Black Americans should start our on political party
By Nobel Johns
WASHINGTON (BNW) -- With continued frustration with the Democratic Party by Blacks and the complete ostracizing of Blacks from the Republican Party, it’s time for Blacks to group with other minorities in this country who share our political philosophy and start a new political party: the Black Party!
One thing about the Republicans, they will call you nigger and mean it, but the Democrats will call you African Americans and not mean it. In other words, we are niggers to both parties. One group lets you know they don’t like you, and the other parade a bunch of corrupt Black politicians in your face who can never get anything done for the Black community.
As a result, for Black to go out and vote on Nov. 5th is just going out and voting for the lesser of the two evils. In my opinion, I think we as Black Americans should just sit this election out and let whites people fight it out among themselves.
It appears that other Blacks in this country share the same feelings. For example, younger Black adults are increasingly more politically independent and less likely to identify themselves as members of the Democratic Party, says a new poll that suggests overall support among blacks for Democrats over Republicans is still strong.
"It's different from voting preferences," said David Bositis, a pollster and senior political analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. "In terms of partisan identification, there has been a decline among younger Black adults; they tend to be more independent."
In the 2002 poll taken for the Joint Center, which conducts research on issues of importance to minority voters, 63 percent of Blacks identified themselves as Democrats, while 74 percent said they were Democrats in the 2000 poll.
African Americans are becoming less likely to identify themselves as Democrats, and some say they give Republican Secretary of State Colin L. Powell a higher approval rating than civil rights icon Jesse L. Jackson, according to an opinion poll released yesterday by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
The blacks in the poll done for the Joint Center indicated a 7-1 preference for Democrats over Republicans on the question of who should control Congress, suggesting levels of support for Democrats close to the levels Democrats got from blacks in 1998 congressional elections, when they voted Democratic by an 88-11 margin, according to exit polls.
The shift in the numbers who consider themselves Democrats could have long-term implications, however, said Bositis.
Loyalty in the future
"This is something the Democrats have to pay attention to," said Bositis. "Ten years from now, 15 years from now, they will be at the prime age for voting, if Democrats don't work to get their loyalty, they might have to worry about that in the future."
The poll of 1,647 adults, including a sample of 850 Black adults, was taken between September 17 and October 21 and has an error margin of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for blacks and for whites.
Black perceptions that they were making economic progress in the late 1990s -- when they were more likely than whites to say they were better off financially from a year earlier -- have leveled off. Blacks are now about as likely as whites to say that.
Among blacks, 39 percent approved of the job being done by President Bush, and just over half viewed him favorably. Eight in 10 had a favorable view of President Clinton and two-thirds viewed former Vice President Al Gore favorably -- a dip from 2000, when almost nine in 10 had a favorable view of Gore, the Democratic nominee for president that year.
The increasing independence of young Black adults is a pattern that can be found in young adults from various demographic groups. Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press said he's seen such declines in his own surveys.
"Younger people in general are less committed to the parties," said Kohut. "As they mature, they tend to pick one. Among young African-Americans, there is a greater gap because older blacks have been traditionally so committed to the Democratic Party."
"Younger African-Americans don't have the same experiences with the Democratic Party," Bositis said. "Older African-Americans remember (former President) Lyndon Johnson and the civil rights era."
It appears that both parties are playing both ends against the middle, and we as Blacks are caught in the middle of this mess. We are really not getting part of the American dream, not matter how many Blacks have big house mortgages and high car notes. We still ain’t got no money!