- Just ahead on "Black Issues Forum," with the upcoming local and national elections just days away, we're diving deep into the voices that will shape the future of college students.

We'll explore the issues that matter most to young voters, what motivates them, and the unique impact they have on our democracy.

From policies on education and climate change to economic stability and social justice, we'll cover it all, coming up next.

Stay with us.

- [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[upbeat music] - Welcome to "Black Issues Forum."

I'm Kenia Thompson.

It seems like every other conversation these days are all focused on November 5th.

Local and national election decisions are more critical than ever before, and our young voter population are key players.

Today's conversation is virtual, so we can accommodate our young rock stars and their busy school schedules, and I'm grateful to have them on.

So let's go ahead and introduce them.

With us we have Robyn Magee, a third-year student at the North Carolina Central University School of Law, and currently serves as the president of the Student Bar Association.

Also joining her from Central is Sara Rugama Artola.

Sara is president of the Political Science Club at North Carolina Central University.

She also serves as Miss Raice's 2024 to 2025 for the Raice's Latino Student Organization.

And lastly, we have Aniya Arnold, former PBS North Carolina intern and current senior at Elon University, majoring in cinema and television arts.

- Hi.

- Happy to be here.

- So great to have you.

Yeah, it is so great to have you.

I know that you're all very busy, obviously by your resume and the things that you're doing.

You're always likely either studying or doing something on campus.

So we really appreciate this conversation.

And you know, I think it just denotes the fact that you guys realize that this is an important time.

And I'd love to kind of go a round-robin and hear your thoughts about how this time feels for you and why your vote, in particular, matters.

Sara, I'll start with you.

- Yeah, I think aside from stuff that I do at school, I also have this internship and I'm a civic engagement intern, so my work really revolves around getting people to vote and how people engage with local government specifically.

So it seems like in a way that was not true, for at least me, when I was a little bit younger in the last election.

It seems like there's, it's, there's more on the line and that may just be every four years that it feels like there's so much more on the line.

But working in these spaces, you realize that people might not know how to vote or there's so many hurdles to voting and it's pretty daunting sometimes.

- Yeah, no, I understand.

And you're right, every four years it feels like this is the time, this sits critical, it's even more critical than last time.

But maybe that just denotes where we're going as a society, I'm not sure.

But Aniya, do you agree with Sara and what are your thoughts around this election season this time around?

- Yeah, I definitely agree with Sara.

I've used a lot of my film experience making voter education videos and outreach in that way.

And I just think accessibility is so important when it comes to making sure people know just where to go, when to go, things like that.

It's just so key to have all that information.

And I feel like Gen Z, we really communicate, like that is our specialty, through video, through sharing things on social media and stuff like that.

So I think there's just a stronger sense of empowerment now because we're able to actually apply those things that we've all grown up around and social media and using that.

Now it feels like there's a larger purpose.

It just feels so clear that there's a larger purpose.

Just using social media as a political tool is really cool.

And I enjoy doing that and I think it helps other people just feel less alone and learning the whole voting situation.

We all are fairly new voters.

We've only voted this might be our second election so.

- I was gonna ask, yeah.

- Yeah.

This is your second election.

Sara, yours as well?

- No, this is my first.

- Your first.

And Robyn?

- Yeah, let me count - This might be my first, too, yeah.

- Might be your first, too.

Yeah, yeah.

Robyn, is this your, this is your second?

- No, I'm a little older so this is my third.

- Third, third, okay.

- This is my third.

Yeah, my first one was 2016.

And then just piggybacking off of these, well, wonderful ladies, one, just to kind of see that the conversation is being had right now amongst people that are like actively going in through this process of voting.

Like, Sara, this is gonna be your first time, you know?

Aniya, this is your second.

But still at the end of the day, it's like we're still so very novel.

And I think you said it best, Aniya, about the outlook of education and why that is very important.

And for me, that's where I am.

Then, you know, I'm going into this law space, when I graduate, my sole purpose is to advocate for people.

That is literally the foundation of my job.

And a part of that is going to come with, okay, what do you know that I'm advocating you for, right?

What is it that you understanding about what does advocacy look like?

What is your voice being shared and how is it being heard?

And I think that's where I'm coming from with the importance of, you know, this election, and then just voting in period is like not only exercising your right, not only being in the right spaces, but also understanding what your purpose is behind it.

What does your vote do?

What are you voting for, right?

Because it's one thing to just say, "I'm gonna exercise my right to vote," and you have no idea what you're voting for.

So I think all of those things kind of work in tandem about, well, I think that it's very important for me and why this space is very important for, you know, our young leaders or just really generationally everyone, but specifically for the folks that are, you know, getting into this, you know, this mindset of this is new for them and this is, you know, something that may not have been talked about enough, but now that we're having the conversation it's starting to, you know, be a trailblazer and now it's time to listen.

- Yeah, no, that's great.

And I think, you know, a lot of times we kind of discount the young voice, you know, either due to we think there isn't enough experience, there are enough knowledge around issues, but we have found in the past several years, in the past multiple elections that young voices have been very powerful, right?

- Yeah.

- You guys don't really back down, it feels like.

You know, I'm a older millennial and I think we were afraid to speak up a lot in my generation, but that doesn't feel the same today.

And so Robyn, I'd love for you to start, what are some of the top issues that are concerning you that you feel like you have to speak out on?

- Yeah, for me, higher education is something that is big.

That is the area of law that I wanna practice in.

So when it does come to, you know, issues that relate specifically to folks that are in college, right?

When you're thinking about abortion rights and you're thinking about student loan debt and what that looks like.

And people don't realize now that I'm actively about to start paying my loans back, I'm looking at it like, this is a lot.

You know what I mean?

But it's very important to have that conversation.

You know, those are probably the top bigger things.

I think really on third place is our gun laws and what that looks like.

But more importantly, to recognize that state government has a, we're probably gonna get a little bit into that, so I won't go too much into tandem, but you know, our state government is very important as well.

- Aniya, what are some of your top concerns?

- Yeah, I would definitely say abortion rights are my top concern, just because that also just encompasses women's health.

And so I am constantly concerned about that, constantly watching that.

And then I think also to Robyn's point, state, how states are governed, on that local level, on that state level, is so important, especially because of things like Roe v. Wade being rolled back and being dependent on state decisions and state government decisions.

It's just that local government is something that just I had my eye on immediately after that happened, and it became something I really cared about.

And getting people involved on a local level is something that I really cared about and still do.

And I think also gun reform, I think being a student, it's just always weighing on you.

It doesn't matter where, it doesn't matter what grade you're in or what school you go to.

UNC had an incident where it, they're college students, but it's like, at the same time, security is always, feeling safe is always an issue.

And I think that is solely dependent on our gun laws and how they need to change swiftly.

- That's a great point.

- And then, yeah, I think also my third one, oh man, if I had to rank them, I would say probably access to education as well.

I think especially K through 12.

I have a younger cousin and I'm just seeing how he's kind of going through such a different education system than I went through.

And I think it's even changed since I was in it.

And so I'm really seeing those changes and then just hearing all these sort of like threats about the education system really changing and people being like, I don't know, just reprimanded for teaching history, history being changed in different ways.

That's very concerning to me.

And so, and I think that directly informs higher education because when we weed these resources out, who are we taking them from?

And I think most of the time it's low income Black youth who are being affected by these schools being divested in essentially.

So I think those are my three.

- Great.

Sara.

What are your thoughts, Sara?

- I think there's a lot of overlap here, and great minds think alike, so I'm not surprised.

But I think, for me, the first thing if I had to rank them would be immigration and not just the policies that come out of that, but also the way that people talk about it because it's just as important.

Because today immigration is about people who look like me, but it's not always gonna be like that and it hasn't always been like that.

And we know that history tends to repeat itself.

So I think that it's very crucial to pay attention to not only the way, are these policies that are trying to be enacted, are they sustainable?

Are they humane?

Which it's a crazy question to have to ask, but it's very serious.

Are these policies humane?

Will they benefit?

Who do they benefit?

And are we being careful about the language that we used when we're talking about people like this?

Because at the end of the day, it is people, and these are lives that are at stake.

And I, personally, am affected by that.

And it pervades every area of my life.

I'm also a first generation student.

My family has not had access to these different resources that I do today.

So it's always been and it's probably always going to be like top thing for me.

I think really close by it, though, is education.

And like some of the other girls said, I am the eldest and I have three younger siblings and they are beautiful, bright children.

And then when I hear about the way that adults are talking about education, it's very perplexing and it's very upsetting because the point of school, the point of education is to prepare the people of tomorrow.

And it's so important.

And they're talking about it like it's not important and they're purposely censoring things out.

And I think that's the right word to use because it's not about who's uncomfortable when we're teaching these things.

It's not about this is upsetting.

It seems very targeted and very much like censorship, which is very strange.

I think also another one would be health care and that impacts a lot of people, not just college students, not just low income adults.

It affects a lot of people.

And it's so we can think of America as being a place we have all these great things and, you know, we're a first-world country and there's all these great things.

People come to America to flee other areas that don't have all these resources, yet not everybody has equal resources to this kind of basic right to not be sick and to find help if you are sick.

So those are probably my top three.

- All really good top threes.

I mean, I would say many of those are also at the core of my concerns in my heart.

When we look at the people that we're choosing from to, you know, hold these positions that are gonna make decisions that are really gonna shape the future, how do you feel about the political candidates of today, both local and national?

Aniya, I'll start with you.

- I feel like we are moving in a direction that is more maybe aligning with my mindset of things with just people in Congress getting maybe more in our generation, getting more representation in our generation.

That makes me feel better.

But I think this rhetoric, it's not based on age.

The rhetoric of conservatism and things that really can threaten our livelihoods as Black and brown people.

I don't think that disappears in Gen Z.

So I'm still very wary.

I don't, I mean, there's maybe a handful of politicians that I feel connected to, but I, it's difficult now just because I don't feel like there's a lot of, I don't know, like care for people in our systems.

And I just think that's also being mirrored in our government.

And I don't know if one politician is gonna prove to me that we all can band together and kind of redirect this.

- [Kenia] Right.

But I don't know, I'm wary, but I am trying to be optimistic.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- And I am seeing more representation, but it's just constantly silenced, it feels like, and constantly we're having to fight the same battles on a national stage.

Like I've seen so many TikToks of Black and brown congressmen and women having to debate just the fact that they're there.

- Right.

And having these viral moments, but it's not really about policy.

It's about, "Oh, you told her, you really told her off.

"Like you really did that."

It's, but it's just racism.

It's just responding to racism over and over again.

And I just think that's so exhausting for us.

And it feels like we get caught in this cycle of having to deal with that 'cause that's the system that we face head on kind of is that sort of, "You don't deserve to be here, "so prove that first and then work on policy."

But you're so busy proving that and we can't help that.

- That you're not working on policies.

- Yeah, you're not working on policy.

And so it just, - Yeah.

I feel a little like, I hate watching that.

I hate watching that kind of happen over and over again.

It doesn't really feel empowering to me, but yeah.

I don't know if that's gonna stop or not, but yeah.

- To that point, Robyn, Vice President Kamala has been accused of kind of being trendy, right?

And we've seen that a lot.

Do you think that there is enough focus, to Aniya's point, on the issues at hand, and not just from her, but just from all the candidates?

- Well, I think it's kind of this double-edged sword, right, of you're trying to create a platform where you can be able to engage and connect with, you know, folks that may be more inclined to listen to the ways that you communicate messages.

And this is just coming from a point of view of education in general.

When you are talking with a vast variety of people who are coming from different phases, different backgrounds, different learning styles, you're likely to try to adapt, if you're a good teacher as well, you know, that you try to identify how people learn and what they kind of gravitate to.

And so with that being said, with Kamala Harris's approach on certain things, I do think there are elements of what she is doing that does be able to connect and actually address what the issues are.

Do I feel like sometimes, and I'm gonna use the debate as an example, there were moments in the debate that I felt like, okay, instead of us pointing the finger at what, you know, Donald Trump has done or what he plans to do, or the things that he does wrong and the issue that he doesn't address as properly as that she would address, let's really focus on what your intentions are.

Do I feel like she could do more of that?

Absolutely.

And I speak to really on both candidates on that aspect, because I feel like sometimes your message gets lost because you are so constantly focused on other people's messages.

What is your message?

What are you trying to get us to listen to?

But I'm also not going to downgrade her efforts and, I guess, the concept of her being more trendy and whatever her approach is, because I do think that she's still connecting with people who may not believe in what she's saying.

- You know, recently we heard a lot of salacious claims of my people, you know, Haitians eating cats and dogs and we aren't obviously the first to have been targeted.

And unfortunately, you know, the Latinx population or Latin population has been targeted a lot more than any population, I feel, especially by former President Trump.

How do you feel, I guess, how do you feel the other side of the camp has, have they addressed enough for you on immigration to make you feel confident in who you're going to obviously choose for issues that matter around immigration?

- Yeah, I think this actually has to do, this, my response to this will talk directly to what she was saying just now, which is there could be more, what would be the right word?

They could just be more on what you're actually trying to do for certain communities - Right.

rather than kind of pointing the finger.

And it seems like that's what's happening.

And whenever we do see it, we do see some type of address and it's always, and it's been like that this whole kind of administration you could say where it's a give and take.

So you make the border more secure and that cuts off a lot of people from accessing resources.

And then you try to make a different citizenship pathway.

So it's always a give and take.

And the other side, that both sides have made a couple of claims, one more than the other, that are very harmful and some that are, that actually address what the policies, like they allude to what the policies are, but it is never, they never state, neither actually states a concrete plan.

So no, there is not something that either side has said that makes me, on that point, that makes me want to vote for them and makes me want to support them because it's a hard question to answer and it's a hard issue that it seems like both sides are actually trying to do the same thing, just different wordings around it.

- Right.

- Because we've seen in the last couple of months that the Democratic party has done some things that no other Democratic party has done that is much more strict, which is, to some, a very, a surprise to see.

But when we realize where we're going in politics and the way that what is winning offices, then no, you're not really surprised that the Democratic party is choosing to move this way.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, last question, I think, 'cause it feels like the time has just gone by so quickly.

I want viewers that are watching to, obviously, I think that they've heard and understood that your thoughts, your knowledge, your values are just as important, equally as important.

And you're all three, and I know your peers, are well-informed.

I want to ask the question, what message would you like to send to the older generations about the power and the responsibility of young voters in this election?

And really what power do you guys have?

Aniya, I'll start with you.

- Sure, I would say one of the things that you really can't beat most of the time is lived experience.

And I feel like with Generation Z, we have grown up in the consequences of a Trump presidency and things like that where things just take a turn and your safety is no longer really guaranteed through policy.

So I would just say listen, listen when people are talking about things they've actually lived through or policy that will actually affect them when they graduate.

- Robyn, what's the message young voters hold?

- There's so many things that I could say, but I think if we're talking about young voters in reference to the connections that could be made with older generations, I think Aniya kind of spoke a little bit to it of listening.

But I also wanna recognize the trust that we should have in one another because it's power in numbers.

No matter where you are, no matter where you come from, how old you are, it takes a village in order to get anything successfully done and maintained as we've seen throughout all of our history.

We do have our experiences where we share what you all have been through.

Now granted, it looks very differently, right?

No one's in the streets holding us down, but they are shooting us.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You know?

- No one's saying that we can't vote, but they are trying to have autonomy over our bodies.

So it's like the similarities are here and we're listening and we're understanding.

- Same issues, new tactics.

- And we're experiencing.

New tactics, exactly.

And so if anything, we gotta come together and we gotta trust one another.

Both sides.

Young people have to trust the old, you know, and the wisdom, the experience that they have went through and the challenges that they have endured.

But our older generation need to trust that our young people understand.

- Thank you.

Sara.

- I think one thing that I've noticed this election year is just, and this is, I guess, pretty specific to North Carolina, just how lawmakers are making it very inaccessible for people to vote.

And as somebody who had just shared earlier that this is my first election, there's a lot of uncertainty from young voters of how to vote.

What does that look like?

What does it look like to be an active member of our government?

We have SNCC, we have all these different types of student organizations on college campuses that advocate, that are revolutionaries.

So the political movements are there, the motivations are there, but sometimes we don't have that tradition and we don't have that guidance.

I think that that's something that older generations could really help us out because we've seen mobilization before.

We've seen it before and there's no reason why it can't happen again.

- Thank you, thank you.

Well, that concludes our time.

Sara Artola, Aniya Arnold, and Robyn Magee.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate your voices, the work that you're doing on the campuses that you're on, and I know your futures are bright and I look forward to seeing how things succeed for you, all three.

Well, that's all we have for today's show.

I wanna thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum and on the PBS video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

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