Voter resentment defining 2012

Obama’s re-election hub in Chicago sent young guns from California to seal Florida for the campaign. So far they are way less than helpful with regard to Florida’s enormous black Democrat Party base.

A budding political storm heading toward Florida — and beyond — that could either engulf the state or dissipate before hitting directly is filled with heavy clouds of black resentment for both major political parties. While being taken for granted by the Democrat Party and ignored by the Republican Party is old fare among black voters, black Democrats expect different treatment from President Obama.

Exacerbating problems for black voters in the bellwether state of Florida and across America is the lack of accountability of black elected officials and political party operatives. And, of course, the mostly unattended multifaceted social problems besetting black America do not help foster political and economic development. 

In Florida alone, both major political parties on the 2012 campaign trail have already spent multi-millions of dollars. And the Obama and Romney camps here are spending more millions.  If even a miniscule number of black businesses were benefiting from this largess, would it not be prudent to publicize that information? So, since no information like that has been made public, well, what do you think?

Black disappointment with Obama stems from a perceived notion that he is afraid to stand up for black people. Actually, Obama is more than wary of white nationalism and its power to cast  aspersions, including charging that he is a so-called racist.
There, again, out there with no black troops – without the more than 100,000 black elected officials in America, churches, Greek-letter organizations and a multiplicity of civic, civil rights and social groups — organized as a collective, he had best be cool.
Florida black Republicans actively supported Republican Gov. Rick Scott during the 2010 campaign but not Marco Rubio, who won a three-way race for the U.S. Senate. Rubio, also a Republican, shied away from black voters of either major party.

However, Rubio assiduously worked behind the scenes to keep black Democrat Congressman Kendrick Meek of Miami in the Senate race to take black votes from then Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican who ran for the U.S. Senate as an independent. And the classic move worked.

Political and economic events in Florida may be foreshadowing 2012 as a redefining year for America, given the number of other states that are similarly politicized. Last month, according to the Sun Sentinel, Florida had almost 15,000 new home foreclosure
filings, “an 83 percent increase from May of last year.”

Many citizens of the world believe that young Trayvon Martin was profiled, hunted and slain for being black and wearing a hoodie in the rain. And that happened in white nationalist Sanford. George Zimmerman, the 27-year-old white shooter, awaits trial. ‘Stand your ground’ laws, American justice and the Constitution promise to be strenuously argued in court, in the media and on the streets, just about everywhere.

Racial profiling, stop-and-frisk policy, police brutality, voter-suppression laws, undocumented persons and immigration, Wall Street gambling and taxpayer bailouts, corporate environmental pollution, workers’ rights and more are trends that spell a radical increase in American inequality.  

The question is this: Will American politics swing back to embrace true democracy or continue to plunge headlong into fascism and the abyss?

Let us remember the admonition of that great 19th century black Republican, Frederick Douglass, who wrote, “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

Al Calloway is a longtime journalist who began his career with the Atlanta Inquirer during the early 1960s civil rights struggle. He may be reached at Al_Calloway@verizon.net