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NEWS & LETTERS, November 2004Black/Red View
African-American vote
by John Alan George W. Bush began his road to the White House in 2000
by having many African Americans in Florida falsely purged from voter rolls
because they were allegedly released felons. In addition, "butterfly
ballots" took many more votes away from Gore. Florida's Supreme Court
ordered a manual recount of the votes. Bush immediately appealed the ruling to
the U.S. Supreme Court, which then ordered recounting to stop. It is very clear to most African Americans that Bush won
a victory in Florida because African Americans were disenfranchised. Now, four
years later, Bush was in a tight race with another Democrat, John Kerry, and
both candidates needed African-American votes to win. According to an article in
the September-October 2004 issue of THE CRISIS, Bush made a direct appeal to
African-American voters. At a meeting organized by the National Urban League in
Detroit, Mich., "Bush tried to win over the audience by using diversity as
an olive branch. He told the crowd that his administration boasts several
prominent African Americans, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Alphonso Jackson and Secretary of Education Rod Paige." As far as the
masses of African Americans living in the inner cities, this racial diversity in
Bush's cabinet means nothing to them. Of course, Bush would never bring a Martin Luther King,
Jr. type personality into his cabinet. That would be opposed to his
administration's vision of a new period of dominant American imperialism.
Neither Colin Powell nor Condoleezza Rice ever speak in the interest of the
masses of African Americans. If they dared to speak openly and critically, they
would have to explain why President Bush refused to address the conference of
the NAACP or why, according to THE NEW YORK TIMES, the Internal Revenue Service
"has begun reviewing the tax-exempt status of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People." ONGOING DISENFRANCHISEMENT To suppress or to manipulate the African-American vote
is an ongoing form of political activity. According to a 2004 Racism Watch
report there is a deep seated racial bias in the electoral system. Old electoral
equipment with a tendency to break down is sent most often to minority
districts. A 2000 study by Cal Tech and MIT universities revealed that four to
six million votes were thrown out as no good and nearly all of them were from
communities of color. On the verge of this 2004 election, Florida once again
geared up for another purge of released felons from the voters' rolls. The 2000
purge of felons resulted in more than 50,000 LEGAL voters being disenfranchised,
very many of them African Americans. We don't know the number of legal
African-American voters that were swept up in a new Florida purge. But it is
obvious that President Bush and his Republican Party knew that African Americans
had made up their minds and were not going to vote for him. African Americans were also aware of the fact that they
could be a decisive political force in some swing states where Bush and Kerry
engaged in a tight political struggle for votes. If one looks back at history
since 1948, one would discover that African-American voters did play a
determinative role in elections. When the Democratic Party took the risk of
offending the South with Hubert Humphrey's strong 1948 civil rights plank four
southern states went Dixiecrat. Harry S. Truman, the man who desegregated the armed
forces, narrowly defeated the Republican Dewey because, as historians August
Meier and Elliot Rudwick state, 1948 was the "first election since
Reconstruction in which the Negro's status was a major issue and in which his
political power was critical factor in the outcome" (FROM PLANTATION TO
GHETTO). 'NO' TO SYSTEM Up until a few days before the 2004 presidential
election, many polls were taken to show how various social and ethnic groups
might vote. It was very difficult to find any published polls on how African
Americans would vote in "swing states" like Michigan and Ohio. One
politician did say, "Bush would have to destroy Detroit in order to win
Michigan." This statement is offensive to African Americans. The totally "decided" character of the
African-American vote indicates a subjectivity that is much deeper than the
political process, including anything the Democrats have to offer. Ever since
emancipation African Americans have been fighting in the political arena, but
they also know that past political victories haven't been able to achieve any
meaningful solution to the problems of racism. They are still striving for a
full realization of freedom that would transform American society. |
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