Black Americans Discovered by Democratic Party-Kerry mentions the 'D' Word

[Q]

The BLACK CoMMentator
July 22, 2004
Issue 100


Black Americans Discovered by Democratic Party - Kerry Mentions the 'D' Word
By Greg Palast
Guest Commentator

"It's a first step: mentioning out loud the massive, systematic disenfranchisement of the Black vote."


Like Christopher Columbus blinking in shock at first seeing an American Indian, John Kerry has just discovered African-American voters.

Last Thursday afternoon, Kerry landed at the NAACP convention, stepped off his slow-moving campaign boat and announced that he was exploring for one million missing Black voters. 

Let me explain – because the New York Times won't.  In the 2000 elections, 1.9 million ballots were cast which were never counted – "spoiled" is the technical term.  Ballots don't spoil because they are left out of the fridge.   There's always a technical reason:  a stray mark, or my favorite, from Gadsden County, Florida, writing in Al Gore's name instead of checking a box. 

According to data from the US Civil Rights Commission and the Harvard University Law School Civil Rights Project, about half the nation's spoiled ballots – one million – were cast by Black folk.  Just as African American communities get the worst schools, the worst hospitals, they also get dumped with the worst voting machines, which eat, mismark, mangle and void ballots.

Poof!  A million Black votes gone, zapped, vanished.

And the nasty secret is that for years that suited many white leaders of local and state Democratic organizations – Zell Miller of Georgia is a case in point – who feared Black voters as much as they feared Republicans. But change is coming, and not because John Kerry and the men who think for him have changed.  Change is coming because African-American leaders are getting uppity about the Democratic Party taking or leaving the African-American voter as the mood and arithmetic pleases.

Continues --- http://www.blackcommentator.com/100/100_democrats.html

[Q]

1. Palast:

"But the real change won't come until Kerry can say the 'D' word in front of say, a gathering of the members of his wife's country club. And until he confronts the boys holding the electoral lynching ropes in both parties. 

I have a dream.  I imagine John Kerry taking this message to the floor of the convention next week and proclaiming, "Three decades after Martin Luther King's murder, one million African-Americans cast ballots never counted.  This will not stand!"  Imagine it:  At that moment, for the first time in a generation, the Democratic Party will have nominated a Democrat."

[Kanary]

19. gawddess.... the thought of that has me in tears......

Thanks....... you've truly brought home to me just how much I yearn for a *real* Dem Party.

this ........ hurts........

Kanary

[BlueCollar]

2. Greg Palast does it again

eom

on edit:

Why the hell isn't Palast on full-time with the democratic party?

There is so much talent out there...

[Q]

3. Someone has to mention it...

...because right now it's like it never happened...a million Black votes never counted.

- Shouldn't it be the Democrats that make this an issue since WE expect their votes?

[papau]

5. They have made it an issue - indeed more votes in Illinois than in Florida

were "spoiled" in 2000.

We all know it was racial - but to say that is to play the race card and lose a lot of votes - better to just get it fixed

And that is finally going on. Perhaps the only good thing that came out of the stolen election.

[Solly Mack]

6. lose a lot of votes from? white people?

the first step to fixing a problem is identifying the problem..and if the problem is racism...saying as much is not "playing the race card"...it's just stating the facts.

if white people have a problem with that, then I question their principles of democracy.equality.liberty.freedom.

there's no harm in pointing out racism....but there is major harm in ignoring it and remaining silent about it.

fix it...yes...but name it for what it is

[Q]

8. And how can one 'fix it' and keep it in the shadows?

- Nothing will be 'fixed' in this manner. Like every other issue of import to the people...it took activism, courage and determination to make necessary changes. Have we forgotten what the civil rights movement was all about?

- Or do we simply not CARE about the Black American vote? The 'master plan' seems to be that of taking advantage of the 'built-in' vote and court the phantom 'swing voter'.

- This isn't exactly a great long-term strategy. What happens in 2008 when Democrats don't have GWB* to kick around any longer and Black Americans remember how they were treated in 2000 and 2004?

- Blacks, Liberals, Progressives: the expendable.

[Solly Mack]

9. I never once suggested keeping it in the shadows...quite the opposite

you're preaching to the choir...a multi-racial member of the choir at that. And you don't have to tell me anything about the civil rights struggle of old or the present one. Cause we are still struggling...


a good way to "fixing" it would have been to stand up with the CBC and to have kept Selection 2000 in the fore-front. It matters...oh, how it matters.

I think the poster I was responding to meant "fix" (his word) the potential for fraud and disinfranchisement...and we should "fix" that...but the underlying cause....racism...needs to be addressed and not ignored or kept silent.

[papau]

11. You get an AMEN from the Choir! - :-)

:-)

[Q]

13. Indeed...it's the 'conspiracy of silence' that's killing us...

...and even the GOP sees it and responds with their audacious courting of the Black vote.

- It seems that WE can no more admit our mistakes and misjudgments than the Republicans.

- YOU may be part of the 'choir'...but many Democrats have forgotten how to sing and others are singing off key.

[Solly Mack]

17. Yes I thought it rather masterful too...what the GOP did

it put folks in a double-bind.

and the silence is deafening

[Kanary]

20. Please add poor folk to your "expendable" list.

We were expended quite a while ago.....

Remember us, too, 'k?

Thanks.

Kanary

[jonnyblitz]

10. that phrase pisses me off so much

our side needs to stop using RIGHT WING LINGO and talking points NOW!!!

[Solly Mack]

12. the phrase from post 5? about "playing the race card"?

Yes, it pisses me off too.

[Q]

14. I'm amazed every time I hear it...

...and it's especially disturbing to hear a Dem say or write it.

- Are we now the party of cowards? Afraid to defend our own because the Right might call us names? RWingers pull the same shit when they bitch and moan about Dems using 'class warfare' when they want to discuss the GREAT DIVIDE between the 'have mores' and have nots.

[papau]

15. Sorry - I thought it useful shorthand for the dump one gets if voting

complaints are combined with noticing just who is not being counted.

Did not mean to disturb!

:-)

[Q]

7. No one is playing the 'race card'...

...they're playing the 'Disenfranchisement card'.

- These are civil rights violations and criminal acts...not just mistakes and incompetence.

- What good would come of the Democrats simply pretending it didn't happen? Black Americans still remember the Congressional Black Caucus pleading, begging for ANY (White) Senator to stand with them in calling for a debate about the 2000 election fraud and civil rights abuses. They'll remember that they were shunned...their concerns thrown aside for the sake of 'moving on'.

- Your comment about 'losing votes' for defending the Black American's right to vote and have that vote counted seems somehow expected in the New Democratic Party.

- What you SEEM to be saying is that Democrats are afraid of overtly supporting Blacks, their causes and their votes because Republicans might ACCUSE them of playing the 'race card'? Sounds like a pitiful excuse to me.

[papau]

16. overtly supporting Blacks - or overtly supporting all folks that need

support?

I don't like the idea of parties that are framed as support groups for different skin color.

I do like the government helping those in need when that help can best, can be most efficiently, be done by the government, or will not get done without the government

[Q]

21. But not ALL 'skin colors' have the history...

...that Blacks have in America. They have been systematically disenfranchised before and since the civil rights movement...with BOTH parties discounting and marginalizing any Black that steps forward in a leadership role.

- Your point of view simply wipes away the historical perpective. Is it realistic to expect the Black vote while ignoring their civil rights? Neither party wants to talk about it...but the fraud, corruption and extortion of the 2000 election reflects back several decades when Black Americans had to fight for the 'right' to vote and then have that vote counted.

- In 2000...we saw a renewal of 'acceptable', overt racism and civil rights violations...and both parties closing their eyes and pretending it didn't happen.

[angee_is_mad]

22. Preach!!!!

there are other groups that have been disenfranchised by society, but black people are a whole other ballpark.
I am going to say something very explosive here. Take for instance discrimination against gays and blacks. There are some people(too many)who hate both.
So a white gay man goes for a job interview and the interviewer is a white male. You have a black man who goes to the same interview and is interviewed by the same man. Unknowingly to both candidates this man is a racist and a homophobic.
Guess who gets the job? Or at the very least a 2nd interview?
A white gay man can appear straight, but there are very few black men who can appear white!

[Q]

23. This is an acceptable prejudice in the US...

...a type of covert racism where people ARE judged by the color of their skin. Black Americans in Congress have to fight the same kind of prejudice as they continue the struggle for equal and civil rights. We witnessed it in 2000...when the White Senate and majority in Congress thought 'moving on' was more important than democracy.

- How are we supposed to FORGET that both parties knew that SOME Americans were kept from voting and did nothing about it?

[angee_is_mad]

18. taken for granted

I've said it once, I've said it a million times on here. The Democrats better stop sleeping on the blacks until election time and then expect us to vote for them. We are like children, better to be seen and not heard.
If Kerry gets in, he sure as hell better make some changes that are reflected in the African American community. That goes for every democratic congressman, senator and governor too.
We have seen the worst and are living through it. So, basically what do we have to lose if Kerry does not make changes once in office. We can just keep our black as#@ at home and he will be a one-term President.
He and every other elected democrat better think about that, because lord knows they can not depend on the white southern male vote and the Hispanic votes are being split up between the two parties.
As Lynn Colins say "You better think!"

[Solly Mack]

4. I enjoyed this greatly

a change is a coming...oh yeah, it is.

[Catfight]

24. Kerry needs to energize the black vote by announcing the many

colors of his cabinet, he needs to have a multi-national cabinet to bring America forward, America wants different, not more of the same. It's time for change, and change begins with being inclusive of ALL Americans, not just white male figures. I would love to see Carol Mosely Brown working with Kerry in a very high position! Gay, latino, black, Asian, whatever, we need diversity in the White House to take America back.