As early morning errands go it's a simple one. Just putting an envelope in a mailbox. But what got me to this point has been excruciating.
It's been a hard decision for me to make.
I've been a Democrat for a long time. I was a Democrat before I could even vote.
My affiliation with this party started with my Democratic parents. I remember them railing against Reagan and dismantling if this country's ideals at the dinner table.
It continued as I grew older. I became politically active and volunteered for campaigns and did my part to help the Democratic party win.
I cast my first vote in 1996 for Bill Clinton.
In college I fought the conservative influence on my conservative Southern California campus and community.
I volunteered for Al Gore in California in 2000. I volunteered for John Kerry in Pennsylvania in 2004.
I've done the same for Obama in this election and I was proud to do all this work because I was proud to be a Democrat.
I'm not proud anymore because the party doesn't give a damn about its African-American members.
I'm permanently changing my party affiliation today. More importantly I'm permanently changing my political outlook.
I don't have to be a Democrat to work for the betterment of my community. In many ways I feel that I can't be a Democrat and work for the uplift of my people.
Where has the Democratic party been for African-Americans?
The party capitulates to the GOP as it spreads fear about us, creating more draconian laws and building more prisons to wearhouse us.
When AAs are disenfranchised where is the party? It happened in Florida in 2000 and it's only gotten worse. They've done nothing and I know that they won't in the future.
They don't even consider our votes important enough to fight for our voting rights.
What about the lower ninth ward?! Katrina was a test for Democrats too!
The party wants to treat us as a second class members despite all we've done. All that my family, friends and community have done over the years to say something, anything against the rise of the right-wing in this country.
African-Americans have been one of the few consistent voices against the right-wing's destruction of this country. We never supported them. We never supported the Iraq war. We didn't need billions of dollars to be wasted and 4000 American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis lives to be lost to know that George W. Bush was a fraud. Nor did we need those precious things to be lost to support the Democratic party.
We've always supported the party despite everything because we really truly believed in it's goals but in the end the party has no problem casually brushing us aside to pander to people who abandoned it in the past and will do so in the future. It's stupid and it's racist against us.
Yes racist.
Would we be going through this death march of a primary if it were Hillary Clinton or John Edwards winning with a solid base of working class white voters?
No and rightfully so.
Would we be going through this if it were Bill Richardson winning with a solid base of Latino voters?
No and rightfully so.
On the other hand, when it comes to African-Americans half of the party seems to be embarassed by our presence. The other half, those outside our ranks, may see an issue but don't have the balls to say something.
90% of blacks voting for a candidate is talked about as a bad thing or is called racist by people who clearly don't know what racism is. We're treated like an albatross around the party's neck.
And there no hesitation or guilt in treating us this way. It's just as second nature to do so as it is to the GOP because at the end of the day the parties aren't any different in how they view us.
Jim Clyburn's comments were the last straw for me. Not because I disagreed with him but because I realized he was the first and most likely last person in the party to stand up for us.
Now I know what the party REALLY thinks of me. I can't excuse it away, believing that it's just a minority of fools in the party who are so dismissive of black voices.
Fine.
From now on I'm officially up for grabs. In every election I voted a straight Democratic ticket. No more.
No more money to the Democratic party.
Any volunteering will be done on a strict "what have you done for me lately" basis.
I still support Obama because he's the one of the few who's shown us any respect. The rest of the party I'm done with.
And so are most of my family and friends. I will do everything I can to persuade them to do the same as I have done today.
We are too good for you.
If you don't have my back don't expect me to have yours.