida to meet his niece, who was born in May. Angry for all the museums, archives, and other cultural institutions that have suffered in the wake of the pandemic. Angry for essential workers, teachers, and others who risk their lives every day. Angry for living with an administration that has failed to address the virus effectively. Angry for the normalization of pandemic anxiety. For all of the people who have died. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. ICE. The list goes on, and on, and on.
And it was around this time I realized it’d be at least November before I got back to sharing my life and research as a Ph.D. candidate. You know, the reason why I set up this website in the first place.
So rather than tell these stories right now, because let’s be honest, if you’ve gotten this far without skipping you probably already agree with me at least in part, and if you don’t, one blog post isn’t going to change your mind, I’m sharing voting information:
For national information, including registration, click here.
If you’re a Virginia voter, click here. To skip to registration, click here.
If you’re a James City County voter, click here. To skip to registration, click here.
If you live in the City of Williamsburg, click here. To skip to registration, click here.
Important dates:
October 13: Last day to register to vote. That means you have one week from today, October 6, to register if you haven’t already.
October 23: Last day to request a ballot to be mailed to you
October 31: Last day to vote absentee
November 3: All polling places open 6 am – 7pm.
Maybe I’ll tell those stories in the future, but not today. Go cast your ballot. Vote as if your life, and the lives of those you love, depend on it, because they very likely do.