Throughout this article I focus on racism in the political process as being about the persecution of African Americans. Latinx people and others have definitely been oppressed as well, but the number one boogeyman that drives institutional white supremacy has always been fear of black people. I’d like to give everyone some props and some encouragement. Rock on!
To me the silver lining of this election is that now I know white people are not even worth trying to reach. Those of us who are compassionate enough to see suffering and progressive enough to be intolerant of the intolerance that promotes it – we’re going to come correct no matter what. White moderates and swing voters? Total trash, useless, racist as fuck, just fuck ’em off. We tried in so many different ways to win them and it was for jack dick.
People of color, on the other hand, recognized the threat and did what you could to stop it. Every category of you had a good sized majority voting for the not-completely-depraved candidate. If we collectively want to believe history has a forward trajectory, that it’s possible to end this fucking rocket train to the abyss, you, people of color, are the only real hope of that.
And I am absolutely not being one of those fools that blames low PoC turnout for Trumpistan. I’m not saying you have to take responsibility here. Samantha Bee said we shouldn’t be expecting you to build our country yet again, but then she went on to try and rally white people. I’m saying that is a lost cause, probably until my generation is in the fucking dirt, and that could literally take eighty years to happen.
I’m saying you have support from some of us, you won’t be completely alone in fighting la revolución, but white people have proven themselves collectively without honor, without courage, without compassion, and cannot be trusted with control of the United States. It’s bullshit that this falls to you, but I really think you can do it.
Why didn’t it work this time? Racist voter disenfranchisement policies and the school to prison pipeline, first and foremost. A full third of African American men in Florida were disqualified from voting due to felony records. Now some would say felons have proven themselves morally defective and therefore unworthy to vote, but when you look at the demography of prisons now, you’d have to be racist as fuck to believe all those people actually deserve to be there, that they’re all guilty or morally faulty.
In fact, at this point it is safe to say the average white voter is much less moral than the average felon. So smashing the school to prison pipeline, working this war from multiple angles, it’s all going to be necessary. But if there was one thing that could swing the balance of power in this nation instantly? It’s getting felons their vote back.
Now I’m just another fucking white person talking out my ass here and I know this is going to be impossible for a while, but I’m pathologically hopeful and can’t help but think that just maybe you have a shot at it. Donald Trump got fewer votes than Romney, which means that he was so odious even some republicans couldn’t bring themselves to pull the lever. That means their turnout is down.
Now your turnout is down as well, because white supremacists engineered it to be that way. But how did they do it? Some of the methods they used can be fought against with enough organization, enough will. For example, you’re more likely to be voting late and without adequate ID to meet their racist requirements. But what if a big enough push was made to get all of you the ID? To get you registered? To get as many of you as possible mail-in ballots and early voting options?
And what if you managed to reach some of the folks you know who – understandably at this late reactionary racist and terrible stage of history – won’t bother trying in the first place? I don’t know. White, talking out of ass. But hopeful. And I’m certain many of you are already working these angles, have already promoted these ideas.
So if you get the vote you should be entitled to, you manage to turn the tide in some races for legislative seats, what of the Democrats? There are some situations in which you’ll have no choice but the lesser of two evils and I know you know what to do there, but I’d also like to remind you that it’s a lot more possible for third party candidates to do well in very important local races. Say you have a state with racist voting laws but you secure a proactive black mayor and sheriff. They could do a lot to facilitate access to voting even in the face of that.
The Democrats might be able to become worthy of your votes eventually, instead of being the wholly ineffectual stopgap against white terrorism that they have been. But I can understand giving them all of the side eye. Here’s a fact that just can’t be disputed: Democrats could have secured a much stronger position for themselves in government by fighting against racist voter disenfranchisement, but when they had the best shot at it?
They were actively part of the problem. Bill Clinton used “tough on crime” laws to score points with racist white moderates, helping to bloat the fucking horrifying US prison system. The Democratic party fears black power. Maybe they should, but I don’t. The paranoid dreams of white cowards and race terrorists shouldn’t be allowed to hold sway over the course of this nation, and with the power we have, shouldn’t have this large of a hand on the whole world. Black Power Now.
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I’ve been crunching the numbers on the states that flipped from blue to red from 2012 to 2016, and the scale of the fall in the blue vote is stunning. Florida is an outlier, in that both Dem and GOP votes were up. In all of the other states that flipped, Clinton would have won if she had polled the same numbers as Obama did in 2012. In Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, the Dem vote was down by more than 10%. (17.93% in Ohio, and 20.88% in Iowa!)
Yes, Trump did increase the GOP vote in all of these states, but that wasn’t the factor that won it.
I recently got called a “racist” in a comment section for using the term “Generic White Guy” about a character on a tv show.
The deplorables really seem to think using that word against people who criticize all the whiteness in our society is somehow going to work. I just replied that I’m not being “politically correct”.
To OP
Fully agreed. I’ve believed and advocated for a while that all adults in the United States should have the right to vote, even those currently in prison on felony charges, and even those on death row (and the death penalty should be abolished anyway), and even those who are deemed so mentally unfit that we put them in asylums and take away most of their rights. The right to vote should not be abridged, at all.
Also, there should be automatic voter registration through whatever means are available, including when getting a driver’s license, passport, or other forms of voter ID, etc. Also when going through the criminal justice system.
PS: Concerning the “tough on crime” position. IMO, a very large part of that problem can be solved by simply ending the second great American drug prohibition. It failed the first time. It failed the second time. We should legalize all recreational drugs immediately for adults. For adults, it should be no harder to get than tobacco or alcohol. I’m including marijuana, heroin, meth, and all so-called prescription drugs too, including birth control drugs and abortion drugs. We should also take the incredible and almost unimaginable amount of money that we’ve been pouring down this black hole of the “war on drugs”, and spend it productively in ways that actually help drug users, like on preventative education, rehab, free needle exchanges, providing less addictive variants, providing cleaner variants to avoid poisoning from contamination, etc.
It comes with many other side benefits, including helping reign in police abuse and expansion of the police state, and ending our “meddling” in other countries where we destroy other countries through military aid, and other great reasons, all for the ludicrous reasoning that our government should decide for our adults what recreational drugs that they may and may not use.
And this is all coming from someone who has never used tobacco nor alcohol in his entire 31 year long life. Hell, I basically never use caffeine.
@1- Dunc, pretty sure voter disenfranchisement was a huge factor. See the recent articles on the Voting Rights Act.
@2- XD Good job.
@3- Agreed in full and it seems we have a lot in common, though I’m more caffeinated and a good bit older than you, haha. I heard an Iberian country had tried what you suggest to good effect, forget if it was Spain or Portugal, but think it was Portugal.