A Black Executive Perspective. Now presents need to know with the award-winning hyphenated Dr. Nsenga Burton, Dr. Burton. What do we need to know?

Good afternoon and welcome to Need To Know with Dr. Nsenga Burton. I am she. I hope that you're having a wonderful day today. I wanna talk to you about these voting rights issues. So in case you have been enjoying your holiday, your, uh, Easter Holiday or Passover, um, you may not be. Paying attention to what day it is. But by May 7th, you will have to have a real id. This is what you need to know. Uh, you'll have to have what is called a real ID in order to verify that you are, um, a US citizen in order to travel. So, for example, uh. If you have a driver's license or if you're old enough to have a driver's license, you have to have a driver's license that has a real ID on it that is indicated by a star. It's a black star or silver star, or gold star, sorry. Uh, and is indicated by one of the one or two of those things. If you look at your driver's license and you do not have one, you need to go to your local Department of Motor Vehicles, which we call the DMV. And go ahead and get an updated driver's license. Otherwise, the only way that you'll be able to travel within the United States and beyond is with a passport or another id, military ID or another ID that has been verified with your, uh, birth certificate. If you do not have a copy of your birth certificate, just contact, um. Your, uh, oh, I'm having a brain fart on the agency that has the birth certificates. Oh, no. Okay. So, uh, every municipality has a place where you can go, it's usually city hall and you can get your, um, birth certificate. Um, but you need to have a copy of your birth certificate in order to gain the real id. So these things are important because you have all of these initiatives that are in play based on some of the things that the Trump administration wants. So for example. Your ID has to match your birth certificate. They're trying to get that passed through right now. That doesn't sound like a huge deal, right? We've been talking about this for voter, uh, id, um, and voter suppression and all of that for decades now. But this is why it really matters now because most women who are married have changed their names. The majority of us women who get married change their last names, so their name is not gonna be the same as it is on the birth certificate. Thus, and so if the requirements that you. Identification for your voter ID must match your birth certificate. Exactly. That means it's going to disenfranchise. Millions of women voters. All right, so these are what we call workarounds. This is what people do who can't outright steal the right to vote, even though they've tried valiantly and have succeeded. Like in my home state of Georgia, um, where we have the architect of voter suppression as our current governor, who's probably gonna run for national office at some point. Um, and you know, if you need an example, you only need to look at the 1.5 million people who were purged from the roles based on the fact that their IDs didn't match. Exactly. And so what they mean by that is, um, or what they meant by that back then was, uh, let's say if my middle initial is K and it's not on my id, they would purge it. The name had to be exactly the same. If you had, let's say your middle name completely spelled out on your id and, um, on your voter registration, it has the initial of your middle name. Uh, they would purge it, uh, if there was a spelling error of some sort. Let's say my last name is Burton, and maybe, you know, somebody was. Doing something, it was Barton, it wasn't a big deal. Um, and you've been making it so far. They purged you, like you got out, you had to go. Um, and then even in terms of the identification that they accepted, that was changed. So people who have been working, even in the government governor's office, um, for decades, were now no longer able to vote even though they knew who those people were. So when we think about this coming from the federal level or the national level. We have to think about, um, what that means and what that looks like. And we have to go into, we have to take all measures so that we can have the right to vote and the right to travel and the right to do things that, uh, looks like, uh, maybe more problematic because we are leaning into fascism and that we being our current administration. Um, because this is not really democratic ideals or practices. This is something you would find in a fascist or a communist country. Um, or even I would say a socialist country to some extent, where everything has to come from, um, the government, uh, you know, the people, but the government has to prove it. Um. And so this is what's happening. Um, so I want people to, also, what I need you to know is that you need to have a real ID by May 7th. What I need you to know is voter suppression is real and the women in your lives, and maybe you don't care. 'cause I know there are a lot of people who are online talking about, you know, oh, I want my husband to vote for me. I don't need the right to vote. My wife doesn't need the right to vote. 'cause. I have her best interest at heart, but women fought long and hard, uh, to earn the right to vote and to have it this close to becoming, um, to, to be this close, to becoming disenfranchised over literally a technicality. Um. A workaround to disenfranchise women voters, um, particularly when he won based on white women voters is nuts. So that's how much he trusts you, white women. He, he's like, thank you for your votes and now let's disenfranchise you. So, um, that's what you need to know. Get your stuff in order, get your paperwork in order, and make sure that you protect yourself and your right to vote and your right to travel in this country and beyond. Um, because. We live in a democracy and we have to fight to make sure that our rights exists and continue and that they are protected even when people are trying to run work around around us, um, to disenfranchise us as we watch. Okay? All right, so without further ado, join us next Thursday. Definitely. Join, uh, Tony Franklin and Chris on A Black Executive Perspective podcast, the award-winning, uh, podcast. Join them next Thursday and join me again. Have a wonderful day,

A Black Executive Perspective.