We Are the Vote!

By Alexander Spied, Westside Gazette

“The More we fight for each other, the less we have to fight for ourselves.”

Never has a quote resonated so strongly with a movement for the betterment of humanity. It speaks volumes to one man’s goal to bring together the people to one common objective: to form a bond for good. And that is exactly the goal of one such actor, Brandon Victor Dixon.

Brandon was born in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He went to St. Albans High School in DC and graduated college at Colombia University with a degree in film despite being an economics major. He is an actor, producer and advocate, acting on Broadway and in TV for 15 years. His notable roles are of Tyler Silver in the hit Television show, Power, as well as a role in the Broadway musical, Jesus Christ Super Star.

In 2018, Brandon started a non-profit organization titled WeAre Foundation. It was created to bring people together through the powers of the arts and to connect the community through their voices. WeAre prides itself in collaborating with local organizations to spread the importance of stronger bonds with one another. One such important issue to them is the significance of voting—that no matter who votes, it is all about the greater affects it can have on the people. And that was the goal set for Sunday, March 8^th of last week at the Miramar Amphitheater.

WeAre held a free community festival with food, drink, and a kid’s corner of games for both kids and adults. There was plenty of musical talent from acts such as Route 5, a young singing group from Florida, and Delou Africa, an African dance ensemble of music and sounds of the African continent. Florida-grown comedians entertained during the improv show. And finally, Amanda Seals from HBO’s Insecure gave a speech on the importance of why it was time to get registered and vote.

While attending the event, I was able to interact with a number of the organizations, understanding more of what they did.

My first stop was with Patricia Oliver, the co-founder for Change the Ref. They use urban art as a creative force to push the change in gun violence and other injustices in society.

This organization started after the loss of her and her husband’s son, Joaquin Oliver, in the sad catastrophe of Parkland High School. She speaks on how such an event can change one’s life and regret that “nothing proactive was done before hand.” Through this organization, she wants to prevent anymore gun-related tragedies with an inclusive mindset to inspire everyone to make an effort to fight the status quo. This was her reasoning for being at the WeAre event and spread the importance of voting.

At another booth I met up with Steinhardt’s Performance Lab, spearheaded by Keith Huff. His group focuses on training young actors to learn how to read transcripts and policy statements. They study people’s speech and gestural patterns and have actors perform it to see how implicit bias plays into people’s understanding on how we perceive and receive information.

The lab has gone on for three years now, with Keith working on the art form for five years.

“Our end goal is to not have a political agenda,” Keith explained. “What we’re really interested in is getting people to stop and take a moment and try to understand why they’re making the decisions that they’re making and if they have a better understanding of that information, then they can feel better prepared as a voter.”

The actors on set were sourced by the WeAre foundation, who performed on stage which allows us to see what their lab was all about.

Next was a more familiar organization to the community of Fort Lauderdale. Emmanuella, the accessing coordinator for the Urban League in Broward County, who spoke along with two other colleagues, Brenda and Morgan, both Urban League ambassadors. Being the agents of change for Fort Lauderdale for 45 years, they want to better educate the youth to vote in this year’s election. Emmanuella tells me about how low the response rate is in the Sistrunk area of Broward County – the Historic Black area of Fort Lauderdale – which loss approximately 21 million dollars because of the low voter turnout. This results in lack of resources to fix the community. This is why the Urban league attended the WeAre campaign, to bring better awareness to what needs to change for voter turnout in Broward County.

“We have placed our stake in the community. We have shown that we want to be here and offer services.” Emmanuella said.

And finally, there was my sit-down with Brandon Victor Dixon himself. His goal for the Sunday’s event was to strengthen the bonds of the organizations in South Florida in order to facilitate a stronger presence of community.

“The real goal is to not register voters or be an electoral organization, but to be a community organization.” Dixon explained, “Our main goal is to create a network of organizations and individuals who will remind people and spread the message that we are more similar then we are different; in word and in works.”

He wants the goal of making WeAre a topic that creates a change online and in the community that is tangible. There is a desire to better educate the people not just on the country’s election but also local elections on how drastic a change can come from it. Brandon also wants the organization to not only bridge the gap between individuals, but to also inform the youth about how important it is to use your power politically, educationally, and on every front.

“People who are representing these thoughts of mutuality, I hope will spread the idea to come together as a presence for change.

All ages and all walks of life. No matter who you are. WeAre’s goal is to create an equal system of people and organizations who want to step out of labels, and talk about what connects us. Anyone can go to WeAre.org and be a part of this group and create a network in what one can do best. Human mutuality is key. It is difficult to start making changes to your surroundings when there is nothing being done in the crowd. That is what the WeAre foundation is all about.” Brandon said.

“We really hope people will go to the WeAre Website to become an ambassador.” Brandon Dixon finishes. “Because the more we fight for each other, the less we have to fight for ourselves.”