Wool & Words

I just watched a report on the NBC Nightly News and boy am I steamed. The story was on the decreasing number of African-American voters who are voting Democrat (if they're voting at all). The premise was that African-American voters OUGHT to vote Democratic because of the Civil Rights movement, the implication being that the Democratic party purchased their votes in that political era.

For the record, no party owns my vote or my votership. I have been repeatedly disappointed in the Democratic party, not because they don't pay attention to African-Americans, but because the attention they pay to us is more lip service than help and does nothing to make life better. The sense of ENTITLEMENT that the news piece suggested just solidified my impression of the Democratic party's expectation of the African-American vote.

The young African-American voters (4 of them) who were interviewed in the piece were well-educated entrepreneurs. Of course they aren't impressed with the Democratic party--they were more interested in their individual concerns and business concerns (as I would dare say we EXPECT white voters to be) than they were with the plight of their race. This is the result of the Civil Rights movement--African-American voters who are working hard to build a life of their own, to follow the American dream. But the African-Americans that the Democratic Party seems to court are the poor and they court them by denying any expectation that they PRODUCE anything in society. If I bought into the national discourse, the real problem with schools, for example, would be the amount of money being poured into them, not a fundamental lack of interest and support throughout the community for learning and education. I don't buy that. I don't believe that the problem is one of school funding. If a student values education, then that student will make the best out of what he or she is given. Do I think that schools are well-funded? No, not really. But I don't think that throwing more money at schools is going to increase the desire of students to succeed. More money for schools will not get students to get more library cards, to read more books, or to become more active and proficient observers of the world around them. I believe that the problem is a lack of community expectation of good performance.

And there's more, of course. But the overall point I'm trying to make here is that the Democratic Party has no claim to the African-American vote. And neither do the Republicans. No party can claim the vote of a constituency until they receive that vote and no constituency or individual should grant their vote until they are satisfied that the candidate understands and supports the things that are fundamental to them.

Sorry if this has been rambly. I was just needing a vent.