Billions of dollars will be spent in 2016 by candidates seeking election to public offices.
Believe it or not, large sums of campaign contributions will come from wealthy Black individuals, predominately Black labor organizations, Black businesses, Black students and Black voters!
In more cases than not, Black contributions to political candidates don’t do a damn thing to help America’s Black residents, Black communities and Black voters!
Now, don’t twist it up. Contributing to political campaigns is every Americans prerogative. If you want to contribute your hard earned dollars to an elected office seeker, by all means write a politician a check.
When non-Blacks contribute money, they get something in return. When Wall Street bankers contribute to campaigns they get reduced regulations, tax considerations, access to desired politicians, they get to stay out of jail for financial crimes they committed and, in some cases, they even get to write federal and state laws that benefit their industry.
Women campaign contributors get political attention to women’s issues. Hispanic contributors get consideration regarding issues important to them like immigration. Gays that put money in political campaigns get changes in laws like same sex marriage laws.
What do Black people get? They get tricked, they get fooled, they get misled, they get bamboozled, they get jacked and, worst of all, they get politically punked!
There are some wealthy Black lawyers that contribute to every political candidate they can contribute to. The contributions are vast but the returns on those contributions are so small they could be described as minimal. They get invitations to receptions, they get their names on campaign literature and if they are lucky they might get a wink and a smile from a political klansman, skin head or red neck!
They don’t get many government risk management legal opportunities and they don’t get special considerations from elected or appointed judges.
Organizations of Black laborers may give more money to political candidates than any other Black groups. Longshoremen, government workers, hospitality workers and other groups of Black workers donate millions of dollars to political candidates in Presidential election years.
And when the election is over many of the candidates they contribute to vote to privatize government agencies and bust up organized labor efforts, they pass Right to Work Laws and the campaign contribution recipients do all they can to prevent or hinder labor groups from organizing.
This is what I think.
If Black people, Black organizations, Black social or fraternal groups, Black community groups, Black business groups chose to contribute, by all means give your money to politicians that ask you for it.
But contribute like you have some sense!
When white folks make large contributions to politicians, they earmark the money. In other words, if AFL-CIO gives money to politicians they oftentimes demand that the politicians use union printers for their printed materials, they request that politicians hire people on staff that the white unions recommend, they request a seat at the table when politicians discuss or consider labor legislation.
You tell me, why can’t Black lawyers, Black business people and Black labor groups like the ILA, AFSCME, SEIU and others demand that the money they contribute go to Black printers, Black media companies, Black pollsters, Black caterers and to other Black political professionals?
I know you don’t like for me to write like this but it’s true. Black campaign contributors, Black politicians and Black people must work together politically and every other way to progress and to surive!
If it doesn’t hurt you to ask if a politician’s literature has a “union bug” on it, it shouldn’t be hard to ask a politician if he has Black workers on his campaign staff or if he has contracts with Black political vendors!
Stop contributing to political devils that refuse to spend money with Black businesses and political professionals!
Pick up a Black newspaper sometimes and see which politicians are buying ads in your media outlets and you will see more ads from the elephant than there are from the donkey.
The political parties and candidates that you endorse first and contribute to first are the same ones that put you last, hire you last, contract you last and respect you less! (Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net. And, if you want to,“Like” The Gantt Report page on Facebook.)
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.