00:00Hi, this is Ayesha Callahan, Editorial Director of News and Politics at Essence Magazine.
00:04And we're asking black women voters what issues resonate with them the most.
00:09Equality in the workplace. I work in law enforcement. It's a male-dominant field.
00:15I feel like the candidate that I would like to vote for, I want them to go to bed for me and let me know that I matter.
00:22Well, I work in the mental health field, and so I really want to see the candidates talk about funding for mental health services.
00:28I really want them to focus on crime and violence towards black people and in the black community.
00:34And I really want them to talk about ways that they're going to address funding for mental health.
00:39Health care, the social justice reform system, and also student loan debt.
00:43You know, I just graduated not too long ago, and I'm still paying off a lot of things.
00:47So I want the candidates to be very transparent. Don't just give us a fairy tale.
00:52Let us know what are the action plans, because we're hungry to get involved.
00:56As a black woman and a single parent, I would say health insurance, middle class tax cuts,
01:04and as an educator, the education platforms in which the potential candidates, really I want them to be specific
01:11about what their plan is for me as a single parent, as an educator, as a mom of two college students.
01:17I think the issue that resonates with me the most as a child of immigrant parents is immigration.
01:21A lot of times we think of immigration rights and policies as a Latinx issue,
01:28but really there are a lot of black men, women, and children who are affected by it.
01:31And I think any candidate who I'm going to vote for needs to tell me what they're going to do to rectify the situation.
01:38A lot of the issues that are resonating with me the most are definitely the restoration of the basic human rights
01:44that have been stripped away during the Trump administration.
01:47I think that we're entering into a period of restoration,
01:50and I'm looking for candidates that are willing to fight.
01:53Willing to fight for reproductive rights, willing to fight for criminal justice,
01:57willing to fight for economic justice.
02:00And I think that that really raises its head in a lot of different ways in the black community.
02:04One of the ways that I've noticed in my community is food deserts and agricultural inequality.
02:11Thanks, buddy.
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