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| Donald J. Trump |
Black
Folks Need to Stop Blindly Voting Dum-o-crat and Put Trump In Office
When will black folks stop kowtowing to
the great and mighty Democratic Party? Every election, it’s the same thing:
Droves of African Americans head to their respective polling places and
sacrifice our futures on the altar of a party ticket. Democrat. Democrat.
Democrat. Democrat. All the way down the line.
Occasionally, you may stop to read the
names when two Dems are vying for a single category and you have to remember,
of the two who showed up at your church to “worship” which one you liked
more. But other than that... Democrat.
Democrat. Democrat.
Today, I pose to you the question I ask
every four years: For all of our loyalty and undying allegiance, what is it
that the Democrats have actually done for the black community, let alone for
America?
Now, if you happen to be a member of the
LGBT community, I can understand why you may be voting Democrat this election.
I think we can all run down a pretty impressive list of what Obama did for the
gay community. In fact, The Human
Rights Campaign has a
fantastic download available that outlines what the Obama
Administration has done specifically for the LGBT community year-by-year since
he took office. Here are a few of the
more memorable Obama wins for the LGBT community:
●
Repealed
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (which was instituted by Bill Clinton’s
Administration in the 1990s, by the way)
●
Nominated
and/or appointed a talented list of officials who are openly gay, openly
transgender, or otherwise recognized members of the LGBT community.
●
Instituted
laws that allow same-sex couples to legally take advantage employment and
federal benefits such as survivor benefits, long-term care insurance and time
off for Family and Medical Leave Act
●
Legalize
same-sex marriage nationwide
Heck, the president even took a trip to
Kenya during which he attempted to persuade the Kenyan president to do more to
protect gay Kenyans. And who can forget the rainbow White House? The Dems
certainly seem to push adamantly for the LGBT community.
I’d also like to point out that if you
happen to be Syrian or Afghan, you may also feel a certain appreciation for
Obama and the Dems. Afterall, he spent billions of our tax dollars to prevent
Syrian President Assad and the Taliban from killing their own people. The
president sent US soldiers into Syria after saying he wouldn’t. So, we can
easily celebrate Obama’s commitment to Syria.
But
what about African Americans?
The Trouble with Letting Well-Enough Alone
The
Washington Post reports
that since 1972, 85% of black voters have voted Democrat in presidential
elections. The problem here is I think most of us would be hard-pressed to run
down a similar list of changes the Democrats have made over the last decade or so that have so
positively and directly impacted the black community like the ongoing and
persistent changes made to help the LGBT community.
Why is that? Without being able to
readily identify what the Democrats have done for us, why are 85% of black
Americans consistently voting Democrat?
I can only guess that black folks are
patiently waiting their turn (as many have been conditioned to do),
anticipating change in the sweet by-and-by.
Well, I’ve got news for you: Change ain’t coming. Not through a
Democrat.
Forgive me if I sound irreverent, but no
reverence is due here. Thank you for Obamacare and thanks for helping the
country to get back on its feet (or knees, depending on where you happen to
live) after the financial crisis. While Wall Street has been steadily
rebounding, Main Street is still hurting. And the Martin Luther King Jr.
Boulevards of this nation are still in a downward spiral.
So, I want to provoke black voters to
think and seriously weigh the consequences of voting Democrat this election.
There are always consequences when electing a new leader. As you head to the
polls, consider these points:
●
If
we have billions available to fight ISIS, we at least had millions that could
have been used to calm the violence that has plagued Chicago over the past
eight years. Between 2005 and 2015 a total of 71 Americans were killed in
terrorist attacks on U.S. soil while 301,797 were killed by gun violence during
the same period.
● If there was a bailout for big banks
(who are still dabbling in subprime loans, only now the lending is for auto
loans), there damn sure was money to create tax incentives to compel businesses
to invest in inner cities and employ
blacks, therefore strengthening urban communities, curbing unemployment, and
reducing crime. But time and again in predominantly black cities like Detroit, and
Washington DC, blacks are systematically moved out of the city and young whites
are recruited to move in to “revitalize” the area
● If the Obama Administration can sit down
with members of the LGBT community to organize a strategy to fight for equality
in the LGBT community, how is it acceptable for Hillary Clinton to dismiss Black Lives Matter by telling them they need to be more
strategic, offer no practical assistance, then turn around months later and
want to leverage the Black Lives Matter movement
(and by leverage I mean
mentioning the movement in public speeches and smiling for photo ops) to court
the black vote?
●
And
where were the Democrats when Flint’s water system was being poisoned for
years? Where are they now? Every child in Flint who drank that water had lead-contaminated blood. Every single child. Obama’s pep talk
to Flint residents in May of this year and his symbolic drinking of the filthy
water doesn’t compare to the years and years of contamination residents have
had to endure. That’s not help!
I will admit Obama has used his
executive powers to commute the sentences of hundreds of nonviolent prisoners
who received overly harsh penalties or who were jailed under outdated laws that
no longer exist. But many of the thousands of African American men and women
who still remain in prison after already serving years and even decades for
nonviolent drug offenses are there because of the Clinton Administration, and
you better believe Hillary had her say.
 |
| Former Federal Judge Nancy Gertner |
I hope she dropped the mic after her
speech.
In a justice system that’s already
broken and far more likely to disproportionately punish blacks more severely,
Clinton’s decision to make the drug penalties stiffer could hardly be
considered a win for African Americans. Thousands were imprisoned and the
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that Clinton signed into
existence prevented prison inmates from using grant money to earn a college
degree to help re-integrate them into society.
Now weigh the hundreds freed decades
later by one Democrat against the thousands still incarcerated at the hands of
another Democrat.
After 44 years of
voting Democrat, let me remind you of what we have to show for it:
● Black unemployment
rates top 11%
●
Black youth unemployment rate swings between 25-50%
●
Black homeownership rate is 45% versus 70% for whites
● Black household wealth
$6,446 vs $91,405 for Whites
● Black median household
income $35,416, versus the median household income for whites, which is $59,754
● Black poverty rate is
one in four , while fewer than one in 10 whites live in poverty
In a previous
post, I asked Americans to truly ponder whether the president can use his
office to solve some of the above problems that plague African Americans.
Today, I’m asking you to ponder what the Democratic Party as a whole has done
to effect positive change in the African American community in the last 50
years.
The NAACP organized a network of
national boycotts that directly led to the elimination of institutionalized
segregation. The Black Panthers fed families and provided supplies for poor
mothers on a local, grassroots level. The government adopted that program and
now calls it WIC. What have the Dems
done for African Americans? For America?
What Say You?
In another 12 weeks, we
will elect a new president, quite possibly doing the same things we’ve always
done but hoping for a new outcome. Insanity. I imagine no political
relationship makes this statement ring truer than the love affair black people
have with the Democratic Party.
Some would say it’s
better to deal with a devil you know than one you don’t know. That is called
passivity. And it’s counter-productive. We know the outcome of electing another
Democrat to office is going to be little to no change. In spite of the fact
that experts are bracing for another financial
crisis,
many voters truck on as if what has happened yesterday is what will be
tomorrow. Not so.
Every presidential
candidate makes promises; some the new president will keep, some he will not.
But one thing all of us have to remember in this tumultuous time in America
where the media is intentionally broadcasting controversies and atrocities in
order to provoke (and perhaps distract) masses of Americans:
No American president
is all-powerful. That’s not how we run our government.
As much as you may love
Obama, you saw time and again that his policies were halted when he couldn’t
get them through the Senate. Heck, we’re still waiting on a ninth supreme court
justice to replace Justice Scalia, who died in February 2016.
The media tries to make
Donald Trump out to be the most ignorant, self-interested bigot in the world.
But if he wins, he will still have his administration advising him, his party
calling the shots, and Congress with which to contend.
In short, forget about
the wall. Forget about testing Muslims and barring them from the country.
Forget about the other shenanigans Trump has said just to stay on your TV
screen during every single 30-minute news cycle. Vote the party that will keep
America the land of opportunity it has been for the past 150 years.
Vote for the party that
will create jobs, tighten our fiscal belt (so we stay off the fiscal cliff),
reduce taxes, and help grow our economy.
I believe that party is
the Republican Party. What say you?
Toyin Dawodu, former
Republican, free-thinking Independent
(Reprints permission generously granted)
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