With Illinois and Chicago on the brink of two major elections, the Nov. 6 midterms and the mayoral/aldermanic on Feb. 26, there’s worry that millennials and iGen-ers of legal voting age won’t show up to the polls. According to CBS Chicago, voter turnout for millennials in March’s Illinois primaries was the lowest at 3 percent.
Moe said it’s not that young people don’t care about voting and Chicago’s future. It’s more so that young people are tired of watching the same old politicians make promises to Black and Brown people early on, yet get into office and continue to starve-out Black and Brown communities with school closures, increased policing, economic disinvestment and more.
“Only a dumb person will continue to do the same thing and get the same results. You gotta switch it up,” Moe said about voting. “And that’s why they have to start believing in the youth. I think with this [Van Dyke] conviction right here, we got the people behind us now.”
The verdict left Alycia Moaton, 17, feeling more motivated and inspired than ever. As a member of the anti-violence organization, Good Kids Mad City, Moaton sees first-hand the push for young people to stand up for their rights.
“Everyone’s doing voter registrations in high schools now,” Moaton said. “It shows how much we’re willing to make a change for us because we’re going to be growing up in this time. It’s important that we are the ones who are deciding our fates: who gets put into office, who gets arrested, all of that. It’s up to us now.”
For Parrish Brown, a 22-year-old organizer with Black Youth Project 100, there’s still a lot of concern surrounding the Van Dyke verdict. Though the jury convicted Van Dyke of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, they found him not guilty of a single count of official misconduct.