DAILY DOSE OF HOPE – BLOG – NAIMA LETT
Voting, Avatar & The Avengers
© NaimaLett.com/blog



Titanic © Fox/Paramount, Avatar © Fox, Marvel’s The Avengers © Disney

What does voting have to do with Avatar, Titanic & The Avengers?
Roll with me for a sec.

First, it’s Election Day. You vote?

Early voting was at an all-time high this year. Pics show lines wrapped around the block. My dad went to vote early in Georgia – twice – and couldn’t find a parking space.

That’s exciting. It means we’re participating in our democratic process.

Not Vote?

I’m not sure how leaders, especially Christian, can justify telling folks to NOT VOTE. What?!

I think the leader who advocates NOT VOTING is probably not female, knows nothing of the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the sacrifices made to get the 19th Amendment ratified in 1920, and/or probably not minority and didn’t personally know or lose anybody along the way of trying to enforce the 15th Amendment and getting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed and continually extended.

When you bury a family member as a result of prejudice and injustice, as we have, you never tell others to not vote and exercise their rights as citizens. Even if you don’t like the options presented to you on the ballot, as my dear friend, singer and blogger Sharifa Stevens says, “write in a candidate for whom you can vote with a clear conscience.”

We must pass on the history, Fam. We’ve got to do more than encourage young people by showing pictures of Jay-Z and Katy Perry (though I’m glad celebrities are getting involved). Let’s tell our young people about their heritage, their family members who fought, their neighbors who died. When they know they’re apart of a movement, even as I know I’m part of a movement, they won’t so easily lay down a right that someone died to give them.

Avatar, Titanic & The Avengers

When someone gives their life for us, our own lives are transformed.

That’s why redemption stories are the biggest selling box office films of all time:
Avatar, $2.782 billion
Titanic, $2.185 billion
The Avengers, $1.511 billion

In each of these films, somebody sacrifices his/her life for another.

In Avatar, Sam sacrifices for Neytiri and the Na’vi people.
In Titanic, Jack gives his life making sure Rose will live.
In The Avengers, Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man intercepts the nuclear missile aimed at NYC and flies it into the space portal, knowing he probably won’t make it back. Don’t fret, they all have happy endings! :=)

We instinctively resonate with these stories and they move us to our core, I believe, because we yearn for redemption. We yearn to know that someone loves us so much that they’d give their very lives for us.

News Flash:
Hollywood didn’t make this up. We’re only re-telling the Great Redemption story of God through blue Na’vi aliens, a boat that sank and a rag-tag team of dysfunctional superheroes.

Jesus tells His disciples, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” John 15:13. Then He goes and lays down His life for all of us, friends and enemies, that if we believe, we can be reconciled back to God. That’s love.

That same love is demonstrated by every single protester, like my grandfather, who lost his life standing up to prejudice. That same love is demonstrated by every single soldier, like my oldest brother, who puts his/her life on the line to fight for our freedom and democratic process around the globe. That same love is demonstrated by every parent, like my father and my middle brother, who works hard and sacrifices for his/her children. That same love is demonstrated by every public servant, teacher and preacher, like my youngest brother, who gives his/her life serving the people.

Go Vote

Not that I’m trying to be all deep, but seriously, go vote, if you haven’t already. Somebody gave their life for you to be able to stand in that long line, in the cold (or not-so-cold if you’re in the LaLa) and cast a ballot today.

That’s love,
Naima

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