The 2022 Georgia U.S. Senate race taught us a great deal about Black victimhood in elite and otherwise electoral processes in so many disturbing though instructive ways. The most expected lesson learned was how two celebrity Black men, one formerly in elite sports and one in elite public ministry were exploited by elite White politicians in both parties more interested in achieving their power control and amenities games than being concerned with the plight of the massive poor ;especially poor Black people.
After all, the former celebrity athlete was so confident in the conservative White vote he would receive, he publicly denied racism existed and did not bother to reach out to Black communities, poor and otherwise .And following the 2016 Trump script , assumed his soiled past with women would not hurt him, in fact strangely it would help him as did Trump who received the lionshare of the White women vote in that Presidential election year.Though he forgot he was a Black man running for office, especially in a deep southern state where Black men used to be lynched for just not crossing the street when a White woman passed.
And in a paradoxically similar vein, his seemingly progressive opponent is pastor of a celebrated Black church, where incidentally, I was once a member , renowned for letting White and other camera toting cut off blue jeans tourists in for Sunday morning worship services . Church leaders would provide early morning food for the Black poor living around the corner but did not welcome them into the same morning services as the White tourists were allowed to roam around taking pictures of worshiping parishioners, such as myself. What matters to his White party sponsors as a reliable Biden administration supporter as a single issue Senator ,is that he gives inspirational Congressional floor speeches about voting rights and beloved Black Atlanta civil rights icons. And back home in Atlanta, like his defeated lacky opponent he will more than likely not stand in the way of the planned bipartisan breakaways of Buckhead and other affluent white metropolitan Atlanta areas thus stripping the inner city of vital revenue for public and social services.
In the Georgia Senate race,to be a Black minister claiming to be from such a humble background as a Black man with such monumental party financial backing: making public fun of a maligned Black male opponent with the assistance of a former Black male U.S. President with his own identity issues and patronizing views about poor Black people ,took the meaning of Black victimhood to another unprecedented level. Or perhaps it meant , to a gleeful dominant White media,we Black folks finally have arrived in indulging in well financed Black male on male media induced emotional violence rather than taking a high moral road and refusing to destroy a human being already down for the count.
And the pathetic tragedy of the whole grotesque theatric performance of racist victimhood electoral identity politics at its lowest possible level was the deadening indifferent silence of elite Black women political maneuvers like Stacey Abrams and Kamala Harris with their own Black male issues and as well , the strange silence or perhaps blacked out Black male advocacy organizations as the disgraceful Black on Black male degradation Senate race in Georgia advanced on prime time. And let us not forget the silence of mainstream Black media talking heads and the NonBlack progressive ones who just stood by or joined in on the taunting fun of two Black guys going at it.
Once the data is more fully in and analyzed it will more than likely demonstrate Georgia as an illustration of the error the American left like the left in other African Slavery Legacy Societies such as Brazil has made in dismissing the relevance of evangelicals and otherwise deeply religious voters who are Black and otherwise NonWhite as well as White. It is one of the reasons why the 2022 Senator race was so close in Georgia as well as in the recent Presidential election in Brazil where many Afro-Brazilians voted for the religious sounding right wing incumbent rather than for his seemingly secular leftist challenger as if voting against their interests though not entirely when it comes to their most fundamental moral – religious values. The conservative Republican Georgia Senatorial candidate, when on focus, was appealing not only to Whites with deep religious beliefs but also Blacks who were turned off by the highly secular Black minister Democrat candidate with no authentic ties to poor black communities.
It is the reason why on the national level in 2020 Trump as the Republican Presidential candidate received more Black votes than his predecessors since 1960.This was in large part due to Trump’s appeal to Black and Latino evangelical and other deeply religious conservative voters who view themselves as victims in a secular nation increasingly infringing on their religious rights.
Or/ and there is the tweedy dee tweedy dumb syndrome which contributed to the Black Georgian nonvote among the deeply religious.
Until left seeming parties in African Slavery Legacy Societies such as Brazil, South Africa, and USA figure out how to attract deeply religious voters rather than writing them off to seemingly right wing religious oriented parties, winning elections will continue to be close if not lost; especially in the more conservative areas in their societies such as the American deep south.
The end result of this most perplexing matter at hand is the wonderment I have regarding how much all we Blacks were morally lynched by what happened in Georgia. And so has the rest of America been shamed for allowing such a pathetic show to occur on the world stage.
No matter the party affiliation, Georgia deserves Black representation in the Senate which is solid as a rock rather than representation by tweedy dee or tweedy dumb. And for those who ask why should we expect Black Senators from Georgia to be any different than past pathetic Georgian White male and female predecessors or embarrassing White male and female Senators presently representing other States like Arizona, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, or West Virginia. Surely that is a good point.
But we must start somewhere such as in Georgia that when Blacks are put up by any party with winning potential, competent competitive Black candidates not afraid to be independent and speak their minds get the nod rather than those feeling beholden to patronizing White bosses such as Donald “I Love Kanye West ” Trump or Joe ” You are Black Only If You Vote For Me ” Biden.
Especially young Black voters of major winnable parties must start raising their voices about being tired of being used and victimized and then ignored and dropped once an election is over even when White beholden Black clowns are elected to office. And this can be done now like no other past time due to the nation’s changing demographics in electoral politics like in other areas of American life.
We no longer have to allow parties to use patronizing styles of racialized identity politics to put up Black clowns.And when they do, we must hotly criticize them and refuse to vote for them. Even if it means not voting at all if no party on the ballot offers suitable candidates.
Irrespective of our ancestry,age , socioeconomic status, or political persuasions, those of us who know what time in America it is, need to let the Trumps and Bidens of the world and the parties they lead with so much patronizing racial identity politics baggage to step aside so their parties can transform into more authentically inclusive institutional instruments of democracy or wither away as we create more viable parties for a more genuine interacially inclusive democracy .
The Presidential election year 2024 must be a transition year seeing the waning of arrogant patronizing White male/ female electoral power and assure something new emerges in the 2028 Presidential year with more effective representatives of all hues valuing the building of a multiracial American democracy in need of finding its way authentically rather than evading and denying its inclusive essence due to White Supremacy painfully wobbling on its last leg.