Why ‘Blue No Matter Who’ Just Doesn’t Work for Freedmen
by Natalie Rozzell
A friend told me that although she didn’t much care for Biden/Harris, she voted for them in 2020 for the sole purpose of the Biden administration taking control of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also loathed Trump and was adamant in getting him out of office. She was astounded (and downright angry) when I told her I was not going to vote for Biden. My friend passionately recounted all the racist, misogynistic, and bigoted statements Trump made throughout his presidency and even before he was in office, e.g. Central Park Five and housing discrimination. She pointed out all the division between friends and families that occurred in the country at the time and wanted a uniting force that she believed Biden could bring. So why in all that is holy, was I not going to vote for Biden, she asked? How could I vote to keep dysfunction going for another four years? How could I vote to essentially keep Trump in office? Well, it was simple for me - I told her I was not voting for Trump either. Yes, I agreed with her about the dysfunction in the country and how our country seemed to be the laughingstock of the world, but I could not, in good conscience, vote for President Biden. Not solely because of the allegations of racism levied against Biden due to his backing of a markedly racist criminal justice system or that moment when he called a known Klansman his “leader”. I didn’t vote for Biden because the Democratic party has a habit of making promises to Black America to secure our vote and then forgetting about us or ignoring us until the next election cycle. Wash, rinse, repeat. Here we are two years into Biden’s presidency and it is clear to me: Black America is not a priority to the Biden administration.
But wait a minute! The Emmett Till Antilynching Act just passed. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Black woman, is about to become the 116th Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Kamala Harris is the Vice President of the United States, for crying out loud! What more does Black America want? Well, I’m glad you asked.
The Democrat party has been gaslighting Black America for decades. As a group, we continue to endure high unemployment rates, low homeownership rates and, of course, there’s the hard reality that we will be wealthless by 2053. Yet, all we get from the politicians we stand in line for hours to vote for is symbolic aspirationalism, Hip Hop holidays, unprovable gains, and frankly, a whole lot of excuses. They flaunt celebrities and the few Black billionaires as examples of what is possible if only Freedmen just worked hard enough.Vice President Kamala Harris who, like Biden, has a long track record of imposing harsh sentences on Blacks, working to support a system of essentially free labor that benefits their donor’s corporate interests. Meanwhile, VP Harris reaps the benefits of centuries of struggle steeped in the legacy of blood, sweat, and tears of Freedmen and leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Honorable Thurgood Marshall. When you dress up the economic enormity of solving the racial wealth gap with a bootstrapper mentality and the politics of respectability, they deflect by mentioning HBCUs or posthumously pardoning a Freedmen long deceased that adds no tangible value to our daily lives or the legacy we may leave to our children.
Another election goes by and we vote for the Democrats “like our lives depend on it” hoping that things will change - that our economic position will improve as a group, that we might get some laws passed specifically for us that will increase home ownership and help us gain wealth in this country, but here we are yet again. How can we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps when “more than 40% of Black businesses shut down in 2020 and 44% of Black workers experienced income loss since March 2020 compared to 27% of white workers.” (https://www.fastcompany.com/90670468/americas-racial-wealth-gap-is-enormous-and-getting-worse)
We proclaim “Reparations Now!” - which is not a handout, but a debt that is owed. Reparations is the only solution to help close the racial wealth divide and bring wealth to our communities. Yet once again we receive excuses or our cries fall on deaf ears altogether. The Democrats argue that America is just too racist for them to pass actual laws that will improve the lives and financial conditions of Freedmen to any significant degree. Is the United States of America just too racist for reparations? This is the same country that abolished slavery, ended segregation, and passed voting rights for all. This is the same racist country that passed the historically large $31.2 billion dollar investment for Native Americans and the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) “Stop Asian Hate” bills in 2021. We don’t have a race problem in this country - we have an anti-Blackness issue instead. Take a moment to consider that the AAPI community got a hate crimes bill passed before Black Americans got an anti-lynching bill despite the fact that Freedmen have been the most lynched group in the US and are still being fire bombed in our own churches. According to Mitch McConnell, we already got our reparations in the form of President Barack Obama. And yes, I know McConnell is not a Democrat, but all of these politicians look the same to me based on the across the board inaction, disrespect, disregard and complacency when it comes to passing policies to fix Black America, in particular Freedmen.
As Marianne Williamson put it on the Bad Faith Podcast back in January, “a nation can’t move forward that has not atoned, a nation cannot move forward that has not sought to make amends.” Simply put, America will remain divided and weakened until Black America is restituted and the American tradition of anti-Blackness is eliminated. Presently, I don’t believe the Democratic party has the will or the cajones to pass reparations legislation for descendants of US chattel slavery, especially if we continue to give them our vote for little to nothing. In his acceptance speech, President Biden said that “the African-American community had [his] back and [he’s] got ours”, but I fail to see anything except for symbolic gestures and a couple of great opportunities for a select few placed in so-called positions of power for ‘good’ optics. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has maintained their silence in solidarity with the Democrats, as has the NAACP. Who is left to fight for Freedmen as the rest fight against us? Many Blacks in these positions preside over some of the poorest communities in the country. Take, for example, James Clyburn, who continues to tow the party line while essentially telling us to hurry up and wait and keep our eyes on the prize. The Democrats have masterfully played into our fears that our civil rights will be taken away by Republicans if we don’t vote for them. However, our eyes are now open and we can clearly see that, as far as Black America is concerned, these two parties are two sides of the same coin.
‘Blue No Matter Who’ is out the door! It is not a sound political strategy for Freedmen. It has essentially become a wealth-death sentence. And we are tired of being the ones strapped to the electric chair. When the midterm elections come around and they drag out the Obamas and the Clintons and the athletes and entertainers to tell us how important THIS election is for US, Freedmen must stand and take this vow:
Freedmen will educate ourselves politically even more than the last election cycle.
Freedmen will vet every politician - up and down the ballot.
Freedmen will vet each policy and find out if they support lineage-based Reparations for Freedmen.
Freedmen will no longer be gaslit into voting for the Democrats without specific and tangible policies and programs that are designated just for us.
Freedmen will hold each politician, Democrat or Republican, to their word or they will be out of a job.
Freedmen will continue to proclaim “Reparations Now!” until our communities are repaired and the check is cut!
Won’t you join us? If not for yourself, for the futures of your grandchildren? The year 2053 is approaching, and if we don’t evolve politically, take accountability, and fight for what is owed, Freedmen will be a forgotten group and our rich history, as the resilient people who built this country, will be changed forever.
