“We like to chill every day out here every day, you know what I’m saying, don’t bother nobody and don’t let nobody bother us.” I was glad I was not considered a bother.
It was Monday afternoon on a humid summer day. Two blocks from my apartment in Northwest D.C. was a string of public housing buildings. It was there I met Jamal, Harry and Stephan.
Jamal is 22 years old. He is African American, lives in D.C., and is part of the more than ten percent of District residents who live in public housing. He is also one of the 580,000 D.C. locals without a vote in Congress. While residents pay some of the highest taxes in the country, serve in wars and sit on juries – like other taxpayers across the U.S., they are denied a vote in Congress. One side argues this is because D.C. is not an official state. The other side argues it is the biggest civil rights violation of our time.
I went on to ask Jamal and his friends if they were registered to vote – that is, in the Presidential election. In 1964 D.C. residents were given this right - -and this afternoon, three of my new friends said yes.
“Well, I was never registered before. We don’t have a vote in Congress…so why should I care? What’s the point in registering if we don’t have a voice in Congress at all? You see what I’m saying?”
Sharing a city with Jamal for two years now, I knew what he was saying. “So then what made you decide to register?” I asked him.
He half smiled as if he had not done it on purpose. And in fact, he had not. “Well, I had to get my driver’s license, and you can register to vote on the application form.”
Born and raised in D.C., Jamal, Harry and Stephan are all too familiar with high crime, extreme poverty and an unreachable cost of living for their families. They know, too, that the city’s population more than doubles during the work week with government workers, meaning jobs are competitive and often given to commuters and college graduates. Somewhere in the middle, they seem to be lost.
“What matters to me this election?” Stephan repeated my question. “Jobs and the cost of living. I mean to live in D.C. is really expensive now, and they trying to move us all out.”
“And if you don’t have a good job to afford the cost of living, you know, you got to move. Come on, you got to be realistic. Look at all the condominiums around here. It didn’t use to be like this. You go two blocks down the street…more condominiums. Look across the street, condominiums. They cost a million dollars. All these are million dollar condos. We can’t afford that. And not only that, they’re closing down all the schools. How you close down elementary schools, like three and four at a time?? We need more things for the youth to do. But you need money and they trying to move us out.”
While jobs and good public schools ranked most important for a few in the group, the war was a top issue for Harry, a 21-year-old who just finished a term with the military.
“The only time I left D.C. was when I joined the Navy and went to Jacksonville.” Harry told me. “But I came back right after. A couple of friends of mine went to Iraq, got shot and can’t do nothing else but sit in a house and wait for a check now.”
Last fall when I interviewed Illir Zherka, Director of DC Vote, he spoke to me about this issue. DC Vote is an advocacy organization dedicated to securing full voting representation in Congress for D.C. residents.
“We have people fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan to secure the vote for the Iraqis and Afghans, but don’t have a vote in Congress” Zherka told me.
“We just need change, we need Barack Obama”
“I’m voting for Obama,” Jamal told me.
“Oh yeah, well what do you like about him?” I asked.
“Change. His campaign slogan. And I want to see a black President, see history be made…I want to go back and rewrite all history books, because there will be a black President.”
Stephan, too liked Obama but said it was less about being black and more about the type of person he is.
“To me I would like to see Barack Obama be President, but, as long as (the President) is a people’s person-man, and the President’s for the People, you know, it wouldn’t really matter to me. Because George Bush has the whole world messed up right now. I don’t think he’s for the people.”
I went on to ask the guys if they felt like Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s non-voting Member of Congress and Mayor Adrian Fenty were representing their interests in local politics.
“We try and voice our opinion but Mayor Adrian Fenty…he’s no good. What can we do? There’s nothing we can do,” one of them said.
“Eleanor Holmes Norton doesn’t come here. Only time people come out is when there’s killing. That’s all that gets their attention – killing – when people are starting to die. Dying gets attention. So what do we have to do -- kill to get our voices heard?”
The guys all looked down and got quiet. I didn’t really know what to say or how to react.
“But you’re still gonna vote, right?” I asked as if a bit discouraged myself.
“Hell yes. It’ll change (with Obama as president). Everything will change.”