By Teka Lark (November 8, 2016)
Thousands of poor Black families were hurt owing to Bill Clinton’s welfare reform, which also criminalized poverty. 2.5 million people were deported under Obama.
Totally cool with your support for Hillary. I get it, but please don’t think your vote is helping me as a Black woman. The Democratic Party does not care about my Blackness except during Presidential elections and even then the most the Democratic Party will pay for my vote is a chicken dinner.
Your vote for the Democratic Party isn’t stopping institutional racism or nationalism.
If you are white and middle class I advise you to vote to save yourself, because the only thing that will happen with a Trump presidency is a speeding up of the freefall of the petite bourgeoisie , creative class etc…whatever is known as the middle class. The few of the non-one percent left in fantasyland will get to see the reality that the rest of us live right now.
Vote to give your class another 50 years, because I don’t see this lasting beyond that.
I will be fine regardless of who wins. My family has been here since the 1700s. We survived slavery, Jim Crow and Reagan. My Blackness will be fine.
You are not going to stop economic oppression of the lower classes by voting for Hillary. You do know that Latinos, Native Americans and Black people are being oppressed right now?
Native Americans, Latinos and Black people are being murdered right now. We are being denied housing right now. We’re being rounded up and jailed right now, so this doomsday scenario for you is already real for us right now.
If social justice is your point with your Democratic Party vote then there are a few more effective things you might want to do rather than continue marching along with the neoliberals.
Now if you want to save your gallery hopping, late model car driving and can afford a root canal a year lifestyle then vote for Hillary. By all means do that, but that isn’t being radical, that is self preservation and that is cool.
I am pro me too.
Since I am pro-me I am saying that Hillary isn’t going to help my institutional racism situation, she may help my creative class situation, but institutional racism, nationalism, brutal capitalism, cops stopping me and other Black people for fun? No, Hillary won’t stop that…so if that is why you are voting for her, well…you should come up with a better reason like you like preserving your present day lifestyle.
Social justice has nothing to do with your Hillary vote or the Hillary campaign and that is OK, but you are not radical or groundbreaking.
Your Hillary vote doesn’t make you the bigger person. You get no cookies or thanks from me for not voting for Trump.
What you can do if you really want to make change is support building institutions that are making economic and social change and support them year around not just during the Presidential elections.
A new world is possible, but corporate America isn’t going to pay for it or help elect it.
Teka Lark is a journalist, poet and satirist based in the Metropolitan New York area. She is the founder of the Blk Grrrl Book Fair, Feminist Preschool www.FeministPreschool.com and the author of the upcoming book, Queen of Inglewood, to be published on Word Palace Press
The premise of your tamped down tirade is solid but the conclusions regarding anyone’s vote for HRC are really presumptive and risk being way off the mark for millions. Also,
“Social justice has nothing to do with your Hillary vote or the Hillary campaign …” is simply wrong headed rounded out with who needs to characterize caring as “groundbreaking” or “radical”? Then, “institutional racism, nationalism, brutal capitalism, cops stopping me and other Black people for fun? No, Hillary won’t stop that”, as she would not have been dictator I don’t think she would have either; but she would have most, most likely consistently, continually, and publicly confront the forces and figureheads of the perpetrators. All in all, your stance is polarizing,if not to a degree toxic as if that is what we need now or ever.
I really have an issue with the only thing that I have as a bargaining chip is my life. The only thing I want isn’t just for the police to not murder me. The narrative of Black people begging for their lives is dehumanizing and lazy.
I have zero intentions of working with people who feel that me even implying anything, but flowers and candy about Hillary is polarizing.
As people point out over and over again, almost 50% of people didn’t vote. I am more interested in working with them and people who voted third party. I am done with people who want to work with corporate America and want to bomb people here and overseas.
You’re dreaming. Hill and Billy snd Trump are two sides of the same coin. Black folks are the Dem’s sidechick. Their main squeeze are the neoliberalism as stated above. The author hit the mark. Bullseye.
I completely agree with you Teka. I’m from Italy, and I know very well what is to vote for the “less worse”: a slow dispossessing of all that makes your life dignifying human and free. Against Berlusconi there used to be a left composed by chic,rich,intellectualized swindlers wanting to save as more “Power chairs” as possible, as well as their fortune. People thought that voting for them was a duty in order to defeat Berlusconi. Result: Berlusconi kept winning, even when the left was able to win for a few months (then an impeachment used to come), during which the “leftist” government has been able to give more to Berlusconi and the powerful subjects than what could Berlusconi himself. Obviously after the impeachment Berlusconi came back to rule and distruction of whatever right and wealth gained through the centuries was spreading. After 20 yrs of this,when we got used to the NOTHING and the VULGAR, Italy has been firmly catched into the hand of IMF, ECB, WCB.
At each election, the number of the NON-VOTERS was rising up, we reached the 60%. No one looked at this group, tried to build an ideology, a cohesion on principles, a vision of a possible equal, dignifying, wealthy (in terms of well-being and freedom), cooperative society. we split one from the other, we became indivdualistic and superficial (They, not We..).
What I want to say is that voting the less worst is a very big bad mistake, and there’s only one way to be consequent with our deep principles and opinions and not betray ourselves or be manipulated as sheeps: it is to stand firmly on our principles and have the courage to not vote. while joining with the others and discuss together an alternative