Friend Bryan Alexander reminded me tonight that Dems take the Black vote entirely for granted. He’s so right. This is probably one of the big reasons that communities of color aren’t getting the help they expected with fighting public school takeovers by charters (Philly) … schools being just closed down (Chicago (where 49 schools were closed in one day – by Dem mayor Rahm Emmanuel) and Newark) and why Dems supported the devious Governor Christie’s 2013 re-election bid instead of getting behind Democratic Party candidate Barbara Buono – a progressive with a long, strong record of promoting excellence in public education, and transparency and accountability in the realm of public service and politics.
It’s about developing the people of the future, though!
TED speaker Sir Ken Robinson understands and reveals the importance of developing native creative thinking and enthusiasm in school children. Other positive voices are beginning to make themselves heard …
Hat tip to Bill De Blasio who recently emerged onto the NYC charter take-over scene this year as a notable and refreshing champion of public education. God bless him. Days after informing the charter industry that New York was cutting their funding by a couple hundred million, Mayor De Blasio gave them more bad news: he’s denying charters free space in NY public school buildings.
BTW, the Republicans are way worse
As imperfect as the Democratic Party is, the Republican party is worse for people of color. Daily Kos writer futurebird wrote in 2008,
The reason that many black people are democrats has nothing to do with social welfare programs. It’s about respect. Being a republican would mean being a member of a party that has not done enough to purge itself of racists– a party that has held black voters in contempt and characterized us as a legion of welfare moms who steal tax dollars from “real hard working Americans.” No self-respecting person would put up with that. This is why even wealthy black people remain democrats.
@Baratunde Thurston probably agrees with this statement. When he attended the Republican National Convention as a member of the press, Baratunde saw so few Black people amoung the crowd of 50,000 that he decided to count them and called his tally #negrospotting. Including hotel and convention staff, the total was 238.
Your analysis focuses on POPULARITY and perceived inflow of “Help” into a given community of people. It fails to capture three important “valuables” that have been transacted from Black people into the American political system and ultimately to the Democrats
List of VALUABLES
1) The Black Community Institutional Hopes For Development INTO POLITICS – which has resulted in the total compromise of several key Black community institutions for the sake of Political Opportunism (the Black Church – being the #1, the so called “Black Press” a close second)
2) The Black Rank & File investment into the belief that AMERICA can be changed via Progressive Public Policy so build up Black people – according to some unknown “constitutional contract” that is accepted when the “Black Racial Services Machine” (The Black establishment) incessantly points to but can’t seem to find a way to DEVELOP BLACK PEOPLE IN THEIR OWN RANKS – so that they can become “The Unleast Of These” – parceling such benefit to other “Least Of These” people – including within the Black Diaspora
3) The BLACK VOTE – While the above 2 valuables are “Within The Black Community” and owned as such – the VOTE is merely transacted inside of the American system of government to choose leadership and the policy theories associated with the popular will
It is quite interesting, Kimi – that you’d point to POOR BLACK COMMUNITIES and then note the abundance of “Democratic support” for the cause of the people – yet you can’t bring yourself to admit that TODAY – every single majority Black voting district in America – is dominated by the Democratic Party AND that the “Black Struggle” has been co-opted into a POLITICAL struggle against the Right-Wing threat to PROGRESSIVISM.
Why is it, Kimi, that a city like Chicago is full of citizens that never voice the 70 year track record of their “One Party Domination” in which the SCHOOLS are not able to sculpt and hone Black children – the “replacement Adults” sitting in the school rooms – into the FULLY DEVELOPED HUMAN BEINGS – that most “Americanized Blacks” believe will come to be IF MORE PROGRESSIVES ARE PUT INTO POWER NATIONALLY.
Think very hard about your argument.
You yourself pointed to these “Poor Black Local Areas” and then made the reference to what the Democrats (establishment) is doing that the rejected GOP is failing. I must ask you – WHAT magical tipping point do you imagine will happen in the future by which the Right-Wing Political and racial enemy of Americanized Black people are defeated – thus allowing the rise of the “Americanized Negro”?
IF this is not merely a confidence scheme for A PERMANENT BLACK PROGRESSIVE VOTING BLOCK – tell me – why don’t you look for evidence of development MORE LOCALLY before you suggest that a “Strong, Skeptical People” move forward?
FOR ME – I look at the fact that the Americanized Negro has not yet asked his political confidence men in power: “WHERE IS THE MONEY THAT WE GAVE TO YOU FOR OUR DEVELOPMENT FOR THE LAST 50 YEARS?” as the ultimate evidence of DEVELOPMENT – which is the PROTECTION OF THEIR VALUABLES FROM the “Malcolm X Political Football Game” – the system of exploitation and molestation – that is LEGAL in American jurisprudence – but which would be REGULATED within the “Black Community Consciousness” DOMAIN – if the Americanized Negro was not so expertly compromised as such.