My prediction: This election will be very close. The winner will be the one with the better organization working the ground game.
We will soon see if America will kick the "black man"out of the people's house and put in the robot with the Etch A Sketch heart.
It seemed that this election season went on forever. Four debates and billions of dollars to elect someone who will basically keep the status quo. You gotta love America.
Anyway, I know what (or who) we did not cover during this election season.
"So far, I have watched all three of the 2012 Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. Each debate lasted approximately 90 minutes. All three moderators were white. The final debate is on Monday. Again, the moderator will be white. The last debate will focus on foreign policy. During these debates, the candidates have discussed important issues such as the economy, taxes, education, women’s rights, health care reform and terrorism. However, none of the debates discussed race or affirmative action.
Race is still a major issue in America. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether the University of Texas’ affirmative action policy is constitutional. If the Supreme Court strikes down UT’s affirmative action policy, the doors to higher education will be closed to many African American young people. Universities and colleges will become more and more segregated. However, that issue was not important enough for the debate moderators.
Moreover, the moderators failed to raise the problem of racial profiling. New York City’s racist stop-and-frisk policy has been a major issue in the civil rights community. In New York and many cities around the country, young, innocent black men and women are constantly stopped, harassed and humiliated by police just because of the color of their skin.
Another example of racial profiling is the tragic Trayvon Martin case. This year, self-appointed neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman hunted and shot down Trayvon Martin just because he was black. After great struggle and massive protests, Zimmerman was finally charged with murder.
In addition to racial profiling, mass incarceration was not raised during any of the debates. As explained in Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow, the so-called War on Drugs has led to the mass incarceration of black people. Due to the mass incarceration problem, a disproportionate percentage of African Americans have been reduced to second class citizens even after they leave prison. In most states, they lose the right to vote and other precious rights.
In this mythological post-racial era, none of those issues matter. Unfortunately, the debates are fixated on issues that mainly impact white, moderate, middle class, undecided voters. As far as the presidential debates are concerned, black people are invisible and our concerns are irrelevant.
These debates have taught me one thing. In the eyes of the debate organizers and most of the viewers, the plight of Big Bird is far more important than the plight of my people. “Binders full of women” are more important than prisons full of black people." [Source]
That was a well written and very on point essay from my man Anson Asaka.
Anson, in three days all this might not even matter. If the robot wins there will be no talk of a post racial America. Everyone will go into their respective corners and play pretend. Folks in the majority population will get to pretend that they are living in the greatest country on earth, and the folks in the minority population will get to pretend that they are a part of it.
*Pic from Jack & Jill Politics
