By Lucius Gantt
Best wishes to all of the candidates that emerged victorious on Election Day and good riddance to all of the candidates that got beat like a runaway political slave!
Oh, this election was so important. Black voters were told to vote like their lives depended on it. Blacks were told changes would come if the right candidates were elected. Black voters were told, “Don’t Hope foe a better day, VOTE for a better life”!
Well, what did you get out of it? You and your family and friends contributed millions of dollars to political campaigns nationwide. How many of those campaign dollars found their way back into Black communities, Black businesses or into Black wallets or pink and green purses?
Not much, if any!
Yes, some Blacks got paid. Most of the people that represented Black voters, the Black elected officials. got paid some chump change via “dark money” sources so that pennies wouldn’t be noticed by white voters.
Some individual TV stations in Miami, for instance, may have gotten paid up to $1 million per commercial for news and other prime time placements.
The candidates that you love probably only spent two or three million with all of America’s Black media outlets combined.
Let’s move on.
What were so-called leaders asking for in this election year? Hmmm. Perhaps they were asking for equal rights and justice. Maybe, they wanted reparations. Some Black leaders merely wanted recognition.
No one asked me, but why can’t the teachers, preachers and others you like ask for massive tax cuts for new and existing Black businesses that hire Black people? Why couldn’t they ask for ALL banks to make mortgage, business and other loans to the Black depositors that patronize beast banks located in Black communities?
Why couldn’t the Blacks who claim they speak for you ask local elected officials to get rid of “qualified immunity” that allow rogue cops to kill Black people at will and get away with it?
I could go on but the weak, controllable modern-day Sambos and Jezebels that politicians meet with only want coffee, donuts and tickets to the White House rap concert!
Black media companies, printers, caterers, mailers, pollsters and other Black professionals will never get some of that “loop money”. If you refuse to be controlled by a political party, if you refuse to be a political parrot or a rubber stamp for candidates and you refuse to be quiet when Black people and Black communities are sold down the river for rice and white acre peas you will not be able to sniff a campaign dollar.
I want Black people to fund the campaigns of righteous and progressive Black politicos. I want us to listen to each other, support each other and depend on each other. I want us to finance our own Political Action Committees.
If the Democratic Fox and the Republican wolf have been biting, scratching and eating the hens in the Black chicken coup, why in the hell would the chickens feel it’s a good idea to beg the canines, or dogs, for assistance?
On another subject, tell Ice Cube, Killer Mike and others who have an idea or a plan I am still looking for them. If they are afraid to meet in Vine City, an Atlanta hood when I live, we can meet at the mosque on Campbellton Road or at the “great” Ebenezar church on Auburn Avenue.
Let’s work together to realize Black progress. If that is inappropriate or undesirable, good luck begging politicians for poverty programs.
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.