As I watched the results of the US Mid-Term elections on MSNBC (I flipped between it and Fox as I always do), the tech guy presenting the white board with the online results put out a surprising congressional gain for the democrats in Oklahoma. The Democrat candidate beat the incumbent Republican guy. This was a shock result for the state which is a ” red state”. As I thought about it further, the white folks in OKC (A small population of minorities and black people in OKC) looked at both candidates and decided to go with the guy who would best represent them in the next Congress- they didn’t vote party rather they voted for the best person available.
If you research how elections are won both here in the US or UK. There are white people who no matter what will always vote straight democratic or Republicans party (or Conservatives vs Labor in the UK) all the time.
The people that decide elections are the independents – these independents are mostly white folks. The two parties therefore calibrate their message to whatever they think will impress or convince these independent people/voters (you may call them floating voters) to vote for them. Unfortunately, in life as you know, when one is constantly doing the same thing such as a group voting one way without a clear agenda -it takes them off contention for getting benefits as a group after voting.
What happens is that black people vote but as a group they don’t raise as much money for the party and candidates. The party(candidates) respect and defer to those who raise money for them. When one raises money, one has an agenda which the party/politician will have to implement if they take the money.
An example: the gay community- they don’t have as large the numbers like minorities do but keep raising/ donating money (therefore have/had a list of things they want done). Conversely black America is asked as always to turn out and go vote (notice not to donate to the campaigns) they have no clear agenda or to do list. When Obama took office – cos he took money from the gay community he had to implement their agenda. The black community waited believing that Obama would do something (he did something but not what was really needed by the Black community). Even right now there is no definite agenda except for voting against the Republicans.
If hypothetically there was a black panther party (I prefer Wakanda party) If black America had such a party that would operate as the party to be used for black candidates during the city, judgeship, state legislative elections- then black people would have a definite agenda of what they want these people to achieve for them. For state wide and national elections, they would then each time assess which party and or candidate proffer the best package for Black Americans to form an alliance/coalition. Right now, the agenda for each party is dictated from the top. Each party is dominated by white people so either way White people benefit from whomever is in office.
The black race is at a cross roads both in the diaspora and back in Africa, it cannot therefore continue to do things the same way but explore other options by articulating its agenda then seek new alliances (not permanent friends) who will at each time allow them to meet these stated goals …👍
Don Quixote