[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 42 (Friday, March 5, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S1274]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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           VERMONT STATE OF THE UNION ESSAY CONTEST FINALISTS

 Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask to have printed in the 
Record some of the finalists' essays written by Vermont high school 
students as part of the 11th annual ``State of the Union'' essay 
contest conducted by my office. The material follows:

                               Finalists


        ALEXANDER SHRIVER, BRATILEBORO UNION HIGH SCHOOL, SENIOR

       On November 8th, 2016, the American people exercised their 
     most basic democratic freedom and decided to elect Hillary 
     Clinton as their President. According to CNN Politics, 
     Clinton won the majority of the 138 million votes cast. If 
     U.S. democracy stayed true to its ideal of equality, Clinton 
     would have been elected. Instead, the 2.9 million votes which 
     gave Clinton the edge meant nothing--those voices unheard and 
     disrespected. Donald Trump was placed in office.
       Writing the Constitution, the founding fathers struggled to 
     find a fair way to elect a President and ultimately created 
     the Electoral College. Instead of relying on a popular vote, 
     this system, along with the infamous Three-fifths Compromise, 
     was built to appease the opposition of southern slaveholders 
     worried the more populous North would control the country and 
     outlaw slavery. Since its inception, it has contradicted the 
     peoples' decision in five elections, including 2016.
       As horrible as its origins are, some argue that the 
     Electoral College still protects the interests of smaller 
     states where people might not otherwise be heard. They argue 
     the antiquated system forces candidates to campaign in less 
     populous areas, protecting their importance. However, the 
     Electoral College does not fulfill this purpose. Consider the 
     areas Donald Trump visited in his 2020 campaign: he never 
     traveled to states like Vermont, Wyoming, North Dakota, Rhode 
     Island, or Montana. This is the kind of disproportionate 
     attention the Electoral College is supposed to prevent, but 
     because of their low vote count and poll's suggesting a large 
     polarization towards one candidate, these states were not 
     prioritized.
       330 million people live in the U.S., almost none of whom 
     have had any sort of interaction with a presidential 
     candidate. Most citizens learn about presidential campaigns 
     through the media, online campaigning, and events like 
     nationally televised debates. Therefore, even if the 
     Electoral College did force equal attention to every state, 
     it makes no difference because of the manner in which 
     citizens make their voting decisions.
       In the Electoral College, some votes count for more than 
     others. Each state has two voting delegates from the Senate 
     and at least one member in the House of Representatives 
     regardless of their population, automatically giving smaller 
     states more voting power. According to the University of 
     North Carolina, a vote in Alaska is about 2.42 times more 
     valuable than the average vote, while a Californian vote is 
     only 87% as valuable as the average. Furthermore, in states 
     where the vast majority of people vote the same way, each 
     individual vote is less important than in a more politically 
     diverse state. Because its original purpose of protecting 
     small states is unnecessary, the Electoral College only 
     serves to devalue some votes.
       The best solution to promote a more pure democracy is to 
     amend the Constitution to replace the Electoral College with 
     a popular vote. The only factor in determining the President 
     would be the will of the people. There are many ways the 
     American democracy needs to improve, so let's start with its 
     most fundamental institution.


               STEPHIE SIKI, WINOOSKI HIGH SCHOOL, SENIOR

                               Antiracism

       ``To be black and conscious of anti black racism is to 
     stare into the mirror of your own extinctions'' by lbram X. 
     Kendi. The assassination of George Floyd showed me that my 
     life could also be taken away at the knees of a police 
     officer. As a black woman, it felt as if I had a danger in my 
     chest, that I couldn't pull out, I could only watch it bleed 
     for nine and a half minutes. Despite the horrendous police 
     brutality, I believe that our generation has the power to 
     remove racist thoughts, beliefs, and actions in this world. 
     The only way to remove racism is to become an antiracist.
       My definition of antiracist is someone that actively 
     chooses to be against racism. It takes learning about 
     structural racism and one's own implicit bias and privilege. 
     According to PNAS, Between the ages of 25 and 29, black men 
     are killed by police at a rate between 2.8 and 4.1 per 
     100,000. Stephan Clark, a young man that was standing in his 
     grandmother's yard, holding a mobile phone. The police shot 
     him 20 times, they assumed Clark was holding a weapon because 
     his skin is seen as a weapon. This type of scenario is not 
     the first nor is it the last unless we change it as a 
     country. Based on the National Equity Project, Structural 
     racialization refers to institutional practices and 
     structural arrangements that lead to racialized inequities 
     Equity is when every individual or group of people receives 
     the right amount of support based on their needs. We need to 
     work on providing racial equity in our country.
       Since the minority communities have been built to be 
     inferior to be majority communities, it is hard to survive in 
     a crisis. We have to understand the 400 years of nightmares 
     black people have lived through because it impacts our lives. 
     Based on The Washington Post, black Americans were 37% more 
     likely to die from Covid19 than whites. As a black woman, 
     this statistic scares me because it is implying that my race 
     will be the reason I am more likely to die from Covid19 and 
     not my health. As a member of The Winooski Students for Anti 
     Racism, we are demanding that SRO officers be removed from 
     our school because of the institutional racism the police 
     system was built on. Two thousand twenty was the last march 
     to demand BLACK LIVES MATTER, my life matters.
       We have to mandate Culture and Community class for middle 
     and high school. That class will focus on teaching students 
     about race, racism, identity, equity, biases, privilege, and 
     slavery. We need social workers accompanying police officers 
     to a situation believed to be racially motivated. We also 
     need to support anti racist organizations in the U.S.A. 
     Encourage states to at least have one organization that 
     prioritizes anti racism. In order to save the world from this 
     racist pandemic, we have focused on targeting racism.

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