By Lucius Gantt
Most editorial and opinion writers in Black owned media are currently repeating the messages and talking points put forward by the media and political beasts.
Trump knows the klan and neo-nazi and Biden knows “us”, Trump supports the wealthy and Biden will help the poor, Trump associates with racists and criminals and Biden is comfortable around civil rights leaders and freedom fighters are some of the things you’ll be encouraged to believe.
Well, instead of running around the United States parroting Republicans or rubber stamping Democrats, The Gantt Report feels African Americans should be more concerned about possibilities than personalities.
Let me explain.
If you know your political history, today, most African Americans tend to cast their ballots for Democratic candidates but it hasn’t always been that way.
Years ago, a high percentage of Black America was supportive of Republican politicians. Some people you may be familiar with that were knee deep in Republican politics included Emmett Allen, Essie Campbell, Reby Carey, Frederick Douglass, Devoyd Jennings, Bill McDonald, Grace Mitchell, Ben Morrison, Jackie Robinson, Judge Wayne Salvant, Judge Louis Sturns, and Bobby Webber were are all African American Republicans. Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, of the African American Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, was a person who played a critical role in founding the Republican Party.
Political parties go with the flow, they seldom if ever go for you or what you want.
2020 is a Presidential election year but in the next ten years there will be two more Presidential elections. In other words, Presidents come and go.
We need to do what other groups do in election years, Jews vote for politicians and policies that are best for Jews, Hispanics vote for candidates that are best for Hispanics and so on.
It’s no secret, The United States will soon be a minority majority nation. Before you know it, there will be more voters of color here than red necks and pale faces.
Let me close this column with the point.
If Black people want more opportunities to serve our communities in the federal, state and local political process and to insure that more Black tax dollars are put back into Black communities, it is vital for us to vote with reapportionment in mind as well as voting for the best President for Black people.
This year, state and local races are just as important as national contests. Why? Because gerrymandering must be stopped!
The Republican idea of drawing political lines that snake weirdly across state and local districts in efforts to make districts “white” or “colored” must be discredited, disputed and discarded!
In so-called access districts where Blacks are at least 25 or 30 percent of registered voters, anybody of any race can possibly win a state or local election.
When you make districts that are 90 percent Black or 80 percent Hispanic, you create hundreds of districts that are 90 percent white.
When apportionment hearings begin, conservative politicians will go to the Black elected officials that you love and say to them, “I’ll draw a district for you that will include no businesses, no industry, no infrastructure, no banks, no grocery stores, no malls etc., but it’ll be a seat that you can hold forever.”
All of you smart negroes, just go look at reapportionment votes in the past. Guess who voted for configurations that gave themselves 90 percent districts and totally prevented Blacks from winning political races when they once lived in 20, 30 or 40 percent Black areas.
Electing a President is meaningful but electing 2020 politicians that will vote for reapportionment plans that will pave the way for far more elections of Blacks and other persons of color is far more important.
We must be able to control the politics in Black communities.
If you’re basing your 2020 votes on the false promises of political puppets and clowns, we are in trouble.
Let’s look at the big picture. Let’s cast votes in record breaking numbers but let’s put us first and vote for what is best for us.
Let’s depend on each other and reject voices telling us to support a political party more than we support each other.
We don’t need personalities, we need possibilities!
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.