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Forget Black Voter Suppression, How About Black Voter Depression?

September 16, 2016 - 6:00am

Remember the video of first-grader Kameria crying hysterically when she found out President Obama soon would be leaving office? Her grandmother, Caprina Harris, uploaded the video to Facebook and it went viral. Eventually, it was seen by President Obama and little Kameria and her family received an invitation to the White House to visit with the President and the First Lady.

What a lucky little girl.

She got to do something millions of Americans will never get to do. She visited President Obama and Michelle Obama at the White House.

This little girl cried outwardly as millions more are crying inwardly, coming to terms with the fact that this extraordinary man will soon be leaving the Oval Office. He will soon be leaving us. 

The first, and possibly only, black president, will be gone Jan. 20, 2017.

Smokey Robinson once sang, "Take a good look at my face ... you see my smile looks out of place ... if you look closer, it's easy to trace ... the tracks of my tears ..."

Black Americans are experiencing political depression and political withdrawal in the fast-approaching end of what we consider one of the greatest presidencies in modern American history.

This silver-tongued, principled statesman saved our economy. He saved the auto industry. He provided health care for many Americans, with the Affordable Care Act, now affectionately known as Obamacare.

President Obama won our hearts and convinced us he had grit, grind, and game, not only when he gave his first speech at the DNC convention in 2004, but when he beat back the Clinton machine to win the Democratic nomination for president, something no other black person had done before. We were determined to do all we could to help get this man elected.

Contrary to all those who claim credit for the overwhelming turnout of African Americans when Barack Obama was at the top of the ticket, that was not the case. No one other than Barack Obama himself got African Americans to turn out in record numbers at the polls. Sorry to burst your bubble, but "he did that!"

Despite the high percentages that Hillary Clinton enjoys with the number of African Americans voting for her compared to Donald Trump, her turnout will NEVER equal that of Barack Obama's. 

She just isn't loved the way he is in the black community, despite the percentage of black people who vote for her compared to Trump.

She never will be.

Black people can empathize and identify with President Obama. The unrelenting opposition he faced, and continues to face even in his last days in office, in the form of mean, nasty, ugly, racist hatred, is quite familiar to all of us. From the older generation to the younger generation, the sting of racism still exists in some way, shape, or form today. 

Guess what, though? We witnessed this man, this PRESIDENT, take the opposition's best shots over and over. We watched him take a licking and keep right on ticking. We watched him brush his shoulder off, time and time again.

When President Obama told the world that if he had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon Martin, it infuriated parts of White America, but it made Black America beam with pride. We fell in love with him all over again. A president of the United States of America owned one of our sons as a father figure. That had never happened before.

Our children could look at the First Family and actually see themselves.

That had never happened before either.

The Obamas are the real-deal family of excellence and character. They have withstood the storms, naysayers and rock throwers, those who shouted liar, those who jumped the White House fence, even though we wondered how that repeatedly happened with Secret Service supposedly there to protect our First Family.

Then again, Secret Service has been very lacking since the Obamas have taken up residence in the White House. But I won't get into all the prostitutes, drinking, etc., since at any point I COULD come up missing! (Just kidding, y'all, don't come after me!)

History gives black people a resiliency to bounce back from racism in its various forms of economic, social, and political oppression.

At this moment, however, we don't have history, or a manual to guide us through the emotional and psychological depression we are now going through within our souls, hearts, and minds.

This is deep.

We have never had to go through losing OUR President before.

Let's face it. That is what's happening here. We are losing OUR president.

It is this reality that no one has addressed. Looking at it from the perspective of Florida, but probably from across the country as well, this explains why the turnout is so low. Broward County is the largest Democratic county in Florida, and yet it had the lowest turnout of all 67 counties in the state.

I had a friend tell me that in a predominantly black precinct in his area, where there were 1,100 registered voters, only about 100 actually voted  -- that's combining absentee/early/Election Day voters.
 
I wonder how many times this scenario played out during the primaries, and will play out in November.

The same old tired lip service by the same old tired white Democratic Party "handlers" will not work this time. The people who bragged that they "got the black vote" out when Barack Obama was on the ticket are going to learn that "fat meat is greasy," as my grandmother used to say, because they're going to learn that they really didn't get the black vote out. We came out because of Barack Hussein Obama.

I'm telling you now, and you can listen or not, that mailers, radio ads, television ads, featuring President Barack Obama will not work. The reason they won't work is because we know that once he is gone, he is gone. A facsimile won't do. He will be off somewhere playing golf, and we still will have to deal with whoever is in office, so we have to know that we can trust YOU, and history has shown us that all the black voting bloc has been is just that, a voting bloc.

You don't get trust by osmosis. You don't get black cred by osmosis. You don't become President Obama by osmosis.

Why should the black community vote for you? You haven't offered solutions to our failing schools, high unemployment rates, unequal justice system, systemic racism, and the list goes on. The fact is, you don't even court our vote. You take it for granted that we will vote Democratic because we always have. 

The black community knows we will not receive much from The Democratic Party. Hell, you guys won't even hire black consultants to get out the black vote! Before you start saying the Republican Party does less, that doesn't win you any prizes because less than nothing is still nothing!

The questions "do black lives matter" and do black votes matter" are inextricably tied because if Democrats don't start acting like they are linked, and I mean REALLY acting like they are to the extent that there is no doubt in the minds and faith of black voters, Hillary Clinton can and will be defeated in November and you will be staring a President Donald Trump. That is a scary thought, but not as scary as death!
 
You see, black people are still being killed by police. A killing happened recently in Pompano Beach. Greg Frazier is dead and now we have to figure out why. We have to get people into office who are truly going to be concerned about these issues.

Hillary Clinton trotted the "mothers of the movement" all around the country when she was looking for the black vote. I'm sure she will trot them around again. Optics are great, but people are still dying. When you see these mothers all dressed up and attending these lavish affairs, then you turn back to your communities and see the numbers of killings still growing, you have to ask yourself some questions. What is being accomplished, other than optics? The number of mothers is growing because the number of deaths is growing.

We need people in office who are actually going to do something.

We are losing our president and continuing to lose our lives. How much are we expected to  take?

Black voter depression is real, and you're seeing it. The question is, what are you going to do about it, Democrats?


Leslie Wimes is founder and president of Women On The Move, and the Democratic African American Women Caucus, www.daawc.com.

Comments

It's a shame that those of you commenting on this article don't seem to get it. I was going to try to explain what Ms. Wimes was saying, and then it dawned on me that those who get it, get it, and those who don't, never will. Well done Ms. Wimes! This explains exactly what I have been feeling regarding this election and President Obama leaving The White House. Thank you for putting it into words.

If you were referring to a subsequent second Black President with the character potential of a Walter Williams, a Thomas Sowell, or even anyone like them, I could accept your criticism "Barbara"; BUT America rushed to elect the "community organizer" JUST BECAUSE he was Black, and JUST BECAUSE (after the '60s Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King's hope for America) ALL of America felt "it was time". Obama let EVERYONE down, and thus, it will be some time before America forgets his divisiveness and duplicity, as well as his (and his Father's) disdain for America. However, if you're ALREADY bemoaning the absence of our failed FIRST "Black President", you are a "lockstep lemming" continuing towards the cliff who is "out of touch" with reality....the reality that our "first Black President" did nothing for you, or any of us, but "shower" us with disappoint us.

Ms. Wimes, you finally dissappoint me; I have such high hopes for you filling the role as "speaker" for Black Floridians... But you have obviously partaken of the "media kool-ade". I too had high hopes for our "First Black President"; But you ARE correct in your statement that "the first, and possibly only, Black President will soon be gone"; and there is only one person to blame for that prediction, " Barak Hussein Obama". He has surpressed America's desire for a 'second' Black President anytime soon, just as he has "set Martin Luther King 'spinning' in his grave" by recreating "class divisiveness" all over again in a mere eight years. Rest assured, we WILL have another Black President one day in the future, and probably a Woman President also, but they won't be representative of the seriously flawed 'examples' we are currently experiencing in today's Democrat Party (nor those harkening back to the "Lyndon Johnson days" when he prescribed harm to the Black community by his edicts). Currently, the ONLY "hope" for me, and YOU, and ALL Americans as well as the AMERICA we always reminisce about can ONLY be found in Donald Trump; We must begin again with a new, clean slate, and disregard the "usual duplicitous political doublespeak".

And what has President Obama done, in 8 years, about "failing schools, high unemployment rates, unequal justice system, systemic racism"? What solutions has Hillary offered? And since the answer is "none", are you not left with the conclusion that the black vote is, in fact regarded by the Democrats as just a voting block?

.....and all along, I thought he was half white and elected to represent all Americans. Thanks for clearing up that misconception.

Excellent observation!!!!

Where to start about this article???? Rather than the "savior" you paint Obama to be, he has NOT served ALL of our country well. It's him who is racist because he views everything from the black side of his heritage. He's supposed to be the President of the whole country not just the black side. Not only that failure but his fawning to the Muslim world has put this country in jeopardy. They have no respect or fear of America because he has proven time after time that he is weak and a sympathizer of our enemies. Obama has done more damage to this country than ANY previous White House resident and we can't wait until he is gone.

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