Ozy Reigns

A Black Man Votes

Do you know that meme that depicts how dusty the hood is when Democrats are in the White House, then a picture of how dusty the hood is when Republicans are in office? Except, you guessed it, it's the same picture both times. Nothing changed. As a southern boy who grew up in a lower-middle-class Black family, I concur with the idea that nothing fundamentally changes in working-class and poor households, no matter which party is in the White House. It's a damn shame because our brightest Black leaders were shouting the same thing over 60 years ago. I'm an Independent. I've mostly voted Democrat as about 88% of Black male voters usually do, according to 2018 midterm exit polls. There's been talk lately that Black men vote selfishly, and somehow, we are not for the countries betterment. However, these numbers don't support that theory. While it is factual that Black women vote at higher rates than we do, it's Black people as a whole who hold the party up. We know that Black women have always been on the right side of history, from Harriet Tubman to Fannie Lou Hamer to Tamika Mallory. They hold this entire planet down. With that said, the Democratic Party owes Black people in a major way. According to exit polls, 82% of Black men and 94% of Black women voted for Clinton in 2016, while 63% of white men and 53% of white women voted for Trump. Now tell me again, who needs a good tongue lashing? Latinx support for Clinton was only in the '60s as well. I think that when the Democrats do better, support will be better. They suck right now. There's no wonder the calls to allow a third party have grown. The Democratic Party has become Republican Lite, while the Republican Party has become The 4th Reich. Both the Republican and Democratic establishments do share the same undying loyalty to special interest groups, billionaire donors, and corporations that pay them. Clearly, I'm not a fan of either party or their 2020 presidential candidates, but one guy wants to punish journalists he doesn't like, and the other doesn't. One of them wants to jail his political opponents, and that same cantaloupe-colored clown labels human rights activists as terrorists, but NOT murderous white supremacists like Dillon Roof and Kyle Rittenhouse.