The recently reported unprecedented two percent approval rating of President Bush’s overall performance shows that the wisdom of African American voters is escalating. To save our republic, mainstream American voters should follow this enlightened leadership. The smoke and mirrors, Disney World fantasy of Bush policies is hypnotizing only two percent of the Black voters. This emperor has no clothes on and we’ll all catch pneumonia if we follow him. Where, in domestic or international history, has any group reached more insightful political conclusions and made more sophisticated democratic choices?
In street language of my youth, the “trick bags” and “okie doke” of every day living causes a lot of suffering in Black communities. Forced to be perpetual victims African Americans have developed a greater immunity to the glitter of the phony and the fraudulent. Lessons like New Orleans are not forgotten after the media grows weary of spotlighting the truth. Blacks understand why Bush and the American majority that elected him refused to acknowledge the heroism of the thousands who spent several nights smothering under a blanket of heat and darkness in the dome and the convention center. To make the world understand better the credit these evacuees deserve for not going mad under those conditions, every basketball game this season should begin with a few minutes of silence after all of the lights in the arena have been shut off.
“Shoot to kill” was the earliest and strongest clear message to emerge from the babbling public officials responsible for the New Orleans debacle. Branding the hero victims as undesirable, provided the perfect setup for their later mistreatment by a “reformed” FEMA. The presidential executive order suspending the Davis-Bacon law and the nullification of all affirmative action regulations sent further messages informing the storm wracked Blacks that they had been permanently profiled as unworthy of the regular protections and benefits of their government.
Ninety-eight percent of Blacks understand what most Americans refuse to acknowledge: That the truly dangerous and costly corruption was not exposed by the looting of the New Orleans supermarkets. No, the massive, systematic no bidding contract process now underway on the Gulf Coast for Halliburton and other Bush crony entrepreneurs is crime running rampant. Third World citizens are not the only populations endangered by the corrupt behavior of their leaders. Decision making, driven by the criminal upward distribution of wealth by our greedy Republican rulers has made America a nation at great risk.
Massacres from General Nathan Bedford Forrest at Fort Pillow, to New York’s “Black Monday,” to the Charleston, South Carolina and the Tulsa, Oklahoma violent Black community destructions combined with the petty racism of everyday life; all of this never ending pressure has probably permanently altered the group political consciousness DNA of African-Americans. The new ninety-eight percent disapproval rate for George Bush is a high point for a trend of consistent African-American voting for Presidents. Why can’t more gullible mainstream Americans acquire similar insights? Why does the average American still want a President that they can feel comfortable with schmoozing over a beer in a bar? African-Americans want a President who through his policies will guarantee that they can afford to purchase that bottle of beer.
Using a label that is meant to be a demeaning slur, the media frequently refers to Blacks as “bread and butter voters”. But in truth most voters are concerned first about economic issues. Certainly, the most influential and richest Republicans are concerned about tax cuts, insider trading opportunities, no bid contracts, earmarked legislative favors, etc. Concern for individual or group economic well-being is an appropriate position. But it is the obsession with maximizing advantages and the perks of “white privilege” that creates the venomous political poison threatening the survival of American democracy as it should be.
African Americans see a White House regime, which maximizes already excessive “white privileges” at their expense. To force taxes lower the privileged have abandoned urban public schools all over America. The revenue starved New Orleans has produced the worst school system in America. The lack of arrangements for the transport of the poor out of the flood was just one of many examples of deadly public sector neglect. Is it absurd to ask the question; are we the only developed nation without a publicly financed universal health care program because whites don’t want to see minorities getting more free services?
Is it possible that this drop of the President’s approval among African Americans rating to two percent will become a bonus for the Republican Southern strategy advocates who have been recently overshadowed by moderate “apologizing” Republicans? Will there be a new right-wing battle cry to just write off the African American vote? This ninety-eight percent disapproval rate is a landmark in polling statistics. Democrats must monitor the fallout diligently.