First let me preface that I have spent a good deal of my time since 2000 encouraging young black men to cast aside their cynicism towards the Democratic Party. So it stuns me to occasionally drop in at DU and see the excitement and yes, the HOPE, that the Obama campaign is generating receive such open contempt and suspicion. Understand, when LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act most blacks were staunch Republicans. The racists were, by in large, good-old Southern Democrats who were far from happy to join hands with their grandfather's former property.
It has taken the forty years since then to revive the Democratic Party. But as the old guard dies out we see a vital NEW South emerging that can be ours in the very near future. So for the sake of your party and our country please do not let fear sour what promises to be a positive and transformative moment in U.S. history. Of course Obama is not perfect, but what he does possess is what leadership requires above all else: a sense to know WHEN the TIME to ACT is right.
Do not think the Republicans are not eagerly waiting to exploit our divisions.
Some Thoughts On Black Voting Trends *
Despite the Civil Rights establishment's rhetoric about the "tidal wave" of Black voter turnout in the 2000 elections, and notwithstanding the net increase of one million voters over 1996, the overall trendline of the Black vote has been on a downward spiral since 1968. At best, the Black vote in 2000 marked a return to 1988 voting levels when turnout was 51.5%.
·Despite Democrat forays into the Black youth vote, a substantial
number of new Black youth voters continue to trend toward registering
as Independents. Black youth voters identification and loyalty to the
Democratic remains weak.
http://groups.msn.com/BlackRepublicanNetwork/blackvote.msnwAll I ask of you DUers I deeply admire: trust your better angels. In the end the CHANGE is up to US.
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