In the tradition of Melissa Harris-Perry, I'm writing my own letter to Progressives in the Democratic Party:
Good afternoon and Dear Progressives:
You don't really hear me. You aren't seeing me. You definitely aren't feeling me. However, I've been here, right by your side for all of this time. I've voted 99.9999% Democratic since I was eighteen. The first Presidential election I got to vote in, I supported the Governor of Georgia, from my home state for President and he won.
I never became one of those 'Reagan Democrats' because there possessed nothing remotely Progressive in that man's body. Over the years, I've witnessed a Republican Party use coded identity politics to make me out to be 'THE OTHER'.
Well, today, as you can see, it's not even coded with them anymore.
I voted for HW Bush's Democratic opponent and his son's Democratic opponents. I voted for Bill Clinton once, but not for re-election.
You want to know why?
Because I felt disrespected as a Black person by him, even though there were those who proclaimed him 'the first Black President'. He threw Sista Souljah under the bus -- mainly for the purpose of sewing up Blue Dog Democratic voters. His welfare reforms disproportionately affected Blacks -- even during a time when the economy was the best it had ever been in recent years. His criminal justice policies helped to contribute to Blacks being disproportionately affected -- something that he apologized for just last week:
Something fairly remarkable happened at the annual convention of the NAACP on Wednesday. A former president apologized for having done something that helped ensure his re-election, but that turned out to be hopelessly bad public policy.
"I signed a bill that made the problem worse. And I want to admit it,"
Clinton said at the 106th NAACP National Convention, which concluded Wednesday
in Philadelphia. "In that bill, there were longer sentences, and most of these
people are in prison under state law, but the federal law set a trend. And that
was overdone; we were wrong about that."
As a Progressive, I saw through all of that and I couldn't give him my vote. That was the first time I've ever voted for a third party candidate during a Presidential election. I could afford to do so because he wasn't in danger of losing Illinois at the time.
I've sat back and sat back and sat back -- all the while being told that I needed to support this Democratic candidate because the alternative is much worse.
Well, I do know that already because even during the best of times, it's almost always worse for Black folk.
We deal with it though. We've been taking the crumbs left on the table and considered ourselves fortunate.
Because at least it's not the '40's, 50's and 60's where we were being openingly and summarily executed.
....
Well, our lives are once again on the line. Nevermind that African American income inequality as compared to whites is the largest gap of any minority group. Nevermind that the criminal justice system is a scholar's study in how African Americans are disproportionately represented in it. Nevermind that the so-called 'Black on Black' crime meme is largely a direct result of educational and economic disparities and unstabilized communities being funded 'separately and unequally' by local governments. Nevermind that Blacks die at a higher percentage rate from diseases than most other groups (from neonatal to middle age if we are blessed to live that long) because of unaffordable health care and also because of the untold amount of accumulative stress of all of these other social conditions that still to this day have not been studied or quantified.
Yet we deal.
But it's kinda hard to deal with all of these inequalities (and I just named but a few) when you have to now worry that we have returned to the 1950's. Not that I wasn't already aware of it, but social media makes it all the more distressing.
It is particularly distressing to me that black deaths at the hands of law enforcement have become such common place that there is a Twitter hashtag #IfIdieinpolicecustody -- an online last will and testament in case something happens.
And the odds are forever against our favor.
The days of talking around us, over us, through us, talking to others about us when you should be directly addressing us are on the career dissipation clock now. Because what we now know is that if an African American President can't even talk about race and racial inequality issues until he is 18 months away from not being the President anymore and if the perception that we see is that since his Presidency, race relations have not only gotten worse, but is being heavily aided and abetted by a propaganda mainstream media --
then we warily look towards a future under a White President that will continue to be bad for us.
Fannie Lou Hamer said it best:
"I am sick and tired of being sick and tired."
This coming from a remarkable woman who packed a lot of hard work in the Civil Rights Movement during her painfully short life, dying at the age of only 59 from heart failure with high blood pressure being a contributing cause.
We are dying. We are being summarily executed. Our declaration of 'Black Lives Matter' is an affirmation in the spirit of our being. Yet it is summarily dismissed as a side issue in the mist of 'other matters'.
To us, our lives matter, if only to us and the preservation of our lives in the face of various forms of execution -- be it quick or slow -- is our primary charge.
We are asked time and time and time again to see these 'other matters' as THE issue and that if THIS issue is addressed that it will help us.
Well, it hasn't and it won't. Because there is a tone deaf issue that needs addressing -- that 800 pound elephant in the room is still there and it's America's albatross and it's not mutually exclusive to the Republican Party.
Rev. William Barber said it all for me when he explained why it is that it's really black deaths that matters regarding the Charleston Nine Massacre:
"According to what some politicians and media commentators have implied, knowingly or unknowingly: Only if the murders are caused by someone who had posed for photos of himself surrounded by racist paraphernalia, and only if the deaths are accompanied by acceptable Black love and forgiveness, then it might matter. Then it passes the racist paternalistic standard and tone test. Clearly it has been said without these deaths there never would have been a debate regarding bringing the flag down. And herein lies a painful reality: Only extreme Black deaths will precede mediocre symbolic steps against past and present racism".
At all other times, that tone is deafening and it's disheartening that the tone deafness is also coming from the side that we largely tend to stand on.
The young black women and men of the BLM movement has reached its Fannie Lou Hamer moment.
They and we deserve to be heard and our issues should be on the table as we make up the base of the Democratic Party.
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
Sincerely,
Smoothnmellow
2:42 PM PT: Okay, so I am kinda overwhelmed with the response to this diary and I thank you. I've been sitting here all afternoon responding, but....
I have a very rare date night and so I'm going bow out for a while,
Keep the discussion going! :)
Update 2: A couple of things and then I need to get some shuteye:
1. Saying that Black Lives Matter doesn't mean that all other lives don't matter. However it is important to understand that by saying 'all lives matter', it lets some whites, including those who control the power structure that most blacks are locked out of, off the hook for being accountable and responsible for the endemic structure of racism that prevails in this country at every level.
By saying 'Black Lives Matter', it reminds us all that we Americans need to deal with the racism problem in this country, and
2. This is about racism -- whether it is acknowledged or unacknowledged within the ranks of the Progressive community. It is a hard thing to examine for sure, but if we want to be the great nation that we claim to be to the rest of the world, then this has to be addressed within our own ranks. We can't take on the GOP if we aren't willing to take on ourselves.
3. This is not about Bernie Sanders. Or Hillary Clinton for that matter. What happened at NN is a symptom. This is about the base of this party and how we treat various elements of it all the while expecting allegiance and loyalty to the brand. This examination is needed at this time.