Just one day before his Magnificent Coloring World Tour, Chance The Rapper announced on Sept. 14 he is teaming up with the NAACP and bringing voter registration to his shows. He made the announcement on Twitter and sealed the deal with #staywokeandvote.
Although Chance the Rapper is the first artist to promote civic engagement in a huge way such as this, more and more celebrities have been taking to Twitter recently to express their political opinions.
Without a doubt, this is one of the most controversial elections the U.S. has ever seen, and civic engagement efforts like what we're seeing from Chance the Rapper will hopefully convince more millennials of the importance of voting.
Although I don't have as big of a voice or platform as Chance the Rapper, his efforts encouraged me to express why I believe college students like myself should vote.
1. The right to vote was an outcome of a fight of generations of Americans, and some people in other countries are still fighting for the same right.
Many take their right to vote for granted, but it is our civic duty. For example, I'm sure many of us have grandmothers or great-grandmothers that lived before women's suffrage was granted who would have greatly appreciated the opportunity to make their voice heard. We as millennials should be gracious of the opportunity and the voice we have.
2. If you don't vote, you lose the right to complain.
Okay, you don't literally lose the right to complain because #freespeech, but you no longer can complain with integrity if you don't vote. I am dreading Nov. 9, the day after Election Day, when I will have to sit in my classes listening to my peers complain about the outcome of the election where I will in return ask them if they voted. If and when they say "no," I will proceed to answer with my statement above (figurative mic drop included).
3. Millenial voters are actually a key constituency in elections.
According to an analysis of U.S. census data from the Pew Research Center, millennials are now as large of a force as the Baby Boomer generation as both generations are about 31 percent of the overall electorate. Millennial voters are more diverse than any other constituency according to Rock the Vote, therefore we represent a wide range of people and demographics that need to have their voice heard! If we don't vote our interests, who will? Not many voters outside of the millennial generation concern themselves specifically on the needs of college students when deciding who to mark on their ballot.
You as a college student are now an adult, so go vote like it!
