How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office

Adrienne Maree Brown writes in such a personal voice, you think you're actually listening to her speak. In her essay, "I Hate Politics," you can just imagine her sitting across the table from you with a caffeinated beverage and talking about why people should vote. At the end, she grabs your hand and whispers in your ear, "Here's the real secret -- it's the normal people who make change possible. It's you and me. And now we know how."

The youth vote is hot this year, with everyone from Rock the Vote to Russell Simmons telling young people to get to the polls. Jumping into the frenzy is the League of Pissed Off Voters, a newly formed organization dedicated to educating and mobilizing progressive voters. The League has just released a collection of essays and success stories by a diverse group of authors, which Brown and William Upski Wimsatt ("Bomb the Suburbs" and "No More Prisons") co-edited.

"How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office" provides those wanting to change the world with plenty of examples to follow. Subtitled, "The Anti-Politics, Un-Boring Guide to Power," the book demonstrates how otherwise politically uninvolved youth can play politics on their own terms. And to show that politics can be fun and sexy, each essay is accompanied by a "political sex survey" which asks the author questions such as, "Which politician would be best in bed?" and "What superhero is needed to get us out of this situation?"

WireTap got a chance to talk to Brown, who has a long history of activism, but says she was never politically involved until recently, when the Bush Administration's policies of the last three years turned her into a voter organizer and political activist.

WireTap: At what age did you first vote and did you vote last election?

Adrienne Maree Brown: I first voted when I was 22 -- in the last national election -- and it was my only time voting. My involvement with the book is definitely coming from the disengaged what-difference-does-one-vote-make pissed off young voter perspective.

WT: Why did you get involved with the League of Pissed Off Voters and what is your role?

AMB: I got involved because I was in the right place at the right time. The harm reduction community [where I work] has been hit hard by this faltering economy and I was really upset by that. The wars on Afghanistan and Iraq took a lot of faith out of me, I was angry at my country, how could we let this happen? Since Bush "took" office it's literally like watching some weird 1984 disaster reel unfurl. I was diatribing all the time and feeling powerless.

Then Billy Wimsatt came up to me with a survey and I started getting his emails -- and I'm a Virgo first-born -- so I started editing them and sending them back. In the process I got convinced that since it didn't look like the people were gonna rise up in revolution against the madness or anything like that soon, we HAD to try to reclaim electoral politics for representative democracy.

WT: What is the organization's desired goal or aim?

AMB: To engage young people more deeply in the electoral process -- bring power and responsibility back into the realm of the average American; it's been locked up the white halls of the White House for too long. The non-profit will focus on the training element of that -- how do you get young people educated and trained to be voter organizers? How do organizations empower themselves to have an influence in the electoral realm? And then the for-profit is gonna be out there doing voting blocs and voter guides and really empowering people and focusing on candidates.

WT: How does voting connect with activism?

AMB: Historically it depends when you check in. Around the time of my great-grandparents and grandparents, getting the right to vote was activism. Women, then blacks were fighting and dying for it. More recently, activism was a way of giving the finger to voting and the whole electoral process. You don't listen to us? Well fuck you, we'll just form our coalitions and we'll march and get heard in other ways.