…the Boogey Man, Santa Claus or Big Foot, you MUST see this:
Then you must realize that it is only a symptom of our problem. And if you see this, shrug your shoulders and mumble, well, “I’m gonna vote anyway,” I’ll ask you what Private Peterson asked Sgt. Waters in ‘A Soldiers’ Story:’ “What kind of colored man are you?!”
If your vote can be “disappeared like a Chilean radical” what is it worth? If you have no power to control the counting of your vote, you have no power or vote. Voting isn’t a video game, but it is today. And while people did sacrifice their lives for the right to cast a ballot that could change their lives – that change was always symbolic and very limited. Too many of us accord voting magical powers, when if you ever look at it, the benes never trickle down: accept in payoffs to get the people’s vote on or near an election.
People did NOT die to have their vote deleted like this. And that is where the real fight is: changing a system that is rife with these kind of double entendre mechanisms – slavery that masquerades as freedom, entry to a voting booth – if they don’t delete your registration first – that is a toilet bowl for black ballots.
Some black folks complain that its wrong not to vote; I argue that its wrong to vote as long as this voting psychosis is in reality, a maze for black rats to rush into, get lost in an have their hopes squandered in its cheese-less environs. I’d rather us deal with our healing, create real community (virtual or otherwise), real agency within our ranks.
There is so much work to do that is completely avoided and siphoned into white institutions of oppression. Our men and women too often adopt high and mighty poses; they wear these frightful, faux pro-black militant wigs that conceal rape, incest, self hate, internalized racism, sexism, homophobia, half-n-half-ism. Looking in the mirror can be the most revolutionary action a person can take; and its avoided like the plague.
Its a slave mentality to think that the great white father, great beige father or Miss Anne is gonna do a damn thing for you. Meanwhile, we stare at each other, disparage each other, ridicule each other. We never go near the post traumatic slave syndrome oozing out of us, never sit in the shrink’s chair and get emotionally or spiritually butt nekkid and really get at the source of our dis-ease. The people who talk about keeping it real the most are the most terrified of truth, the most terrified of their own black selves.
We have refined our spiritual cowardice into a fine art.
I hate no one, but I crave black folks who can see through the dance of the seven veils. Enjoy this video as a reminder that reality is layered and littered with mirages, seen and unseen. Our job as a community should be to keep tearing down illusion and supporting that deconstruction internally and externally.
(Hat tip to Dark Daughta for…a lot!)
afrospear.wordpress.com 
How does not voting fix the problem of hackable voting machines? I’ve seen a variety of circumstances where boycotting an election has taken place and I have never seen it reap positive results. Rather than give up the vote it would make more sense to support efforts that either demanded a paper trail for electronic machines or that only used paper ballots. Considering the fact that elected officials determine what areas to assist and send money to by their voting turnout, your condemnation of the effort to vote is not just a poor strategy, it’s irresponsible. What you are advocating is not fighting against a corrupt system, its a decision to just lie there and take it.
Brandon, you only read 1/4 of the post. I said there are MANY things that black people need to do that far exceed voting AND our religious faith in voting. We can’t heal our fractured communities through voting; that will happen man to man, woman to woman, woman to man, etc. We have lost what little cohesion we’ve had as a people. Instead, we play the voting booth like the lotto machine – with the same chances of “winning.”
I suggested, though you didn’t read it, that we can win far more by dealing with our self hate, getting some therapy, talking to/mentoring some young kids who need it. No ballot can make you magically do that.
Its irresponsible to maintain the lie that a proxy, a substitute will do for you what you can do for yourself. What I suggested is that the vote means little when you cast it; that it can be so easily “disappeared” assures that it has NO meaning.
If we aren’t going to ensure that the process is completely free of corruption (which we haven’t), then we should put that work in internally – where it is, perhaps, less likely to be corrupted and can bear REAL fruit. I have NO faith, that an unfettered ballot, cast in a racist/white supremacist country and culture, can or will liberate black people, or any other people.
Being a “Slave to the rhythm” of voting is foolhardy, myopic and deadly. And please don’t think we’re in this predicament because “we don’t vote.” We’re in this position because white men, like Bill Clinton, who we voted for in droves and is our so-called ‘black president,’ presided over the massive increase in caging black men and women. AND, when he was governor of Arkansas, he was one of the most corrupt, drug dealing/using pimps this side of the Mack. (Watch this film if you have the stomach for it: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6470450895164255089)
We need to BUILD our own support systems that can breathe life back into a dead people.
*clapping*…amen, amen…i keep trying to tell people the same thing…people argue that the ancestors would be rolling in their graves to know that we have the right to vote and don’t…i argue that they would roll more to know that we sheepishly vote, believing it will change something when we have consistently been shown otherwise…i refuse to vote anymore, after bush stole two elections and ‘we’ did nothing…i can not vote…it goes against what i believe in…i will work on improving the community/society, in my own way so that one day, the vote can actually mean something…splendid post…so relevant…more people need to read this…and understand too that you aren’t saying don’t vote and sit at home and do nothing…three thumbs up…
I read the whole thing. Of the many flaws we have as a community, blind faith in the power of the vote is not one of them. I actually worked to register voters in African American communities and I worked in state government after an election and irrational cynasism is something I had to overcome to get African Americans to become active voters. The way that elected officials determine where to put resources and spend time in between elections is based on voter turn out. Money and votes determine elections, for people without financial resources the only way they can influence elected officials is with the vote. If you live in a poor area voting is how you get attention, regardless as to who is in power. If the people do not have money and do not vote how do they influence those in power? If you don’t have a concrete applicable strategy to affect change or to gain influence without voting, then what you are arguing for is the political disarmament of African Americans. The voting process is in danger from those who would use technology to rig it, and we should fight this. If you do not believe in the effectiveness of voting what is your alternative route to gaining power for our people?
Brandon, do you believe that black people are intelligent, creative people?
Absolutely, I have great faith in our people. What is your alternative strategy to voting?
Brandon: I wrote a very long post and a very long response to you.
But I’ll break it down for you further:
If black people are going to vote – and I do not recommend it – before they do, they need to organize themselves around “group interests.” We should ask ourselves (if we are talking Presidential politics) “what can this person do for our people?” “Who OWNS that person, meaning what special interests is that candidate beholden to?” Votes are the means for that person taking office; dollars determine how that politician BEHAVES in office.
Now, if we repeatedly vote for candidates who say they are going to do “X” for us; and those candidates are owned by “Y,” and they end up doing “Z” as in Zero for black people, then we need to do a couple of things:
Begin building another grassroots movement that destroys the current electoral system and creates another – that removes big money, eliminates electronic voting, allows candidates of principle and of little means to compete with anybody, public funded election, free advertisements on television (remember, the airwaves belong to us; but they’ve been handed over to corporate entities. This must be ended as well). The two party system monopoly must be abolished, and of course, money is at the root of it. The two parties cooperate to prevent more participation, prevent third parties. More importantly, there is general conspiracy to prevent “alternate perspectives,” like the fact that many countries have far more progressive political-economic-healthcare configurations than we do in “the land of the free.” The rules to become a “legitimate” party on the ballot are weighted to make it almost impossible to get one going. And again, requiring the purchase of airtime on the “public airwaves” means that the rich get their message across and the poor are fucked.
Now, forget politics. What else can black people do? As I said, voting can’t make us organize our communities to fight crime, drug dealers, the influx of drugs dropped into our community by the government, police brutality, abandoned children, unsafe sex practices, tutoring, mentoring. Obama can’t do that shit for us, right?! So we, in our hometowns MUST get organized.
Study the Black Panthers. They weren’t perfect, but they got some things done. Study SNCC, SCLC, the Montgomery Boycott. How were they able to get black people to rally around a cause or causes? How did they move people to sacrifice for a larger goal or goals? See, politicians, to quote Malcolm, are like novocaine; they tell you, “don’t worry, send me to Washington and I’ll take care of everything.” And we are dumb enough to believe them. They put us to sleep with their promises and symbolism. “Make a woman president/make a black man president.” Meanwhile, they are bought, sold and paid for by white capital.
Voting is the science of teaching people to outsource their liberation, their autonomy. These devils promote all of this rhetoric that they don’t believe in (yet we do) talking about how wonderful democracy is and alladat. They’ve never practiced it at any time in the existence of this country. Yet, we are going to “buy in” and hope that its gonna work for us, hope that that man or woman we “send” away to the Congress is gonna “work on our behalf.” That’s a fairytale by definition. We’ve been sold out in every form imaginable…and still we rise and claim voting is gonna set us free.
No, these strong black women and men got some serious shit done back in the day that can be a template for OUR WORK… why can’t we see this?
If you believe in our people then you should ask yourself, who taught you to look at voting as the holy sacrament. Voting is a tool, nothing more and a weak one at that. To keep using a tool because, “our people died trying to get it,” when it doesn’t work?! Our people in their graves would look at that like, “fool, what the hell are you doing?! We won’t you to win, not fetishize something that keeps you on the plantation!”
All of these “strategies” or “options” that I have described are the work that is necessary whether you walk into a voting booth or not. And this is by no means a comprehensive list, nor was it intended to be.
Vote if you want to but understand that it is of limited to no value. Until there is revolutionary electoral reform, the puppet masters, the ruling class, whatever you want to call them, will continue to bleed voting of any relevance or any usefulness to us.
I agree that voting is a tool, and I don’t think its a sacrament, I think its, when used pragmatically, a highly effective way of affecting policy. I also agree that we can’t depend solely on politicians, I’ve written on this very subject numerous times on my own site. The philosophy of Black nationalism, taking responsibility and control of our own communities, and voting don’t conflict. Voting is simply taking advantage of a tool that is useful, and for those who are unable to utilize capital, an essential one. I could try and explain how voting fits into the Black nationalist agenda and how it can be used effectively and pragmatically, but brother Malcolm said it better than I ever could in the “Ballot or the Bullet”