We know we need to get Donald Trump out of The White House.
We hoped for a strong candidate to oppose him.
We ended up with Joe Biden.
Sure, Vice President Joe Biden was a great sidekick to President Barack Obama. And he is the only person in history who will say he served in office with two firsts: the first Black president as well as the first Black and Indian woman vice president of the United States. In recent years, Joe has managed to keep a relatively low profile and maintain what can only be described as grace from people of color given his well-documented anti-Black political record.
But, when Joe decided to run for president, he put Black people in a familiar dilemma.
Practically every election season, Black people are put in the compromising position of choosing to vote against our own well-being to save America, or not vote and be the scapegoats of the next greatest American failure.
We’re encouraged to “vote or die” or “vote or don’t say anything” [if it turns out badly].
We’re pandered by politicians who refuse to speak to Black media except to campaign to Black people for our vote in the presidential election. We’re encouraged to “vote for the lesser of two evils,” a compromise Black people are casually asked to accept, election after election — by politicians, white allies, and other Black people alike.
And Black folk oblige. Even at our own peril.
This dilemma is getting old — fast.
As many of us drag our feet to the polls to vote for Joe Biden, I’d like to debunk a few myths, and examine the state of the Black voter in America today to help you understand the warranted apathy many Black people feel in the 2020 presidential race.
First of all, Black People Do Vote. ✔️
Turns out, Black people vote more than the average American citizen is led to believe. The idea that Black people need convincing to vote is baseless and another example of how the plight of Black voters is not only undermined, but exploited. This train of thought is condescending and marginalizes the members of the Black community as disengaged citizens who need a schoolyard lesson in civic engagement despite our history of activism and community organizing.
Did you know that since 1996 Black voter participation has actually increased steadily producing more measurable gains each year compared to every other voting demographic? This record was only recently interrupted in 2016 in the election of Donald Trump when voter participation among Black citizens fell 7-percentage-points after a record 66.6% in 2008, which for many Black folk indicated the lack of agreeable options more than it signaled voter apathy. In fact, in 2008, Black voter turnout historically surpassed that of white voter turnout. We seem to forget this when recounting stories of the Black voting experience. According to a recent Pew Research Study, Black voters are the second largest block of voters in this country after white Americans. Although representing just 13% of the total U.S. population according to the U.S. Census, Black voter participation is higher than Latin Americans, Native Indigenous, and Asian/Pacific Islander people.
The general notion that Blacks need a pep-talk to see the value in voting is not only frustrating, and insulting, but it stems from a factually incorrect premise that Black people don’t vote. It simply is not true, nor has it ever been.
Black Institutions Have Had An Extraordinary Impact on American Society
The Black Panther Party |The contributions Black people have made to our political process are a matter of record. In January 1968 The Black Panther Party, often relegated by white media to a “militant” group, served its first school breakfast to a few dozen children. The program steadily grew eventually serving thousands of students daily across 45 programs. At the time, the standard that we all have become familiar with, free school meals, was not a responsibility the government assumed. The Black Panther Party established a blueprint that Congress would later adopt as a permanent entitled program in 1975.
Today, the impact of the Party’s influence is still felt. Last year, over 31 million free breakfast and lunches were distributed to over 30 million kids across this country whose families cannot afford to eat. But this is just one example of the Party’s political impact. Before #BlackLivesMatter, the Black Panther Party championed issues of systematic oppression and police reform. The Party also provided healthcare, education, and free legal resources to Black and low-income communities when the government failed to provide the same resources. Even still, voting was a part of the Black Panther Party’s strategy, registering thousands to vote, reaching communities across the entire San Francisco Bay Area, and inspiring millions worldwide.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities | Our nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are yet another shining example of Black institutions’ contribution to this great nation and to our political process. At HBCUs, civic engagement is a primary cornerstone. From the moment students arrive on campus, the first-year student understands the legacy of social and political activism. My alma mater Bennett College is small in size, but mighty in numbers. While much is known about the Greensboro Four, students at neighboring HBCU North Carolina A&T who are the face of the 1960s Sit-In movement that swept this nation, few know about Bennett College’s co-planning of this movement which started in the Fall of 1959. At the height of the Sit-In Movement, roughly 40% of Bennett Belles were jailed for protesting. This story is a proud part of our legacy.
While I was president of the Student Government Association in 2012, over 90% of the student body were registered and voting. As a professor at Bennett College, now Congresswoman Dr. Alma Adams coined the term “Bennett Belles Are Voting Belles.” We’d chant this in class, at protests, while participating in community service, and on Voting Day when the whole campus was encouraged to “March to the Polls.” More a way of life, than a simple chant, Belles have made real impact. In 2007 Bennett Belles helped to elect the city of Greensboro’s first Black mayor, Yvonne Johnson, an alumna of the institution.
But this legacy is true for all HBCUS, not just Bennett College. HCBUs often serve as a staging partner in local elections, hosting town halls, and speaker forums. Credit is given to HBCUs for shaping Black leadership as we know it with 40% of the Congressional Black Caucus composed of its alumni. HBCU grads are in a growing club which includes a long list of freedom fighters and political firsts. HBCUs produced MLK. HBCUs produced the late Congressman John Lewis. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is a graduate of an HBCU.
From the Black Panther Party, Congressional Black Caucus and HBCUs, to divine nine sororities and fraternities, Black churches, and the NAACP, civic duty has been bestowed upon Black people whether one feels personally convicted or not. It is an awareness assumed to us because our survival requires it. History has demonstrated time, and time again, that Black people know how to make decisions for themselves — and when Black people do, society overall benefits immensely.
Black Voter Suppression
Black voters and organizers have had a significant impact on our political landscape and society as we know it yet face historic marginalization and a host of insurmountable odds. It is estimated that more than half a million eligible voters failed to vote in 2016 because of problems associated with the management of polling places, including long waits, according to Bipartisan Policy Center. In communities nationwide, Black voters are more likely to experience unexpected poll closures, ill-functioning equipment, and significantly longer wait times. According to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, voting should only take 30 minutes. In a growing list of states, including key battleground states like Georgia, some voters have reported waiting over ten hours to cast their ballots! This theme is consistent in predominantly Black neighborhoods across the United States. This is no cheap burden for the average working class Black American. 20 states do not have laws that give employees time off to cast their ballots or volunteer at the polls on Election Day. This causes voters to take off work without pay and this disproportionately impacts women, low-income, and minority voters.
Perhaps the most critical voter suppression politics facing Black people at the polls in 2020 is — you guessed it. White supremacy. When the president ordered the far-right group the “Proud Boys” to “stand back, and stand by” during the first presidential debate it was a chilling reminder for many Black people whose ancestors know that call. Those words carry a dark history and its implications mean more than a little bit for Black people. #VotingWhileBlack has resulted in serious consequences. Although the 15th Amendment formally extended the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” Jim Crow laws were later created to discourage Black people from voting.
When Black people earned the right to vote they faced extraordinary challenges such as literacy tests, poll taxes, impossible poll quizzes, and voter intimidation. Many Black people were killed. This year marked the 100 year anniversary of the deadliest Election Day in American history. During the 1920 presidential election, when Black people showed up to vote in Ocoee, FL the Ku Klux Klan organized rallies, and poll workers turned Black voters away on voting day. Julius ‘July’ Perry was a prominent Black businessman and community leader. After encouraging others to vote, the mob shot and dragged July to his death. He was hung with a sign that read “This is what happens to Blacks who vote.” The mob later torched the town of Ocoee on Election Day, destroying Black homes, Black businesses, killing Black families, and displacing hundreds more.
The deep legacy of voter suppression lives on in Florida and beyond. The Sentencing Project reports an estimated 6.1 million people involved with the justice system are disenfranchised from voting as a result of a felony conviction. In Florida 21% of all Black people failed to access the polls as a result of modern-day Jim Crow laws that show up as court fines, restitution, and other barriers. In peer states Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia more than one in five African Americans is disenfranchised from voting. Of all Black Americans old enough to vote, one in 13 cannot vote because of some form of disenfranchisement. This is more than four times the rate of non-Black American citizens.
Black people have faced unthinkable odds for which credit (and reparations) is owed. Even in the face of adversity, Black people have exercised incredible resilience and endurance organizing on behalf of our own communities and others who have faced historic marginalization.
America’s Two-Party System Is a Hoax
While voter suppression is one obvious barrier facing the Black electorate, this country’s two-party system is the quiet storm that perpetually fails Black voters and has generational impact that becomes nearly impossible to rectify. Between Trump struggling to denounce white supremacy (yes, that happened) and Biden’s underdeveloped explanation of systemic racism, many Black people have a serious side eye to give. In the first presidential debate, both candidates displayed a lack of a baseline understanding of systemic racism and the relentless stress and trauma inflicted on Black people as a result of it. When Joe Biden said in his Breakfast Club interview with Charlamagne tha God “if you got a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump — then you ain’t Black” a lot was revealed about his mindset. His audacity to assume the Black vote and mock Black people who would venture to vote otherwise ironically (but not surprisingly) draws a distinct parallel to similarities in the white supremacist thinking he is trying to separate himself from.
Whether it’s Trump’s complete and utter failure to respond to a global pandemic that is killing Black Americans at over three times the rate of white Americans and whose generational impact on the Black community cannot yet be measured, or Joe’s –1994 Crime Bill that ravaged Black communities by targeting and sentencing Black people to harsher punishment for nonviolent offenses, it is two sides of the same coin for the everyday Black American voter. According to the Princeton Press, since 1968 no Republican voter has received more than 13% of the African American vote, with an overwhelming majority voting Democratic every year.
And yet, Black people remain committed to the Democratic Party, even when the Democratic Party has failed to commit to us.
The problem with Black people voting overwhelmingly Democratic is it gives the community a false sense of political security. Still too many Black lives are lost disproportionately as a result of ineffective, race-neutral politics on both sides that continue to stifle the healthcare, educational, and economic advancement opportunities for Black people.
It is not radical to expect Congress to provide opportunities for economic stimulus to a group of people who have been victimized by both law and policy. It’s been done before. After World War II, as Western Europe was left to rebuild its shambled cities and people struggled to eat and provide for their families in a devastated economy, the federal government agreed to provide $15 billion in aid to support the rebuilding efforts. The Economic Recovery Act of 1948, signed by President Truman, provided funds for the economic reconstruction in Europe post-war and it came with four years of ongoing support on behalf of the American government. This recovery plan received overwhelming bipartisan support.
Until this very day, citizens of the same government are waiting for their own economic recovery plan. Like Western Europe, Black families have been generationally impacted by the everyday wars waged against Black communities that have lasted centuries longer than WWII. This war was started with America’s gravest sin…slavery. The economic impact of slavery on Black people is immense and these American citizens have yet to be compensated for this evil. Today almost 40% of Black children live in poverty. Research definitively links childhood poverty to a lifelong set of issues including health-related, social disparities, and economic insecurity. The history and data is clear, our elected officials on both sides of party lines perpetuate the cycle of poverty in Black communities. The federal government has yet to implement a sustained initiative that effectively repairs harm and supports the economic progress of the descendants of slaves, and both Democrats and Republicans seem to be comfortable with this.
While this nation’s two-party system struggles to meet the necessities its Black citizens require, Black people know that by not voting, more is at risk of being lost. The reality is, Black people won’t find refuge in this two-party system. The Republicans could care less, and the Democrats won’t save us. We are forced to vote for “the lesser of two evils.”
This paradox has many of us feeling some type of way.
Black Women Have the Lowest ROI from the Democratic Party
If anybody should feel slighted by the Democratic Party, Black women who have been America’s saving grace, have every right. Black women are the power engine behind the Black vote and the Democratic Party. According to a report by the AFL-CIO, Black women are the most reliable voters significantly leading every demographic of American women in voter participation. In addition to voter participation, Black women are the frontline community organizers who have historically been at the forefront of issues regarding civil liberties and human rights.
Across every sector, Black women of all age groups and experiences are expressing their interests in politics. From Hollywood writer Shonda Rhimes’ hit series Scandal to rapper Cardi-B’s interview with Joe Biden, Black women are showing no signs of slowing down.
Kamala Harris’ historic nomination as the first mixed-race Black woman on a major party ticket, is actually on par with the uptick in Black women’s interest in leadership nationwide. This year Black women have set yet another record for U.S House seats and are a larger percentage of all women running for Congress in the 2020 election according to the Center of American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
The Black woman’s electoral power is indisputable. Black women elected President Barack Obama, twice. Black women elected Alabama’s first Democratic senator in 25 years. Black women show up time and time again for everyone’s fight, yet looking at the state of Black women in America today is cause to wonder: what has the Democratic Party done for Black women lately?
Here are the numbers. Currently, Black women make 62 cents to every dollar a white man makes. On this salary, Black women who are the primary caregivers of their families stretch their resources to support their children, their parents, and often extended relatives. Entrepreneurship among Black women has grown 164% since 2007. Yet, out of $85 billion in overall venture capital funding Black female entrepreneurs received less than 1% to fund their businesses in 2017 — making that 62 cents stretch even further. Black women are the only ethnic group with more business ownership than their male peers, according to the Federal Reserve. Yet, because Black women bear the brunt of the economic responsibilities for their family and communities, these disparities have a devastating impact on what a Black woman will be able to acquire and leave for her family. The majority of Black people aging, live in (or are close to living in) poverty. The Economic Policy Institute estimates Blacks and Latinos represent just 15% of the elderly population, yet 63% of all Black seniors are economically vulnerable. These trends are pronounced throughout society. Black women’s college graduation rates are steadily on the rise, but so is her debt. As a result, Black women are more likely to graduate into poverty before starting their first career. In healthcare, home ownership, and beyond, not much has been done by the US government to help Black women who are defying all the odds stacked against them.
In fact, the Democratic Party’s intentional strategy to remain race neutral on key issues, is not serving Black women in any capacity. While Black women continue to fight for their own lives in a lonely corner, it would behoove a complacent Democratic Party to stop backhanding Black women with the same hand they shake when expecting the Black woman’s vote. The Black woman’s vote is a heavy vote to lose.
In Conclusion
As you can see, the state of the Black electorate is complex. Black people have provided more than their fair share of social and political contributions, and if history is any indicator, we will continue this trend. For many Black people, voting is a moral and spiritual reckoning that cannot be understated. While all American people of color have had to fight for suffrage, Black folk carry the legacy of slavery, domestic terrorism, and targeted systematic voter suppression politics with us to the polls. It is unfair to truncate and misrepresent the story of our political involvement and the impact of Black voters’ on our country’s politics.
Racialized trauma impacts Black people in every way imaginable and in spite of this, Black people are still voting when they don’t have to. While it may be easy to berate the Black person who refuses to participate in a political process that has yielded few outcomes — their apathy is warranted, and so is one’s audacity to expect more from subpar presidential candidates who are afraid to say the “B” word. [Black, in case you missed it. 😉]
Black people don’t need a pep talk or your judgement. And Black people certainly don’t need people controlling how Black folk vote. What Black people need is for others to care as much about Black liberation as one cares about their own, and actively work to implement policies that support Black progress and economic independence.
So…
Here we go again. Another Election Day, but more of the same in Black America, though this won’t be reason enough to stop Black people from voting.
We’re going to bring our families, our snacks, and our lawn chairs, and prepare to stand hours in lines and navigate voter suppression to turn out and vote. Because that’s what Black people do. We save America with the fleeting hope that maybe this is our best shot at saving ourselves.
Unfortunately, like Biden assumed, many Black folk including myself will vote for him — begrudgingly. But I know the fight for Black people’s lives will extend far past November third’s hurdle.
