Election 2016: The Black Community

In every election cycle there are always winners and losers. For scores of election cycles the Blacks in America had voted as a bloc for the Democrats.

No other ethnic group vote the same way.

Every other ethnic group, both major and minor, divided its vote between the two major Parties. I am not sure exactly what convinced Blacks to start voting in bloc and also represented in bloc. History shows that Democrats promulgated most of the Jim Crow laws and the civil right legislation had no chance of passing except with the active participation and support of members of the Republican Party. But for the past forty years, as I can recall, the Congressional Black Caucus had always been exclusively Democrats.

For many election cycles, both presidential and midterm election years, the Democrats have depended on Blacks to push them to the top. Most of the time, our Black bloc votes decided the outcome of elections to the benefit of Democrats. With that kind of loyalty one would expect that issues of importance to Blacks would be prominent in any campaign. Those had been illusive in the past six to eight election cycles. Even during the 2008 and 2012 campaign when a half Black man in the White House was on the ballot, subjects only important to Latino dominated most of the issues in the campaign.

Both Democrats and Republicans woo Latino who usually split their votes compared to Blacks. The 2016 election is no different. However, instead of giving credit to Blacks for delivering their bloc votes in the past, we are blamed for letting down Hillary Clinton. Throughout the country the rate of Black votes went down. Nobody asked why Blacks, especially young Black men, decided not to support Hillary Clinton, and why Trump actually increased the Black votes for a Republican by 2%. No one blamed the Latino, the women, whites or any other group for any loss of an election. Nobody blame Hillary or Bill Clinton for carrying so much baggage or for lack of political achievement or vision other than the obvious- being a woman. Why then did Blacks get the blame for Clinton’s loss?

We’ve been bloc voting for so long, our votes are taken for granted. The only time the Democrats talk about us was to use us to illicit a feeling that delivers greater percentage above the usual 95%. Black lives matter only when it involves where millions of dollars could change hands. Blacks kill other Blacks everyday in any inner cities of America, including and especially Obama’s hometown of Chicago, and the lives of those Blacks there don’t matter. Donald Trump promised to do something to reduce inner city crime. If he can reduce the Black on Black crime by just 25%, then Blacks may be winners of the 2016 election.