A couple of comments which followed my last post are actually the inspiration for my post tonight. The first one was from Monie, and she said the following:
"On the Black Republicans; I wonder why they haven't broken away from the GOP along with other minorities and formed their own Party?Such a Party might not win anything on a National level but they could do well locally in certain parts of the country."
I actually thought about that for a minute and what would be the real consequences of such actions. (A black political party.)
First, assuming you could get black folks to pull it off, (because we all know that black folks can't come together for shit) we would need a name. So for the rest of this post I will refer to it as the Negro Party Of America. (NPA) Sorry, we have to use Negro instead of black, because black is still too...well, threatening.
The NPA,as Monie said, could not win anything on a national level. Even if we had a very good candidate like Barack. The numbers just aren't in our favor. But let's be honest, black folks don't have a voice in Washington, now. None of the major political parties are speaking to issues that affect us, so what difference would it make? None.
We would probably still have the same amount of representation because the blacks who are going to Washington- with a few exceptions- are going from predominantly black districts. And as for local governments, I am pretty sure that wouldn't change much, either. With all due respect to my man Deval Patrick and little Stevie up in New York, you can count the number of black elected officials to statewide offices on one hand. Black Senators? Forget about it, Barack was a fluke, and if it wasn't for Blago playing political cat and mouse, we wouldn't have old Roland.
Our biggest obstacle, of course, would be raising money. You black folks don't like to spend your money on shit you can't wear or drive. But maybe we could shake down some corporations like Rev. Inc. and raise money that way. "Hi is this Mr. CEO from KFC?" Yes hi, this is field Negro from the NPA. I was wondering; our convention is in Cleveland this year and we were looking for some sponsors, do you think you could kick in say a million five? Thanks I knew I could count on you." Once we have the money we could mobilize folks like these to get out the vote and keep certain people away from the polls.
A party platform might be a problem as well. Think of all those republican Negroes who are now in the NPA. How would we accommodate them? Honestly, I am thinking that they are such a small group that their input probably wouldn't even matter. Still, for the sake of unity, I would throw them a bone. (See field, if a white man had said "throw them a bone" you would have said it was racist) Poor choice of words. I would consider their suggestions.
And then there were these comments from an anonymous poster:
"While we talk and fight endlessly about race, people have seemingly forgotten that America doesn't have nay jobs anymore. The manufacturing centers of this country are dead or dying and I don't hear any black liberals talking about that-even though manufacturing s death has hit blacks in a major way. Nor do I hear anything about class issues or issues of sexism being addressed either. Even though both of those issues are tearing the community apart from the inside out, few have the courage to address them."
Well let's address that right now: One of the reasons that the manufacturing centers of this country are "dead" is because of race and racism. In case you haven't noticed, major corporations and businesses have left places like Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Cleveland, and one of the major reasons is a lack of a proper educational base in these areas due to failing school systems. Why are school systems failing? No money. No tax base. Why is there no tax base? White and middle class flight. Why are the middle class fleeing the cities? Crime and poverty. Why is there crime and poverty? No jobs. If this entire argument seems circular to you it's because it is. But you have to ask yourself, why are these people in these areas being marginalized? Why isn't legislation being passed in the halls of power to address issues such as gun violence, crime, and education? You see anonymous poster, it's all kind of connected when you think about it.
If we get the NPA we will address all of these issues in our party platform: Sexism, racism, and classism. The dumbocratic party will suffer but what have they done for us lately? They are too busy playing along with the rethugs to care anymore, and I think on that note all black folks can agree.
