(ThyBlackMan.com) Although 8 years old, this article is still one of my favorites – and it still applies.
Black folks need to change our conversation. For the past forty years most of our conversation has been about politics. Most of our efforts have been centered on politics. Reminiscent of Reconstruction, when Blacks occupied political offices for the first time, many of our politicians are just figureheads, toothless tigers, and lackeys for the establishment. Many of them are simply “employed” and are only concerned about keeping their “jobs.” Many Black politicians actually work harder on behalf of others than they do for their own brothers and sisters. I am suggesting that we change our conversation; change it from politics as usual to economics unusual.
Before you political hacks get angry, let me say that we must continue to be involved in politics. We must run for office and we must vote, by all means. But, we cannot afford to stop there. We saw what happened in Florida in 2000, and we saw what happened in Ohio in 2004, both times Black folks were told to “go out and vote.” We were told we must vote in even greater numbers in
2004 than we did in 2000. We did it, and we still cannot even get a hearing on reparations. P Diddy told the young people to, “Vote or die.” They voted, and when it comes to economic empowerment, they, and we, are nearly dead. Like I said in a previous article, where is the “Start a business or die” campaign, the “Pool our money or die” campaign?
In my neck of the woods, there are Black politicians who do absolutely nothing for Black folks, but they come out every year or two to tell us how good they have been and what they stand for on our behalf. What a load of fertilizer that is! Even stranger is the fact that Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives do the same things. We may duck the “right” cross, but we will still get hit by the “left” hook. In other words, we have nothing coming from either political party, and they have proven that to us time and time again.
Our conversation must move away from the dead-end discussions on who is in and who is out this year; it makes no difference if we get nothing from whoever is in office. Our practice of engaging in political discourse, ad nauseam, as if we control something up there on the hill, or down in city hall, is old and tired.
Black people must realize that while our relatives fought for and died for voting rights, those folks didn’t die so we could spend the majority of our time “playing” politics. They wanted us to take our participation to the next level. What ever happened to that Black political party discussion from 1972? Black folks, your relatives and mine, also lost their lives because they chose to go into business; where is the rallying cry around that?
We must also come to the realization that if our vaunted voting “power” is so fearful to the two political parties, we should be using it in ways that support the most important political principle: Quid pro quo. Leveraging our votes to get something for our people is what we should be doing, otherwise, why participate at all? Just to be participating? It really doesn’t matter what color the politician is. What matters most is what Black folks are getting from the system and, believe me, Black folks are getting the shaft from many Black politicians. You know it, I know it, and they know it. It’s bad enough that the leadership in the two major parties really don’t care about us. One is throwing right crosses and the other is throwing left hooks at us, always causing us to be off-balance, out of sync, and off-kilter, as we try to avoid those haymakers.
The political “leaders” who continue to tell us that all we have to do is vote to change things should be voted out of office. The Black political “leaders” who always come calling for Black votes and votes for the party, democrat or republican, should be run out of town. This voting for all democrats or all republicans by Black folks is nothing short of political suicide because both parties have shown us they couldn’t care less about what we think or what we do. Just look at the last presidential election.
The old game of Black folks being all or nothing to either party has proven to be our political demise. We give our all and get nothing in return. Seventy-five years ago nearly all Blacks voted republican; now we have just the opposite. Neither scenario has worked, so why do we continue that insanity? Carter G. Woodson said, “Any people who would vote the same way for three generations without thereby obtaining results ought to be ignored and disenfranchised.”
Black folks have been getting hit with right crosses and left hooks since we got into this political game, and now we need to start throwing some punches of our own.
The hardest punches Black people can throw are economic punches. Yes, we can start our own political party but that will not, in and of itself, solve our problems. We must be willing to take off the gloves and go with bare-knuckles into the marketplace and let our presence be known by withholding our dollars and redirecting our dollars. If we want to be players in the political game, we must put our money where our mouth is and give more to political campaigns. The only things that count with politicians are dollars and votes – in that order. We must leverage both to get what we need from either party, the Demopublicans or the Republicrats.
As the right crosses and left hooks continue to come from crooked, immoral, and unethical politicians, both white and Black, let’s get busy economically and start punching back, before we get knocked out.
Written By James E. Clingman
Official website; http://www.blackonomics.com/
