(ThyBlackMan.com) Exactly one year after Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. became the 46th president of the United States, yet another Great White Hope has begun his descent from the heavenly expectations of Black folks in this country, into the reality of increasing levels of race hatred being shown by more and more and more white people every day.
But instead charting a course to reach freedom and justice independent of the fiendish slave masters who continue to inflict punishment right up to this very moment, Black folks and their mainstream leaders simply condemn the greedy whites clinging to and trying to revive their 160-year-old “Lost Cause,” never charting an independent course, and rarely challenging the neo-liberal establishment, in which Blacks have finally begun to win important positions.
The painful reality is, whenever Black folks play by the rules established by white folks, and then begin to succeed, the rules get changed, in order that the outcome always favors the white man’s interests. Now the game is “Joe Biden and the Democrats will save us.”
The U.S. criminal in-justice system is a classic example of this madness. Although our neighbors like “Eggy,” and “Juney Boy” kill far more Black babies, children, and adults than cops (about 2,500 compared to 200 in 2020), we’ll march all over the country to protest a Black killing by a white cop, but won’t even help identify the perpetrators—whom we know because they live next door to us — because we don’t want to snitch, even when thuggish, out-of-control youth murder the innocent, the unarmed, sometimes right before our eyes.
We see the blurry pictures and the cars on the TV news and recognize the perpetrators. They are driving the $40,000 cars that some adult purchased, yet no one will come forward to get their armed and dangerous offspring off the streets.
We are justifiably contemptuous of the Mitch McConnells, and the Joseph Manchins of the world, as if they are able to force people to not vote simply by making it harder for them to vote. No matter how “fair” we might want the system to be, it never has been, and, as long as white folks are in charge of our affairs, it will never be fair to Blacks.
But if voting is all that those desiring our votes and our loyalty insist it is, why don’t Black leaders organize a massive all-hands-on-deck, get-out-the-vote campaign — as if their and our very lives depended on it — the way we turn out to vote for “American Idol,” the way we vote for raunchy Tik Tok videos with our eyes?
Voting is not technically illegal — yet. These Repugnikkkan legislators in 30 states who have introduced 400 laws to make it harder and harder for Black and low-income people to vote are trying to make it as hard as possible, but they have not yet said it is illegal.
Just think about the thousands and thousands and thousands of folks who have given up everything they have at home, then walked thousands of miles for weeks on end from Central America, to get to the southern U.S. border, hoping for a chance to simply enter this country, with no voting rights promised to them.
Can someone prevail upon the millions of Black non-voters already inside the country, who are also considered to be citizens, can someone convince them to be inconvenienced for a few hours on Election Day every two years, if it would mean freedom?
Suppose that march to the polls was literally our march to “Freedomland.” Would we simply shrug off freedom because slave masters made it inconvenient for us to get it? Would we condemn the video game makers and the sports industry and its television allies for keeping us home on the sofa and not motivated to vote the way we condemn the politicians?
I believe that Black leaders are tricking the people, because the fact of the matter is that voting, just maybe is not sufficient to deliver what we need! Maybe necessary, but not sufficient. But no one wants to say that publicly. As long as they can keep blaming the intransigent white bigots for our dilemma, then we can just remain in the same condition and be angry at them, but not ourselves, about it.
That mindset is pure madness. Black leadership justifies its existence by constantly criticizing white politicians for not doing enough, but our leaders hardly demand that we do the heavy lifting that is needed to improve our own condition.
Now that we have proof positive that the electoral system, as constructed, is not meant for us to prosper, can we admit that and then move on to Plan B or Plan C?