8 Years a Political Slave

The Gantt Report

By Lucius Gantt

This column will probably be the last Gantt Report column before the 2022 elections.

As usual, no matter how many emails were sent to me, no matter how many bamboozled college students called to persuade me and no matter how many direct mail pieces were sent to my mailbox, I won’t endorse any candidates on any level.

Why? Because I treat politicians they same way that too many politicians treat America’s African American citizens. They ignore us, they demean us, they disparage us and they disrespect us. They think we are unqualified, uncouth, unprofessional and politically inferior.

Anyway, I want to wish all candidates of all political persuasions joy on election night. I honestly do.

You know, I’m old enough to have seen and heard Black candidates like Adam Clayton Powell, Shirley Chisholm, John Lewis, Julian Bond, Harold Washington, Maynard Jackson, Carrie Meek, Doug Jamerson and others. I also know who Ralph Bunche, a Black political scientist, was.

Those Black men and women were not like the Black community representatives of today. They stood up, they spoke out and they worked with other Blacks to accomplish the political goals that they could.

Regardless, please go to the polls and cast ballots for the candidates you feel will serve you and please you.

Well, The Gantt Report has a reputation for being “first” and in 2018 or 2019 TGR told you not to get too caught up in merely electing Presidents and Congressmen because the real damage to Democracy would not necessarily come only from chaos and corruption in Washington, the worst political devils were and are the “Satans in the States”!

In every state, in most cities and in a plethora of governmental districts, America will have election deniers, conspiracy theorists, insurrectionists, seditionists, anti-semitics, nationalists, militia members and bigots on election ballots and some of these types of candidates will win easily because of one party’s reluctance to fight for votes and political seats on the local and state levels.

The states are the ones pushing anti-abortion laws, book banning, open carry gun laws that allow criminals to walk down American streets with high-capacity assault rifles, kidnapping of adults and children of color that come to America seeking asylum.

It is also the local officials that you love and accept that changed voting laws and made it more difficult for you to cast your votes.

How long will we allow political oppression, political exploitation, voter suppression, voter rejection, voter denial, voter intimidation, environmental racism and political tricks and traps continue?

Hmmm? I hate to be the one to write it but, in my mind, we could experience another “8 Years, a Political Slave”!

TGR is not a political science instructor but by allowing white Christian nationalists to control American politics by paying MAGA consultants, in both major political parties, millions to bamboozle voters into dismissing or disregarding the importance of state and local elections and the many unlawful and biased candidates seeking your support.

Don’t take my word for it but the attacks on democracy and the rule of law will continue until at least 2030. Reapportionment can only occur at ten year intervals because every ten years is when census counts in America take place.

Lord, my people have been politically misled, misinformed, miscast and misguided and many of us don’t even know it.

Voter suppression will continue, gerrymandering will continue, political violence will continue, political lies, theories and misinformation will continue and hate will continue until Blacks and other Americans rise up and fight to stop it!

If you don’t realize it, all politics are local. Your local and statewide political choices matter.

Runaway to righteousness, run to unity and run to political knowledge and wisdom. Instead of being 8 years a political slave, be an every day political freedom fighter!

VOTE.