Stay Informed: Hold leaders accountable and ask hard questions

In our first editorial, we wrote about staying critical of ambiguous messaging. Now, let us discuss the importance of staying critical of public officials and those who would like to represent us — in the Board of Supervisors, City Hall, Sacramento, and even Washington DC.

Democracy is crucial to our American government and its efficacy in passing policies and laws that benefit the people. A core part of this American democratic system is that the people have a say in what happens.

One reason that the NAACP is such an important organization is because there are always some policies to protest and some to fight for. It serves a great purpose because almost every politician (thus far) has been flawed, swayed by money and other influences, and/or broken campaign promises.

So, as members of the SF NAACP Youth Council and as engaged citizens, it is our duty to ask questions. So we did that on September 29th with our Mayoral Forum!

Instead of “gotcha” or negative questions, challenging and honest questions provide opportunities that not only benefit candidates and officials’ campaigns, but also affect policy decisions and the choices they make (by reminding them of peoples’ concerns).

We asked the mayoral candidates 5 questions: about Free City College, about police accountability, about City Hall corruption and whether they would nominate diverse department heads, whether they would try minors as adults, and how they would prevent gentrification. Each candidate got 2 minutes to respond.

If we lived in a society where candidates we support were not able to be questioned, asked for clarification, or held accountable, we would not be living in a democratic society, nor could we pretend to be upholding one. We need to move towards normalizing questions — not necessarily even hard ones — just questions that solicit answers that matter.

To be able to support candidates and politicians, a complete ignorance of their flaws is not only unproductive, but it is harmful. The censorship of fair criticism is anti-democratic.

Going forward, support who you want to support — in the mayor’s race, supervisor races, and even senatorial races — another key part of our American democracy is being able to hold your own political views and express them. But remember to stay critical so your voice is heard, you can stand by your morals, and so your politicians remember to fight for you once they are elected.

*This editorial was written by Rachel Alcazar, SF NAACP Youth Council President. The Youth Council executive board voted unanimously in agreement.