When representation is just an illusion.
It isn’t anything new to see that a Black face (or a person or color) in high places doesn’t always mean things will instantly be better. Not with centuries and decades of benign neglect from prior years and administrations before that have trickle down effect in perpetual cycle. And issues cannot be fixed with just one person or just within a term or with just one admin in office. We know that.
We know the history of this country (don’t have to go thru racism 101+the party ideology switch). We know that often times when we do get individuals in positions of authority that can make decisions that do represent you, it isn’t a 100% problem solver. But getting people in positions that do represent you at times actually does help to alleviate problems and makes a difference. Should.
With that being said, this is why we push to elect people in offices that share experiences, culture and community with us because they often better understand us. Simply put: that’s why we vote for the Black candidate. That’s why we admonish one another as Black people to get a Black doctor, or to get a Black therapist or to make sure, if we really can, to send our kids to schools with Black teachers to be taught by Black teachers and to have Black police officers that have a good relationship with our communities. That’s why we look to each other to be that representation. Shared experiences make for better understanding. It should work out that way. We’ll actually get results in our favor because of the shared background and that politician understands and has empathy and will use their power for our betterment. We understand that it unfortunately doesn’t always work out this way.
However, when we don’t have those in positions that represent us and reflect us, we do run into opposition and racism and bias and prejudice and discrimination that is detrimental and at times fatal to us because they don’t understand us. And the ugly side to this is that sometimes, even with those people in these positions that look like us, they can operate in the same way as those who don’t share anything with us. The “skin folk ain’t kinfolk”.
Now, it’s even deeper. It’s coming down to specific Black lineage based faces in high places. Because just Black in general is not holding weight.
The Democratic Party isn’t getting this.
We’ve had long periods of time where city and higher officials were never Black and there was absolute neglect. Not only neglect but also total gutting of what progress was made by Black Americans. On local levels to larger.
So, many of us have voted with all this in mind. Policies and representation matters. We haven’t gotten anything from non-Black politicians—at one point, Black people were outright not allowed to even participate in any civic opportunities to run for these positions.
We know Trump won’t do anything specifically for Black Americans. We know as a collective, one party won’t do for us at all. We know that. And that’s why we’ve turned to the other party knowing at least things will be opposite. Knowing that at least this party has more people who look like us. More often in the Democratic Party, they will do for us.
Now, that we’re allowed to also be active in civic duties with being political figures and also as civilians, we can vote, all the representation is supposed to matter.
At least we thought.
We thought 8 years of our first President that was Black would completely usher in change in our benefit! We had centuries of never having someone who wasn’t white …so yeah, finally somebody is elected that is Black that will actually do for us because he is one of us.
And.that.never.happened.
Barack Obama’s parental display with Black men the other day, the overseer-like mentality — nothing new. The party that we’ve collectively supported for 6 decades (you can’t get more party loyalty from a group more than us) keeps bringing out Obama to be this sort of proverbial disciplinarian to condemn us to cycle this party loyalty. And it doesn’t work anymore. It won’t any longer. Maybe it held some weight in the last cycle. Maybe it still will. But if they keep practicing this to reach any of us they lost, best of luck with that. And if he calls one more fictional Black man Pookie…
But, it’s a new era of that possibly not working anymore. Or not being impactful. I mean it’s never been the smart thing to do ever. But public chastising is not going to recover the waning votes. The party may never get it back.
The scolding strategy…that’s no way ever to sway your constituents who are possibly still indecisive. Reprimanding and shaming is the perfect plan to further gulf anyone. To add, those same Black men were probably just around early teenage yrs back in 2010 and when Obama said things like “I can't pass laws that say I'm just helping black folks. I'm the president of the United States” in regards to being asked what can he do about the high Black unemployment rate, they probably heard those conversations their parents had about those very remarks and as grown men, they remember that.
Or when asked about reparations:
The same can be said for Harris when she was a Senator back in 2019 when asked about reparations:
[how much lift Black folk gotta be a part of?! programs galore and zero policy. then when anything is even mentioned for Black folk, the and others get slipped in]
Both of the Presidential hopefuls (at the time, Obama) share the same views on reparations for Black Americans. Just about verbatim too. The only two non-white true hopefuls felt/fell the same way. We remembered. In Obama’s case, we still did not let that deter us from voting for him to a second term. However, it just may not be Harris’ case altogether. Even if it was simply a play on “yes, I’ll support reparations” pre getting elected but won’t actually support it when in office. The thing is they both outright rejected reparative financial justice for us at every turn.
I also won’t go into Obama trying to make comparisons of Harris’ background to ours. But I’ll say this — Kamala Harris does not represent my Black Indigenous American mother or my Black Indigenous American aunties. She’s white Indian by her mother and has Jamaican roots from her father based on what she’s said (nationality does not equal a person’s race—so simply saying a Jamaican father does not mean Black. Jamaican is a nationality only). My momma and aunties ain’t ever put no darn collard greens in a bathtub to clean them! Harris and I don’t share the same background and that’s okay. We have an upbringing and relationship with this country that is verrry much different from Harris. My mom has never said “20 acres and a mule” because she’s well aware of the fight our ancestors fought for which was 40 acres and a mule. Going to HBCUs do not equate to Blackness. Sharing Black skin alone doesn’t mean we share lineage either (Obama is Black yes but not Black Indigenous American, his father was a Black Kenyan and he had a white American mother). Another topic. All of this is Neither here nor there. To put out that it’s sexism in play too is just low-bar but I digress.
Obama also doesn’t understand nor does the Democratic Party understand that sending him out to chastise Black people post his presidency is not a good plan. The terms of his presidency has/had no real impact on us except symbolism and pride. More could’ve been done but he chose not to. So deploying him to talk at us is ineffective.
Of course not every candidate meets every bullet point we personally have as far as their policies. They’ll meet in one area and then the next is absolutely not in favor with our morals and needs. Everyone makes consensus for the areas that don’t meet. And there can be one singular policy a candidate we don’t particularly favor has that meets what we want and that alone can be the deciding factor. And a candidates stance and policy on these can be the dealbreaker. Reparations, women’s reproductive rights, and immigration are some of those top areas Black Americans have at the forefront. Of the two of them, neither really have an edge over the other. And many Black Americans are becoming more vocal with immigration because it is an issue. Immigration has a negative impact on Black Americans and neither candidate wants to have sensible laws on it. One is in favor of allowing more immigrants while the other isn’t that all more favorable but wants a certain demographic of immigrants. And we see the benefits and assistance many immigrants are receiving without any need for task force and studies (further making Black Americans realize that we will get no support from Harris and Harris is looking out for those she does share background with as a 1st generation American-her representation). Women’s reproductive rights is really the only solid area in which they majorly differ.
Neither are on board for just a study on reparations for BAs — here is where the break is. Harris has outright said she won’t and of the two, we’d at least think she’d be in support of. She isn’t. It’s expected Trump won’t. He’s a white man with racist views that side with white terrorists groups & have supported those groups but Harris, you aren’t either of what he is so for her to be so opposed to reparations for BAs is turning alot of Black voters away. Not to say every voter they don’t gain or regain from Obama’s days still won’t vote Harris but this party is making it easier and easier to look elsewhere. Losing votes to the Green Party or independent candidates and making their republican opponents have an easier time will be on their hands if they continue to operate this same, stale way.
Donald Trump’s Project25 is absolutely terrible and will be! Having this response to some Black voters is a very legitimate reason to absolutely gain any voters who were unsure. When anyone hears Back voters say, “…that seems to be hyperbole” in response to “If Trump gets back in office, we’ll go back to Jim Crow”…this is why some Black Americans feel somewhat grey to it because:
Black Americans are still being lynched in ‘24, still facing discrimination in banks with receiving loans, being denied loans and given higher interest rate loans for being Black, our wealth gap continues to widen between all groups (we are projected to be at $0 for household median wealth in 2053), Black homelessness is the highest amongst any group, devaluing of our home’s value when on the market, Black women still facing racism in hospitals and dying in care simply giving birth, environmental/infrastructure racism (Flint still has the same water issue and other cities too), Black communities are situated in what’s called cancer alleys, mass incarceration, police killings, stop and frisk, more funding for police, higher criminalization on offenses that disproportionately impact Black people (the decriminalizing policy is a bit ironic in many ways when one party pushed for extremely strict punitive consequences on it decades ago), still faced with school closures for our kids & underfunding and lack of funding and lack of employment, unemployment and under employment, massacres of Black people continue, police brutality is steady, voter restrictions, the lack of Black home ownership and red lining and sooo much more. We aren’t going back to anything when these new-age Black codes really haven’t gone anywhere in the first place. Under this current administration—the prior one. Both Democratic and Republican. Neither have done anything.
But when the Democratic Party is looking like nothing will edge over the Republican Party, you will see voter abandonment from Black Americans. And the abandonment does not mean it’s for Trump. Because that man is absolutely not what Black Americans want…again. We didn’t want him the first go round.
There are other candidates from other parties — but as we all know, those non-bipartisan candidates aren’t making moves unfortunately so voting for them is almost a null and void at this point in time. It’s a ghost vote because if I vote for Cornel West or Jill Stein, it won’t have effective impact at all. You can’t even write down West on the ballad in some states. Voting non dem or non pub means just about nothing with our system right now. And then again, you will have many Black voters who will vote directly against the Democratic Party and vote for Trump—which is why Obama came out wagging his finger in the first place. Which is ironic how we have yet to see any videos of him visiting Indian American or Jamaican American communities doing the same. Communities that are part of Harris’ background. But of course, the parental rebuke is reserved for us only.
Choices. Black voters have our choice (to participate or to sit out) and the blue party has been making their choice too. The Democratic Party keeps taking their definite solid Black block for granted and are now are at risk for losing them.
Like the dems refuse to realize that their continued benign neglect is pushing the Black vote towards everyone else except them. This party is opening the door for a repeat Trump in the future. I say future Trumps because I doubt he’s winning this 2024 election (he hasn’t run on a thing different last election or pretty much nothing at all—the fact again that he even was in office will never cease to amaze me) but the republicans have created clones of him that we will dangerously see in the future. With him winning again or not.
This is only the beginning of struggling to keep the collective vote from the Black demographic. If the Democrats keep with this only show up and castigate when we need your vote, expect future election cycles to be just like this. If the plan in the future is that this particular party won’t need the Black vote and can get a loyal block elsewhere, then they’re doing a great job at setting this in motion with their alienation. They’ve had voter allegiance from Black Americans for so, so many years…entire generations of households have simply voted blue no matter who and now, it’s looking like that won’t be automatic anymore. The Democrats have been benign neglecting for so long that a whole opposing candidate with dictatorship on the brain is still making voters unsure of which of the two they want. The Dems should have an easy win against the Republicans based on so many things this year and it isn’t. That speaks volumes.
If Harris|Walz don’t win, the dems can take full accountability for it.
“The Democratic Party realizes that the Black vote is dwindling because the Democratic Party has not delivered for the Black community in the way that the Black community has delivered for the Democratic Party in terms of votes.”
and once Harris gets in office, Black Americans, leave her and her admin alone on the reparations issues. you don’t get to ask her anymore once you vote her in — she’s already made her stance on it plain. the sense of urgency being only within this week is something else.
@blaquestarr
it’s hard to respond back using the comment option because of the character limits, so I’ll repost here:
Reparations will more than likely be the redress to the descendants of a group that faced mistreatment. Often times, during and while a group is being mistreated, they themselves will not get reparative financial justice as it’s happening. The actual individuals impacted by the discrimination may never see compensation (unless they are very old in age and the redress is implemented within their lifetime) but the redress will be for their descendants. In a sense to recoup for damage that their ancestors faced.
Acts will be passed after, not during.
“This law gave surviving Japanese Americans $20,000 in reparations and a formal apology by President Reagan for their incarceration…” the 1988 Act. The EO 9066 order was their internment and the 1988 Act was the compensation to address their loss of property, relocation etc for that executive order that placed them in internment camps. Not widely known fact: Black Americans during the aftermath of the Tulsa Massacre were also placed in internment camps and suffered also loss of property, wealth, loss of life and more and still no redress for them nor their descendants and within the last five years, one of the 3 remaining survivors of that massacre has died. Mrs. Fletcher and Mrs. Randle are both well over 100 years old waiting.
Of any group here with a very, very similar history with this country, Native Americans and Black Americans are very paralleled. I’ve heard many of our leaders who have said that we should model our own reparations action plan to Native Americans because a lot of areas intersect.
Yes, their history is complicated and so is ours. Yet, their very complicated and complex and long history has never negated their reparations. There were also broken treaties with Native Americans in that they also participated in slavery of Black Americans. An article titled: How Native American Slaveholders Complicate the Trail of Tears Narrative. Broken treaties are a call for reparations too.
National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association by Callie House…since 1898 have Black Americans been trying to get reparative justice for the collective of us. It’s not an action that just sprang up within this current election era.
EO 14031 signed by Pres. Biden for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders:
(iv) ways in which the Federal Government can build on the capacity and contributions of AA and NHPI communities through equitable Federal funding, grantmaking, and employment opportunities;
Semantics factored in, this order seems to provide funding…both the words Federal Government funding+grantmaking within the literature means money to me.
In comparison to Biden’s EO 14050 for Black Americans. The only mention with Federal funding is for HBCUs. An initiative being handled by the dept. of education. Not labor, not treasury. And HBCUs are becoming increasingly non-Black enrolled. Education does not close the wealth gap and is really inconsequential for us when systemic racism thrives.
Obama also had an executive order for Black Americans that Biden seemed to have just copy/pasted and slapped a new year and order number to.
HR40 also fell within Obama’s 2 terms and he signed not one EO to once again, just pass the bill to study reparations. HR40 for 30+ years has been just to study—we aren’t even asking for money as of it.
Executive orders remain in place until the sitting President removes them. Or federal courts overturn them. Succeeding presidents can revoke a preceding presidents eo’s.
And yes, Black people remain the largest block that votes for democrats. Regardless of the increasing Latino or Asian minority groups.
What is stopping this current President (or what stopped former President Obama) from signing an executive order to setup a commission to simply pass the bill to study reparations for Black Americans? The first stage consistently gets rejected. We’re only just asking for the study as of right now. But he and many others have executive ordered all other groups asks with no hesitation.
@tani-b-art
I genuinely confused so I am hoping you can spell this out for me. I swear I'm asking in good faith:
HR40 (and the senate version S.40) have been introduced and sitting in congress since it's introduction in 2021 (after Obama's term). So, instead of going after senators and house reps who could move this forward (which is the study part) and possibly get actual money on the table, we want a president to pass an eo to just do the study?
Especially when no other groups got an eo to just do a study (and EO 14031 is not a study into reps for Asians - it tries to address specific issues of racial bias that often leaves out this group. Other EOs deal with racial issues in thr government, just the HBCU EO mentions Black people specifically)? Native Americans went through the courts to demand their treaties be respected. That's how they got (some of) their reperations.
And we have seen some states give Black people reperations, like California and Florida (specifically for Rosewood).
Again, I don't disagree that Black people SHOULD get reparations and it should come from a federal level on many forms. I just don't believe it's a presidential issue as much as it's a Congressional issue and I should be fighting to get Reps and Senators who support that cause across a variety of states in those seats so they can run me my check.
@blaquestarr No, you’re fine. I know it’s in good faith.
“Reparations have been debated since the end of the Civil War, but many track the most recent national fight to Raymond Jenkins, a Detroit real estate broker known to his fellow advocates as “Reparations Ray.” Jenkins convinced Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) that a study of slavery reparations was needed and that the U.S. Congress was the right body to take it up. As one activist put it to me, for a book coming out this month: “There’s a commission to find out if there are aliens in outer space, there’s a commission to find out if there’s life on Mars, there’s a commission to find out if dogs have four paws….This country stands up commissions all the time.” Starting in 1989, Conyers sponsored House Resolution 40 — so called to commemorate the unfulfilled promise of 40 acres and a mule to formerly enslaved people — to create a commission to study reparations, including financial and non-financial forms. And each session of Congress, a growing coalition of organizations, led by the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America and the National African American Reparations Commission, backed the bill. One longtime activist for HR 40 said that the commission strategy was “a way in which we could talk about the issue [of reparations] and reel in support without people actually having to say ‘I support reparations.’” But many in Congress remained unconvinced. So Conyers reintroduced the bill each successive session without successful passage. Despite its repeated failures, momentum slowly grew for a national study. By the turn of the century, the idea of a reparations commission had accumulated support in Congress and was backed for the first time by the Democratic Party in its 2000 platform. Nevertheless, activists found little help from Democrats in the White House. One HR 40 coalition leader recalled: “We were always told that during the eight years President Obama was in office, the word from House leadership was that there would be no discussion of HR 40 and reparations because it would be an embarrassment to the President.” Another said: “We did push for an executive order…We thought that [President Obama] would do it in his last two years, and he just refused to do it.” Congress remained the best path forward.” From a Feb. 2024 article.
It’s commendable that certain states & cities are no longer waiting around for the federal government to enact reparations and are doing local reparations. As they should. The plight has been going on for centuries and continuing to wait on administration after administration proves to be further widening the everlasting damage that’s been done. And that still doesn’t dismiss the federal government from what they too need to do and should. The federal government wouldn’t be the federal government without slavery so it is a federal issue. The nation wouldn’t be so it’s the nation’s issue. But it does become whoever is elected as President their issue too. Reagan also didn’t sign that 9066 order but it became his issue when the Japanese-Americans sought their reparations during his presidency. Economist, William A. Darity actually doesn’t believe that local reparations efforts are reparations.
You said, “EO 14031 is not a study into reps for Asians - it tries to address specific issues of racial bias that often leaves out this group.”
Exactly! They didn’t have to have decades upon decades of studies or bills to study it that got rejected for years or any delays whatsoever. That eo was signed by Biden immediately. And yes, the language in that bill speaks on grants, federal funding….that is money. Reparative justice comes in many forms. There’s more to read in that order but that bullet point relates.
There are countless of Black Americans that went to the courts to demand reparations since forever. For generations. Individuals like Belinda Royall in 1783 to Henrietta Wood in 1878 have been doing this and also those on behalf of many and themselves. Again, going back to Callie House, the foremother of reparations who worked tirelessly seeking reparations for those formerly enslaved. Since 1898 with her National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association organization. House petitioned the courts on several occasions well before 1912 to no avail. A lawyer House hired went all the way to the Supreme Court and still legislation couldn’t get passed. House is said to have been born in 1861 so she was fighting for herself as well and for her own family. 1864, Reverend Garrison Frazier among many other Black preachers were asked what freedom was to him with the executive order of the emancipation proclamation and his answer was “Freedom to us means land”. And following was the Special Field Article 15– 40 acres, a mule and $200 for seed (of which our ancestors never received). 1960s efforts from Queen Mother Moore. 1989 Conyers. Conyers died never seeing the manifestation and House was falsely jailed for even having the audacity to seek reparations from the government and later on died from cancer never seeing the manifestation.
I recommend the book by Mary Frances Berry “My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations”.
There’s a video on YT from April 2014 called Callie House: My Face is Black is True with Frances Berry and at the 43:00 minute mark, there’s mention of the Japanese-Americans also needing a commission to study their reparations after their lawsuits were continually being denied in courts that then turned into legislation. This is what Conyers’ HR40 bill is aiming to do too and can’t get passed for nothing.
How easily finding the money for all other causes really is.
It’s not a matter of “the money will cause a deficit for the country”, “where can we get the money from”, “how are we responsible for things we did not participate in” [excuse for the remaining Tulsa survivors as well], “giving money is a handout”, “my taxpayer dollars shouldn’t have to pay for what I wasn’t involved in”…all goes straight out the window when it’s everyone else.
He supports his loyal base at all cost no matter how unjust, treacherous, treasonous, terroristic and illegal their actions were. He is showing that their loyalty of insurrection, on his behalf, will not go unnoticed nor undefended nor unrewarded. He has setup monetary compensation for disloyalty to the country and did it within 5 years of the insurgence. Didn’t have to have no type of decades long hearings/committees, didn’t have to go through rejections or votes for approval or vetoes.
(meanwhile, both parties, and especially the Democratic party, pushes us to either keep waiting or flat out rejects it)
So once again…FBA Reparations is beyond doable — they just choose to not DO it for FBAs.
