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Anonymous is convinced that the whole concept of a black vote is outdated, irrelevant and borders on racism.

The Black Vote

by Anonymous

The stories sprang to life almost immediately after the New Hampshire Primary. No doubt you saw some of them. They were all about how the Democratic Presidential candidates would vie for the black vote in the South Carolina primary. Just one question, what exactly is the black vote?

Politicians, consultants and news reporters all throw around the term and theorize about how this-or-that candidate will get black people to vote one way or the other. It's as if a certain set of issues will compel an entire people to act in unison. It's insulting and implies that black Americans are mindless drones who will be moved to react in concert because of a glossy message that speaks to what some political researcher says African - Americans want to hear.

African - Americans actually want what all Americans want: justice, fair treatment, an opportunity to succeed and freedom. How are those aspirations different than anyone else's? They aren't, yet political leaders and the media act as if black Americans have some particular set of needs that are unique to them and no one else, so candidates go to churches and speak with contrived Southern accents, then sing hymns and clap their hands with the conviction of a newly saved soul.

You can also find those same candidates at inner city community centers, talking about health care, education, welfare and other subjects that they think will win sympathy from the people there. Then they move on, whisked away in their oversized, black S.U.V.s, with heavily tinted windows and security personnel who protect their path out of the ghetto. Thanks for the visit.

And can someone please explain why any candidate preaches civil rights with such fury to blacks, as if African - Americans are going to be magically moved by the mere mention of hope and equality. Yes those things matter to them and yes racism is an ugly reality, but the civil rights message that black leaders have espoused since the '50s and '60s does nothing to address contemporary matters that involve discrimination.

Racism has morphed into a different entity. It is insidious, but more shadowy then ever, disguised in the form of set-asides, offering limited opportunities that bring resentment from those who do not benefit from entitlements. It is not the overt, Jim Crow segregation that used to be painfully easy to see, but the note that politicians sound when they're pandering to black Americans remains cloaked in the old, 'we shall overcome' message that does not speak to the more assertive posture that impoverished people must assume to break from poverty.

The assumption that a few words here and there about jobs or schools is enough to win the black vote is preposterous. Black Americans are not a uniform band of people, with a singular mind set, who will get swayed by a promise that things are going to get better, someday. How insulting. African - Americans are diverse thinkers, each individual with a unique set of principles and goals that are not necessarily rooted in the rant they hear during the election cycle.

To call any particular strategy an attempt to win the black vote demeans African - Americans and reduces their dreams to a paltry set of buzz words and catch phrases. Black people will continue to get this hollow treatment until black people insist on more. A politician should not and cannot be rewarded with any vote until the candidate demonstrates that he or she has earned it.

Black Americans must refuse to elect anyone based on skin color or party affiliation. Politicians have had it far too easy when it comes with winning the sympathies of African - Americans. The result: blacks represent a disproportionately high number of the prison population, are under represented in corporate board rooms and earn less -- on average -- than nearly every other ethnic group in America. There, that's what politicians have accomplished for African - Americans who've given them the black vote.

Maybe it's time to vote, not as a race, but as hard headed, deep thinking individuals, who refuse to be moved by candidates who offer catchy, luke-warm speeches about equality that so far have yielded next to nothing for American blacks.

Byron's Blog

The Black Vote

byron

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