Sunday, February 22, 2015

Black political tuneout?

For all of the talk about how much progress blacks have made, we surely have seen lots of rollbacks over the last six years.

Oh, you didn't know? Let me count the ways:

  • Deliberate reversals of Civil Rights Era voting measures

  • Open season on black males courtesy of stand your ground laws and legalized police brutality

  • Nonindictments of police officers in Ferguson and on Staten Island after they killed unarmed black men

  • A growing acceptance of whites using racist language--coded and overt

  • This year's all-white Oscars in the only categories much of the public cares about

  • "Selma" getting dissed for allegedly not "playing the game"


  • It could be very possible that once the current POTUS leaves the White House, blacks completely tune out of the political process. Of course, the big difference between the post-2017 and 1877-1965 periods is that the former would be a (mostly) voluntary disengagement as opposed to the Jim Crow Era's poll taxes, literacy tests, and death threats.

    What would the impact of such black separatism have on society in general? For me, a potential negative could mean that blacks could have more animosity towards outsiders.

    On the other hand, there are two upsides: First, the black infrastructure could be rebuilt. Rather than relying on false imagery like bling, tomorrow's black youth could look up to the Black Wall Streets of the 21st century as a way of getting rich. Second, political separation could provide a chance for the black community to "clean up" so to speak. Neither the promotion of anti-black ratchet music nor illegitimacy would be tolerated if there were strong black leadership.

Stunted City Redux

Well, it looks like this prediction from almost seven years ago is coming to pass--albeit slowly: Durham and Winston-Salem traded the #4 an...