Tag Archives: Black Vote

I Voted for Biden and Here Is Why I Did

The Georgia Presidential Preference Primary slated for March 24, 2020, in my home state. However, Georgia is among a few political subdivisions that have an early vote process where voters can cast their ballot before the scheduled Primary or General Election date.

I like early voting because the lines are usually shorter. I can get in and out in fifteen minutes or less. However, in the 2008 General Election, when Barack Obama was on the ballot for the first time, I stood in line about three and one-half hour to cast my historic vote. read more

Who Is Blacker, Trump Or Clinton?

I’ve  seen a lot of politics in my time. But this week has to take the cake. I’ve never seen two  candidates for the office of president play the “I am blacker than you card.” A summary of the past week comes down to Donald Trump trying to prove to white people that he is blacker than Hillary Clinton. While Clinton puts on a good display of her own to prove that she is indeed blacker than Trump.

And if the American people thought that her husband, Bill Clinton, was the first Black president, just wait, based on this week’s rhetoric, Hillary is even blacker than Bill ever thought he was. Given the tenor of her push-back this week, we might as well go ahead and proclaim, Hillary, should she win in November, as the first Black women to become president.

My head has been in a spin all week. Just when I think Trump has milked the blacker than you card, he comes out with another bombastic round of insults to prove that Clinton does not have any blacker than thou bonafides.

With all of this campaign hot air, one would think that both candidates had a blue-ribbon plan to ease the suffering of people who are, skin tone wise, blacker than the both of them on their best summer tan days.

If I had not lived in this country the last eight years, I would have a difficult time believing that Barack Obama, a Black man, was ever president. These two candidates are trying to out black obama.

I’ve been waiting to hear Trump lay out a plan to build up impoverished neighborhoods for people who are blacker than blue. Or to hear Clinton’s proposals for shoring up the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Where is the Trump plan to make black neighbors safe from crime? How does Clinton propose to end homelessness in the major urban centers in the country, where many of the homeless are black men, women and children.

While the Black Bourgeois snarls at Trump for openingly asking for the Black vote, I’m getting a wee bit nauseated because both Trump and Clinton are disrespecting the pain that Black people suffer from the callous manifestation of racism and bigotry on a daily basis. Racism and bigotry is not a 30 second sound bit for Americans of African descent. It is an inescapable reality.

Seemingly, all that Trump and Clinton want to do is pontificate about who is blacker, but neither has any interest in resolving the issues which cause the problem in the first place.

Enough of this blacker than thou posturing!

Meanwhile, out of the view of the evening news, Dr. Jill Stein proposes to convene a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” based on the South African model. Stein, a medical doctor, knows the condition of enslavement has caused some deep-seated mental illness, for both white and Black Americans. She knows that the nation must come to grips with the effects of enslavement, that has fester since 1619, when a ship docked in Jamestown, Virginia, dropping off human cargo, whose black lives did not matter, if we are ever to deal with racism and bigotry.

We cannot hear Stein’s voice of reason, or fill her prescription for racism and bigotry because the national news sources would rather spend a week broadcasting Trump and Clinton trading insults back and forth over who is blacker. The truth be told, neither one of them really gives a flip about the conditions of poor Black people. In their quest to become president, Trump and Clinton have made a mockery of the U. S. Presidency. Both have behaved utterly unprofessional and trashy on the campaign trail. Behavior so unbecoming a president, that it would cause either of my grandparents, if they were alive, and it was lawful, to take an old-fashion hickory stick to their backsides.

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round; and the host of Beyond the Law with Harold Michael Harvey. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.

“Swing States,” Swing Sanders’ Way

 

Two “swing states” which were up for grabs on Super Tuesday went to Presidential Candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Secretary Hillary Clinton did as expected. she won big in the SEC Primary. Clinton carried Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia and Arkansas.

Her southern firewall held up but may have produced a hollow victory. Clinton’s southern states victories will lack much of a punch the remainder of the campaign season. The bulk of her Black voting bloc is in the books. This voting bloc will have little impact as the campaign season swings out west and into the nation’s heartland.

Moreover, the Southeastern United States traditionally are red states controlled by Republican governors and state legislatures. Clinton’s firewall of Black voters represents 51 percent of the Democratic vote in the South. However, their numbers are miniscule when compared to white conservative voters in this region. These conservatives will have a say in who receives their state’s electoral votes in November.

Sanders won the “swing states” of Colorado and Minnesota. These are two must win states for any contender who hopes to win the General Election in November. Also, Sanders won over the white conservative Democrats in the Oklahoma Presidential Preference Primary.  This will bode well for Sanders as he shifts his focus to the March 8 Presidential Preference Primary in Michigan.

Clinton won Massachusetts, which is not a “swing state,” by a very tiny margin. The two candidates will virtually split the Massachusetts delegates.

Following Clinton’s Shermanesque march through the South, the actual pledged delegate count is approximately the same. Since Democratic Party rules permit Superdelegates to switch their vote from a one candidate to another, at this stage of the campaign, it is ludicrous to count any of them. The race for the Democratic nomination remains in a dead heat.

Sanders is expected to do well in delegate rich California and the Northwestern Pacific corridor of the country where he spent much of his time early in the 2007 pre campaign season. Despite the fact that he was unable to receive a sizable portion of the Black vote in the South, Sanders pathway to victory is mirroring the 2008 playbook of then Senator Barack Obama.

In the coming weeks, look for the “swing states” to start swinging Sanders way.

 

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.