In a world where many of us have full-time jobs and side hustles just to survive, taking time to deeply study politics and legislation for the purpose of making informed voting choices doesn’t quite make it to the to-do list most days. No shade. This struggle got built in by a system that wants to keep power in place, and it is very, very real.

Many of us know the big-name presidential candidate we will begrudgingly vote for, but that’s not the only election happening this November, and looking at the sample ballot leaves an inexperienced voter not knowing where to start.

Rai Prysock, a Dope Navy veteran and full-time housing justice organizer at Texas Organizing Project (TOP) gave her time and energy to help us figure out how to approach the election next month.

Prysock pointed out that the majority of races that actually impact our lives appear on down-ballot races, which she says, “get virtually no attention.” These are decisions like the members of the school boards where we live, or the judges who sit in our counties. Prysock brought up that, “a lot of people don’t realize judges aren’t appointed, they have to run.”

So what?

“You have to think about what matters to you the most. I wouldn’t really get caught up in the abstract things people talk about,” said Prysock, “just really think about you and reflect on who you are, and what you care about.”

“It’s just finding the issues you care most about and kind of investigating that,” Prysock explained. “Where does that fit into your local civic organizations and power structures?”

So how did you break into this work, Rai?

Only a few months after leaving the US Navy, Donald Trump won the POTUS election in 2016. This and the nearby “baby jail” she walks by every day near the train stop in her neighborhood was enough to inspire this Dope Girl top volunteer with Texas Organizing Project.

Eventually her efforts escalated, she started working on campaigns and consulting, and then took the Housing Justice Organizer position at TOP full-time.

She explained right now that everything has to do with COVID in some way. Even getting arrested “may very well be a death sentence,” said Prysock, “it’s something like over 50% of the inmates at Harris County Jail have COVID right now.”

Rai Prysock, a Black woman and American veteran, fears we’re, “very quickly erasing all the progress we made in the 20th century,” and considers the radical social justice work she participates in part of the fight to protect her right to exist at all.

“...getting arrested may very well be a death sentence.”

— Rai Prysock, Housing Justice Organizer at TOP

What work is Rai doing at TOP?

Houston places second for evictions in the US, only trailing New York. In this city with no local renter protections, Prysock works with and for renters. Right now she is trying to organize so that come January 1, 2021, suffering people will have rent paid. It’s obvious she is passionate about the work of debt and rent cancellation.

Text CASA to 474747 to learn more and get involved in that work.

TOP is also hosting texting parties using Outvote on Tuesdays (6pm CST) and Thursdays (12:30pm CST) where people can all contact family members and friends about election details and decisions with the help and support of people who know how. Text TOP2020 to 474747 to join.

Want to stay safe during voting?

There’s drive-through voting available at 10 different locations in Houston this election season, including one at the largest queer church in Houston, Resurrection MCC in the Heights.

Ruthie Irvin They/Them EDG Blog Writer