The question is a simple one.
A very simple one.
Does an American citizen, who is legally registered to vote, have the right to cast that vote for the candidate of his or her choice?
Simple enough, right?
Apparently not, depending on who you ask.
The post-election lamenting of the political Left continues to garner headlines.
More than a week after Donald Trump became this nation’s 45th President-elect, their collective petulance remains on full display for all to see.
As a conservative who is black, it has been interesting to observe liberals direct their anti-Trump vitriol exclusively at the 81 percent of white evangelical Christians who voted for him.
But in the midst of their targeted rage, they completely disregard the fact that 13 percent of black males also voted for Trump.
Are these voters not equally deserving of their derision and contempt?
As confounding as it may seem to liberals, their willingness to ignore the fact that Donald Trump garnered double-digit support from black voters is a serious commentary on the extent to which they are helping to perpetuate the decades-old stereotype that the so-called “black vote” is monolithic.
Needless to say, it is not.
I, for one, am proof of that.
In the wake of what was unarguably a devastating and, by many accounts, unfathomable political defeat, liberals are blaming everyone but themselves.
But that liberals view the election of Donald Trump as tantamount to an eschatological catastrophe of biblical proportions is not entirely the fault of white evangelical voters.
In fact, it is not the fault of any one particular ethno-ecclesial voting bloc.
Though 81 percent support from white evangelicals is nothing to sneeze at, even more significant is the 8 percent of black voters who backed Donald Trump.
Because although it was widely expected and accepted that white evangelicals -particularly white male evangelicals – would galvanize behind Trump, being motivated in large part by Clinton’s unbiblical positions on abortion and same-sex marriage, no one gave him a snowball’s chance in you-know-where of making even the most infinitesimal strides with black voters.
After all, blacks are monolithic, you know?
We don’t think for ourselves.
We simply do as we’re told.
That black voters traditionally have been held to a lower standard of political autonomy than any other voting bloc in America is clearly evidenced by a Salon.com article I recently came across entitled, The Real Reason Black Voters Didn’t Turn Out For Hillary – and How to Fix It.
The title alone is enough to give pause.
That black voter turnout turned out (no pun intended) to be less salvific than Hillary Clinton and the Democrats hoped – as opposed to blacks voting their individual consciences or, perhaps, not voting at all, which is also their right – is apparently a problem that needs to be “fixed” according to many on the Left.
It is a philosophy that warrants translating.
“Fixed” is liberal code for developing targeted strategies to ensure black voters continue to tow the line, and stick to the nearly 60-year old script of voting only for Democrat candidates for president.
“Fixed” is the plantation mentality which holds that black votes belong to Democrats in much the same way that black people once belonged to them.
“Fixed” – as far as liberals are concerned – is the perpetual political servitude of black voters to the Democrat party.
“My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did.” – Condoleezza Rice
It is interesting, if not ironic, that liberals will tout the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for its prohibitions against racial discrimination in voting, particularly with regard to their seemingly incessant claims of voter suppression on the part of Republicans, while tacitly endorsing ideological discrimination in assuming that Hillary Clinton receiving “only” 92 percent of the black vote instead of the anticipated 95 percent is something that needs “fixing”.
The hypocrisy of liberals is that their acceptance of white evangelicals exercising their right to vote as individuals, albeit against their preferred candidate, is offset by their belief that blacks should cast their votes solely on the basis of the interests of the collective “black community”.
Which begs the question to what end was the Civil Rights Movement, especially with respect to black Americans being granted the right to vote as equal citizens, if not the freedom to exercise that right as individuals in voting for the political candidate of their choice?
That liberals appear to believe this ethos applies to every ethnic voting bloc except black voters is telling to say the least.
Ultimately, it is not black voter turnout that needs to be “fixed”.
What needs to be fixed is the stereotypical mindset that black voters are joined together, as if by an umbilical cord, to an electoral process rooted in political tribalism rather than ideological individualism.
Which brings us back to the original question now, doesn’t it?
Humbly in Christ,
Darrell
Related:
The Myth of Black Community
The Truth About Jim Crow (Free PDF booklet from the American Civil Rights Union)
Image Credits:
Top image: npr.org
Center image: nbcnews.com
Bottom image: commdiginews.com
