I want to congratulate the Anchorage Daily News on its great coverage of so many topics important to the people of Alaska. We’ve seen articles and letters to the editor expressing a wide variety of views on topics such as the importance of libraries in our community, the government’s handling of citizens with mental issues and how that affects all of us, women’s rights to choose what happens with their own bodies and lives, the pros and cons of ranked choice voting, the government’s handling of missing people (particularly women and/ or Indigenous people), and more.
I’d like to encourage all Alaskans to begin preparing for the next few elections. By that I mean educate yourself on all sides of the issues that are important to you. That could be reading the newspaper, researching on the internet, contacting your legislators — municipal, state and federal — if you want clarifications of the truth of what you’ve been hearing. Remember the game of “telephone” when you were a kid? Was the message ever the same after several retellings?
No. Rumors and word of mouth are absolutely not the best sources of information.
The 15th Amendment gave Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American men the right to vote in 1870. All men (regardless of race) have had the right to vote for the past 153 years. The 19th Amendment gave all women citizens the right to vote in 1920, or 103 years ago.
We already have the power to make changes in our country to make our lives better! We must work together to make it a fair place for all of us to live.
Remember the Occupy Wall Street movement a few years ago? It reminded us that the vast majority of all the money in the U.S. is owned by 1% of the families at the top (those who earn $758,000 or more per year), and the other 99% of us exist splitting up what’s left over. Don’t let the 1% at the top divide and conquer us 99% at the bottom. If laws and taxes need to be revised, get involved now. Run for office. Help someone else run for office. Kick out the legislators, mayors, and politicians who don’t have our best interests in mind.
We have the power!
— Denise Kathleen Yancey
Anchorage
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