Prentiss Haney - Cincinnati, Ohio

“We don’t have the luxury to sit and wait for things to change so people like my mom and sister, who do the hard work of caregiving each and every day, can be heard. We can’t sit on the sidelines--we need to join the fight for fair maps to make sure our voices are heard. No one else is coming to save our democracy except us.”

I’m a firm believer that every vote and every voice should count--that’s the foundation of our democracy. But the truth is that many of us, especially in the Black community, are not heard because politicians have tilted the scales of the democratic process through unfair maps that weaken the power of our votes. They’re gerrymandering districts so they can basically select voters who will keep them in office--and when this happens, those lawmakers often ignore us and the issues we care about. 

My mom and sister work in the care economy and my grandmother is retired. We need much better infrastructure to care for elderly folks, as well as young children. There are hundreds of thousands of women of color just like my mom who are fighting for better resources for her patients and also for herself, so she can live and retire in dignity after a lifetime spent caring for others. Many services are not accessible and people continue to struggle; It’s not because they don’t use their voice and vote, it's because there are politicians in our Statehouse who have decided their voices shouldn't matter. That's not how democracy is supposed to work.

Our democracy is in crisis. Folks like my mom, who work six days a week, 12 hours a day in service and caregiving, can't afford for lawmakers to ignore their voices. And she’s just one of countless others, mostly women of color, who deserve to be heard. Fair maps mean that her voice matters as much as the person who lives two or 10 miles from her and earns four times as much. That is how democracy is supposed to work. But right now, the process is broken and it pushes people to the margins, encourages them not to engage, and can even criminalize participation. 

We don’t have the luxury to sit and wait for things to change so people like my mom and sister, who do the hard work of caregiving each and every day, can be heard. We can’t sit on the sidelines--we need to join the fight for fair maps to make sure our voices are heard. No one else is coming to save our democracy except us.