The Nation.



The Sounds of Silence

By Walter Mosley

This article appeared in the February 12, 2007 edition of The Nation.

January 29, 2007

This is the third installment in Walter Mosley's cycle of essays on Cultural Famine. The other installments appeared in the October 23 and December 18 issues. --The Editors

The word suffrage has nothing to do with the verb to suffer, or so my Oxford dictionary tells me. But the poet in me sees a connection. Voting is a serious enterprise. My choices of who speaks for me, decisions about laws that govern me and parties that represent my interests are the most important activities in my sociopolitical life. My ability to understand and make choices in the political arena is therefore paramount for me and my country. And if I fail to choose correctly or, even worse, neglect to participate in this enterprise, a whole nation, maybe an entire world, will suffer.

All Americans should vote. Every last one of us who is eligible should enter that ballot booth and punch out our choices.

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About Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley is the author of the bestselling Easy Rawlins series of mysteries, the novel R.L.'s Dream, and the story collection Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, for which he received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and, most recently, Life Out of Context, published by Nation Books. He was born in Los Angeles and has been at various times in his life a potter, a computer programmer and a poet. His books have been translated into twenty languages. He lives in New York. more...

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