If you didn't vote Tuesday, I don't want to hear you complain. Don't write me a letter. Don't send me an email. Don't call me on the phone. I don't want to hear it.

Like it or not, a major reason why we keep losing elections is because too many of us just don't vote. African Americans, in particular, should be ashamed. With nearly 10 million African American voters in the country, we should exercise a lot more clout than we do. But since the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, black voter turnout has never exceeded 44 percent in any midterm election.

White voter turnout in midterm elections has also declined during this period, but it has never been as low as the highest turnout rate among blacks. Despite the legacy of slavery and segregation in which African Americans were legally deprived of the right to vote, even when we have the right to vote, we still don't. That's a crime.

It's a crime not only because Marcus, Martin, Medgar and Malcolm would turn over in their graves. It's a crime not just because Fannie Lou Hamer and Bayard Rustin and thousands of our parents and grandparents fought for the right to vote. It's a crime because we have stopped voting at precisely the time when we could have the most influence.

Think about it. White voter turnout dropped from 57 percent to 43 percent in midterm elections from 1966 to 1998. Black voter turnout only dropped from 42 to 40 percent during this time period, reaching a low point of 33.8 percent in the 1974 Watergate elections.

The sad reality is that blacks and whites have become very much alike in our voting patterns. But that's not a good thing. Knowing that white voters don't turn out significantly in midterm elections, if black voters actually did vote, we would determine the outcome of the elections, particularly in the south, where 40 percent of the 9 million African American voters live.

Young black voters can also make a difference. In the 1998 midterm elections, only 15.6 percent of eligible black voters between the ages of 18 and 24 actually voted. That's a drop from 44.2 percent of young blacks who voted in the 1964 presidential election and it's the lowest midterm election turnout of any group measured by the Census Bureau.

That's why I was so disappointed to learn that wealthy rapper LL Cool J had never even registered to vote until a few months ago, when he announced his support for Republican Governor George Pataki. Ignorance is costly, especially if you're black.

Perhaps white people feel they have the privilege of not voting. But black people don't have that privilege. If we don't vote, we get screwed.

We're already undereducated and overincarcerated by a society that enslaved and segregated us for hundreds of years and now expects us to assimilate into its own short-sighted, self-destructive culture. Many of us who were convicted of felonies long ago are not even allowed to vote in some states. For that reason alone, we should vote en masse to change these laws and restore these voting rights.

The right to vote is essential in a democracy. For blacks who were once deprived of the right to vote, it is sacred. If you don't exercise that right, you don't deserve it.

© Copyright 2002 by Keith Boykin.