For the next installment in Michigan Radio’s Voter Voices series, we introduce you to two undecided voters from Ypsilanti.
Chris Greenhill and Anthony Richmond are recently engaged, and Chris is pregnant with their first child. She’s also finishing her PhD and on the job hunt, while Anthony runs party bus and photo booth rental companies. So neither says they have much time to pay attention to politics.
They talked to Michigan Radio’s Tyler Scott.
On politics
Anthony: “I’m not a big political person. I’ll skim through some stuff real quick, and keep it movin’. Do I know who’s running for President, yeah. But if you ask me anything else other than that, no not really.
I have voted. Chris pushed me to - ”
Chris: “I made him, I made him vote! I made him get an absentee ballot.”
Anthony: “Yeah so I did vote, my vote did count. But, at the end of the day I’m not gonna let whoever does win this chair define how we’re going to live and continue our life.”
On becoming new parents
Chris: “Yeah well, I mean, the idea of starting a family was in the plans, the timing that, you know, the pandemic started, wasn’t in the plans. And it was a little bit nerve wracking at first.
Doctors’ offices shut down, and if you just found out you’re pregnant and you need to go see the doctor…”
Anthony: “That’s one of the very first places that you want to go and now they’re saying, ‘nope, our doors are closed.’ What are we supposed to do, Google?”
Chris: “And so that was very tough for us at the beginning.”
Anthony: “But at the end of the day it’s all part of life. Me and her are very strong people. So we’re going to figure it out regardless of the fact of [coronavirus] or not we are going to figure it out and, hopefully, when this baby does come…”
Chris: “We know what to do.”
On whether the U.S. is moving in the right direction
Chris: “The U.S. is definitely headed in the right direction especially in terms of the social injustices movement because we’re having the conversations.
It’s promoting conversations within the justice departments… It’s promoting conversations within police departments. It’s promoting conversations within the Black community and within families, so that in itself, to me, tells me they are going in the right direction.
“The police, when they see the Black Lives Matter movement they might feel some aggression. They might feel some fear. And the same thing for protestors when they see police officers. So it’s all about two different sides seeing the situation from the other's perspective. I believe that it’s happening, but I just don’t believe that the media is portraying that part.”
Anthony: “Hopefully you know the right people are seeing all these protests and are finally willing to step up and be like okay, I’m about to open my mouth and I’m actually about to help this change, because all this innocent killing needs to stop.”
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