By Roger Caldwell
As Americans get ready to vote in the 2018 election cycle, the Black community appears to be lethargic and not interested in voting. Many will say I am wrong, and I hope they prove me wrong in the mid-term elections.
In many races across the country, they appear to be contentious, and no one appears to tell the truth. The Democrats have all of the right answers, and the Republicans have all the right answers, so the question is who should you believe?
When Kanye West gets on television and wears a hat which says Trump will make America great, many young and old voters will support and believe him. As President Trump mobilizes his base supporters with 2 and 3 voting rallies each week, many independents and conservatives believe everything he espouses is correct. Elections are essentially about power, and the Republican Party controls all three branches of government currently.
The Democrats can blame themselves for losing the presidential election in 2016, and the Blacks and the people of color can also blame themselves, but in 2018 they must show up at the polls. Everyone can call the president unprecedented and disrespectful, but he keeps on winning.
From the Republican side of things, President Trump continues to win with only 40% of the country, and they will vote in the mid-term elections. While the President’s voting rallies are packed, and conservatives and Republicans support him, they are happy that he is in the White House. The goal in 2018 is for the Republicans/conservatives are to suppress the vote, and win the election by any means necessary.
It has been 53 years, since the Voting Rights Act was passed in August 1965, and in 2018 some of the supervisors of state elections are removing and purging people of color from their polls. This is being done by the spellings of names and the zip codes and locations of the residents. These actions by the supervisors of elections are breaking laws, but most Americans refuse to challenge and fight these corrupt systems.
“When Julian Bond won the Georgia election in 1965, he was initially denied his seat, because he supported the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee anti-Vietnam War statement”, says film producer, Judy Richardson. Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous opinion ruled the Georgia legislature must seat Bond. The legislature must have understood that their actions were unconstitutional, but because they had the power, they decided to break the law.
During this time in 1965, voting workers were being beaten, arrested and even murdered by White vigilantes and lawmen. “The civil rights movement was not created by presidents or charismatic speakers, but by the efforts and freedom visions of everyday local people possessing great courage and vision,” said the legendary Julian Bond.
When Black people study their history, they begin to understand what our ancestors went through to give Blacks the privilege and right to vote. In 2018, many young Blacks and Black men tell their friends and families that they will probably not vote.
Your vote is your voice, and things will never change if you refuse to vote. Power concedes nothing without a vote, and a force. The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh was an example of power, and where is the power in the Black and communities of color.
Black Americans must have a plan of action, based on a Black Agenda. With coordinating voting, and a plan of action, Blacks and communities of color can transform America, because there are more of us, than there are of them.
Now is the time to vote and bring back America from insanity, stop President Trump’s madness.
