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After The US Election, What Awaits African Americans?

After The US Election, What Awaits African Americans?

By Yvonne Sam
PRIDE Columnist

yvonne-samWell the historic election of the century has come and gone. What with all the drama!

Thanks to providence, after a truly polluted campaign, fraught with name calling, hyperboles, leaks, assaults, death threats, innuendos and vulgarity, the American voting populace has chosen between an experienced, consummate political “insider” and a bombastic, don’t-mind-twisting-the-truth billionaire “outsider”.

Have tears or display fears, take it or fake it, but Americans have gotten the government they deserve, confirmation of which can be found in Job 3: 25 — “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me”.

Do not be judgmental or dismiss the statement as being depressive, as there were Christians, who found reasons to justify their vote for either of the nominees by quoting Biblical verses out of context, or by posing the evils of two lessors or lesser of the two evils argument.

However, the lingering question is, after the date what is our fate? What lays in wait? At the risk of sounding prophetic or the portender of doom and gloom, permit me to speak, but the future does appears bleak.

During the presidential debates, the nominees were asked what they intended to do in response to the problems facing African Americans, but then again as a people, we did not make appropriate and commensurate demands in that regard.

In other words, we heard a lot of rhetoric but no substantive reciprocal relationships with any of the candidates.

With topics ranging from the infamous email disposal, tax increase on the wealthiest Americans, ending of Obamacare, putting more money in the pockets of the average American, the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, Syrian refugees, to the most important aspect in selecting a Supreme Court judge, there was only one question pertaining to Black folks and it came from a Black man, CNN’s Don Lemon.

He selected the ridiculous question, Do Black lives matter or do all lives matter?

The 2016 presidential campaign has denigrated and belittled the Black Lives Matter movement, a further reminder that although progress has been made, race still mattered.

For Blacks it should matter very little who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, although we behave as though we possess the power to determine our own political destiny rather than accepting the fact that the inhabitants therein have total control.

The political problem now facing the Black community is the blatant lack of political involvement beyond voting, and a displayed failure to build political power based on an economic power base and our reliance on political symbolism over political substance.

Now that a Black president will soon be relegated to past history, our political engagement must be pragmatic and not some simplistic game, where Blacks are ignored once their so-called precious, much-sought- after votes have fulfilled its objective. T

he White House, irrespective of its occupants, should not be symbolic of the Right House, while Blacks are still faced with staggering unemployment, in addition to income and wealth inequality.

Permit me to advance a little further and clearly state that while politics is a reality, Blacks must create a new political reality for themselves. Plainly put in simple terms, or being politically correct it means setting political agendas that serve our purpose and primary interests, and not those of either party — Democrats or Republicans.

It matters little who has won; the time has come to switch from politics to economics.  Now that the election has come to an end, we must send to the world, at large, a clear message — no more BLAXPLOITATION, we are putting BLACKONOMICS in motion.

Yvonne Sam, a retired Head Nurse and Secondary School Teacher, is Vice-president of the Guyana Cultural Association of Montreal. A regular columnist for over two decades with the Montreal Community Contact, her insightful and incursive articles on topics ranging from politics, human rights and immigration, to education and parenting have also appeared in the Huffington Post, Montreal Gazette, XPressbogg and Guyanese OnLine. She is also the recipient of the Governor General of Canada Caring Canadian Citizen Award.

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