“I’ve Got News For You: ALL Holidays Are Made Up!”

A few weeks ago Black columnist Jonathan Capehart published a piece in the Washington Post declaring his agreement with far right Wisconsin State Senator (now US Congressman) Glenn Grothman that Kwanzaa is a “made up” holiday. Well, newsflash Capehart and Grothman…ALL holidays are made up! Someone (or some group of people) decide they want to commemorate something, they do some research to justify why their commemoration is worthy, and they lobby folks (sometimes governments) to get their commemoration on the calendar. Even the most sacred holidays are a result of someone deciding to place them on the calendar at a particular time. Most evidence suggests that the Christmas holiday which was started in the 4th century was probably placed in December to counteract the pagan celebrations around the Winter Solstice. Thanksgiving was instituted by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 not because Lincoln was a Pilgrim but because the nation was in the midst of a bloody Civil War. The holiday was “made up” to bring healing and unity. All Saints’ Day, celebrated in the Catholic church exists as a response to Halloween where once again pagans seemed to be celebrating evil or sinister spirits. Mothers’ Day was first celebrated in 1908, just 7 years before my own mother was born. Woodrow Wilson signed the proclamation in 1914 making it a national holiday. But it was Anna Jarvis who “made it up!”
One of my favorite episodes of the sit-com “Seinfeld” was the one where Jerry’s friend George Costanza explained his family’s celebration of “Festivus”–a holiday George’s dad made up to avoid having to spend money on Christmas. Instead of a tree, Festivus merely required an aluminum pole and was celebrated by the ritual of “airing of grievances” where people told each other about the things that disappointed them in the past year. The episode was really funny and made me think about the socially constructed nature of all holidays and celebrations. They have meaning because we GIVE them meaning.
Think about all of the holidays Americans celebrate–Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Fathers’ Day, Flag Day, Arbor Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Grand Parents’ Day, Columbus Day, Sweetest Day, Veterans’ Day, etc. They are ALL “made up!” Even New Year’s Day is not consistent across cultures. The Jewish New Year is different from the Chinese New Year which is different from the January first Julian calendar new year.
I am old enough to remember the activism that made the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday a reality. Although individual states had been celebrating Dr. King’s birthday for sometime, it took the work of people like entertainer Stevie Wonder, Senator Edward Brooke, and Congressman John Conyers to galvanize public sentiment and basically force Ronald Reagan to make it a holiday. Yes, it is a MADE UP Holiday.
So Kwanzaa was created in 1965, almost 2 decades before the MLK Holiday. It was designed expressly to counteract the commercialism of secular representations of Christmas (of course Santa Claus is real, right?). Borrowing from the customs of harvest in some African countries, Prof. Maulana Karenga culled principles that would uplift the Black community and remind the community that its history and heritage extends far beyond US History and especially far beyond slavery. The Nguzo Saba outlines powerful principles of unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, creativity, purpose, and faith
Had I continued to live in my native Philadelphia or my adopted home of the San Francisco Bay Area I probably would not devote much time to celebrating Kwanzaa. After all, I am a Christian who celebrates Christmas. But, more important in those two areas there are plenty of Black people who remind me of and support my cultural heritage. However, when we first moved to the upper Midwest in a city where only 5 percent of the residents are Black I was determined that my 6-year-old daughter would learn about and appreciate her heritage. Kwanzaa was Black cultural lifeline (and so was Juneteenth). So, is Kwanzaa a “made up” holiday? Indeed it is. Just like EVERY OTHER holiday!

Stay Black & Smart!

“Maybe Just A Little Separation”

In 1820 members of the African Colonization Society began a repatriation movement to return formerly enslaved Africans in the United States to the continent of Africa. Their settlement began as the Republic of Liberia. In 1917 Marcus Mosiah Garvey established the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) to help the African diaspora organize to return to the continent. In the 1960s the leader of the Nation of Islam, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad advocated for a separate section of the United States, located in the South, where Blacks in America could live in peace. Most African Americans have argued for the principle set forth in the landmark 1954, Brown v. Board of Education decision that said in public policy “separate is inherently unequal.” So, none of the proposals for a mass movement away from the rest of the nation, especially Whites, has ever taken root. As Black people we have wanted to be a part of the grand American experiment.
But, there have been moments! And today, after receiving the news of a Ferguson, Missouri grand jury that failed to indict police officer Derron Wilson for shooting young Michael Brown, Jr. to death. is one of those moments. To be sure, I would have been shocked if the grand jury returned a murder one indictment for the White police man. But I had hopes that perhaps a manslaughter charge could have been rendered. It was not to be. The news of no indictment hit many in the Black community hard. Like a lot of my friends I took to social media to vent my frustrations and at the same time many in Ferguson took to the streets. And, while no one wants to see the destruction of property, looting, and certainly not bodily harm I could truly understand the sentiments that led to each of those things. People were mad. They were upset. They were enraged. It all seemed so familiar. It all seemed so predictable. It all seemed so planned. And at the base of this familiar, predictable, plan was the death of an 18-year-old. And I understood that rage.
I understand what it feels like to be so voiceless and marginalized that the only thing you think you can do to get people to pay attention is to yell, scream, burn, loot, and destroy.
As I watched the news coverage of what was happening in Ferguson (and I will say that I got tired of seeing that one car burning) I was seething. How did we find ourselves back in this same place once again? How did we fall for this all over again?
And, while what happened with that grand jury in Ferguson impacted everyone who cares about justice I could feel my tolerance for listening to White voices lessening. I just wanted a little separation from people I felt couldn’t really share my pain. I wanted to crawl into a cocoon of black love and support. I wanted to be in a space where I didn’t have to explain everything. I just wanted to feel and to mourn an authentic Black moment. I didn’t want to hear from Iggy Azalea, Justin Bieber, or Robin Thicke. I was sick of white supremacy and the all encompassing whiteness that had made the Ferguson grand jury decision possible. As I drove my car to work and listened to the radio the White woman on my public radio affiliate began a rant about how much PROPERTY was lost because of “those people.” When I went into my building you would have thought there was a moratorium on speaking. People were amazingly silent and acting in that “if we don’t say anything maybe it will be all right” way. Of course I insisted that students in my class confront the Ferguson issue. I pointed out that they could not call themselves “critical” if they were unwilling to engage the critical issues of the moment.
But as for me…I just wanted some separation. I’d had enough of White folks. For at least the next 24-48 hours I didn’t want to concern myself with taking care of them, making them feel better, patting them on their backs and telling them that everything’s going to be all right. I just need a little separation.

“Magical Negroism”

Last week someone posted a link on my social media page about how White people want every Black person in their lives to be “Magical Negroes.” Of course Hollywood has fostered this notion in films like “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” with Will Smith, “Ghost” with Whoopi Goldberg, “The Green Mile” with Michael Clark Duncan, or “The Matrix” with Laurence Fishburne. Perhaps if Black people are magical that means they aren’t real and the society doesn’t have to deal with their real problems.
Of course, these magical qualities seem to extend beyond the mystical portrayals in the films listed above. How else can you explain “Scandal’s” Olivia Pope if she is not magical. She can fix ANYTHING! Even when we end up in subservient roles we are magical. Viola Davis’ portrayal as the maid in “The Help” was as a magical woman capable of loving a neglected little White girl despite having lost her own son to violence. Taraji P. Henson could magically love a wrinkled up Brad Pitt in “The Strange Case of Benjamin Buttons”
And, perhaps the sense of the magical Negro wouldn’t be so upsetting if it remained solely in the realm of art–movies, television, and literature. But increasingly I encounter this sense of requiring a Magical Negro in real life. Every broken school system or city I see brings in a Magical Negro to be superintendent or mayor to fix it. Of course after they fix it they must hand it back over to a White person who will claim credit for the fix.
I have even had to be the Magical Negro in my own professional life. I am the one who is supposed to have the higher sense of ethics and mediation skills. I am the one chosen to get the badly behaved Whites in order to the satisfaction of the “good” ones. Being the magic Negro is wearying. Your concerns are never the first order of business. There is no one to comfort you. Instead, it is your job to wait for the next emergency or the next mess to straighten out. And, if you turn out not to be not so magic as imagined, you are thought to be a miserable failure.
So it is with President Obama. He was indeed the Magical Negro the nation–the whole world–was waiting for. The country was spinning into an economic abyss. There were wars ranging and we weren’t winning. We needed a Magic Negro to fix this. And, because he actually worked on fixing this mess it’s probably time to hand the reins back to an ordinary, mediocre White person who will claim that s/he actually fixed things. And the magical part is that we will all forget about the work of the Magical Negro until we need another one to save us!

Stay Black & Smart!

“Dealing with White (Out)Rage”

So there was an announcement that the Missouri Governor has placed the state’s National Guard on alert in anticipation of the Grand Jury’s decision regarding the police officer who shot and killed Mike Brown, Jr. The Governor’s action presupposes that people–Black people–will riot if the decision is not to indict. Governor Nixon claims that “every Missouri citizen has a right to feel safe…” Oh really? Was feeling safe what Mike Brown, Jr. was entitled to? For that matter is safety ever the right of young Black man in our society?
The more I see how the authorities are attending to this shooting and its aftermath the more I am convinced that the real rage that we have to fear is not that expressed by Black people but rather that expressed by Whites. Over and over Black people have been made subject to White rage. Of course, theirs is expressed as “out rage”– a kind of justified response to a perceived injustice aimed at them. Black rage is almost always a kind of explosion that results from years (even centuries) of bottled up frustration. It is that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that erupts and says, “I’ll bet you’ll listen to me now!” It typically results in some short term solution to pacify the masses. And then things build up again over time.
But, White rage is often the methodical, systematic plotting to inflict a hurt that will reach deep into the lives of people for generations. How dare Homer Plessy try to sit in the “White” section of a street car. We’ll get a Supreme Court decision that will teach him and all Black people where they belong. How dare people join with Black people to elect Barak Obama TWO times to the office of President! We will show them. We will win these state houses and re-district in ways that will make it impossible for them to have any say so in their political destiny for decades. How dare Black people attempt to make music to uplift themselves and develop conscious, thinking youth. We will take over the music industry and only push music and images that are destructive, violent, stereotypical and show the absolute worst of them.
White rage often comes off as “offense” (as in “I can’t believe you think that!”) but almost always results in far reaching policy designed to stymie Black progress. It will tell you that Affirmative Action is not fair and keeps “qualified” Whites from jobs and admission to colleges and universities. After all don’t we all believe in “merit” as the determiner of worthiness? White rage will exclude you from membership and participation in clubs, committees, and board rooms. But, if Black people have any such activities they will be seen as “segregation” and “exclusionary.” White rage says that urban housing projects that serve mostly poor Black people have to be eliminated. They are too densely populated and unsafe. Of course when they are imploded what goes up in their stead are luxury condos that are just as densely populated and there is no consideration for what happened to the people who used to reside there.
In 1989 when filmmaker Spike Lee released, “Do the Right Thing,” Whites claimed that the film would cause a riot. Why? What is it that Black people were supposed to riot over? The late actor and activist Ossie Davis said that Spike’s film would not cause a riot. Instead, it would allow us to vicariously have the riot we WANTED to have. For some reason White people are mad…real mad. And for the life of me I cannot understand why. They are living better than ever. Their unemployment numbers are dropping. Their graduation rates continue to rise. They are over represented in every social benefit the society offers but somehow that little slice of success a few Black people have been able to access offends them. No, it “outrages” them!

Stay Black & Smart!

“No Comment…(But We’ve Got Our Suspicions)”

Every morning I wake up to the National Public Radio Broadcast. During the week it’s “Morning Edition” and on Saturday and Sunday it’s “Weekend Edition.” The news streams through my semi-conscious mind whether I plan to get up early or not. It’s a ritual I inherited from my parents…at least know something about the world you’re about to face.” This past Saturday I heard a segment with host Scott Simon where he was interviewing Bill and Camille Cosby about their lending 62 pieces from their extensive Black art collection for display at the Smithsonian. This is the kind of thing we have come to expect of the avuncular Mr. Cosby. But, there was something lingering in the air regarding our beloved, “Cos.”
Before I get into the “elephant in the room” I must give a disclaimer. I have always loved Bill Cosby’s humor. It spoke directly to me as a child who grew up in Philadelphia. I always understood his neighborhood references and “Philly-isms”–cheese steaks, hoagies, the game of Buck-Buck, and Fat Albert were constants in my community. I also loved that Bill Cosby could make you laugh without cussing you out. His humor reflected the funny side of just plain old living. When he brought his brand of humor to the TV screen I was delighted. Finally, there was something I could share with my own children that was not demeaning or ridiculous. Bill Cosby brought us a complex, Black middle class family that had challenges with their children while loving them unconditionally. They brought us traditions and family rituals and they exposed a new generation to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). I hated to see that series end.
However, about 17 years ago we started hearing disturbing accounts about Mr. Cosby’s marital infidelities and an alleged out of wedlock child. This was not in keeping with the Cosby brand. Instead of selling pudding pops and entertaining kids we were starting to see a mortal man–warts and all. And, if we were just talking about this one particular indiscretion I think most people would forgive him. However, about 10 years ago Mr. Cosby decided that the rest of Black people–especially poor Black people–needed to be lectured and taught how to live. He lambasted Black parents and Black youth for wearing low-slung pants, speaking Black vernacular, and doing poorly in school. He called us thugs and welfare queens. All of a sudden Mr. Cosby wasn’t everybody’s dad…he was Uncle Ruckus. He hated us and didn’t want anything to do with us until we “cleaned up our act!”
But lurking behind Mr. Cosby’s self-righteous pronouncements was a string of accusations from women who claimed that he had sexually assaulted them. They alleged predatory behavior that involved being drugged and sexually assaulted. In the NPR interview Saturday Scott Simon said he had to ask about the alleged assaults. The radio went dead silent. Mr. Simon acknowledged that Cosby just shook his head. Simon asked another question about the allegations. Again, Mr. Cosby gave no response and Simon reported, “You are shaking your head no. I guess that means you will not answer.” Later I learned that Mr. Cosby had cancelled a scheduled appearance on the David Letterman Show this week.
I know responding “no comment” is not an admission of guilt but trust me, Mr. Cosby we have our suspicions. My late mother would say, “People who live in glass houses can’t throw rocks.” But, Mr. Cosby you threw the rocks…now we want to look inside your house. I know…”no comment!” But, we’ve got our suspicions!

Stay Black & Smart!

“And Now This…Ish!”

Everyone who knows me knows I am a HUGE supporter of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). I actually chose one over an Ivy League School (UPenn). The nation’s first HBCU, Cheyney University was founded in 1837 in my home state of Pennsylvania. So, when I read the numerous accounts of what Lincoln University’s (another Pennsylvania HBCU) President Robert Jennings had to say about young women “not putting themselves in situations where they could be raped” and noting that 3 women falsely accused men of rape last year because their relationships did not “turn out the way they wanted” and that “men will use you up” I was wounded!
The entire incident represents a kind of “infantilization” that we have seen before on HBCU campuses. Some years ago, the Hampton University president suspended some students for staging a peaceful protest against George W. Bush and upheld a decision that prohibited students with dreadlocks from admission into their business school. And, while I recognize that many students in HBCUs represent first generation college students and their parents take seriously the notion of, “in loco parentis” (in place of the parents), federal law requires that students 18 years of age or older be treated as adults. I know my parents expected the university to act as a parent to me and back in that era colleges could police the activities of their students–especially their female students–more deliberately. We had curfews, dress codes, dormitory visiting rules, and single sex dorms. But we no longer live in that era!
First and foremost I am bothered by the fact of “separate” convocations! Lincoln University started as a male only institution but realized the value of the co-ed environment from intellectual, social, and financial perspectives. Why isn’t the whole campus community involved in a convocation that takes up the timely and important issue of campus sexual assault? Indeed, everyone is vulnerable around this issue. A few years ago I had to counsel with a young man who had been raped. The incident was as devastating for him as it would have been to anyone who underwent such trauma. However, if there is some reason for separate, single-sex convocations because of the “sensitivity” of the subject matter then the women should have had the opportunity to request a woman speaker of their own choosing.
Lincoln University is a school with a proud tradition. It counts among its alumni, Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first president of Nigeria, Horace Mann Bond, educator, Maria Louis Bustill, mother and teacher of Paul Robeson, Oscar Brown, Jr. actor, playwright, director, Langston Hughes, poet, Cab Calloway, band leader, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court Justice, Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of modern Ghana, and many more. For its current president to not be savvy enough to realize that young women do not need to be lectured or patronized and that young men do not need to be “protected” from scorned females plays into the worst stereotypes we have about all of us.
We have just witnessed the election of a Congress that threatens to take away our health care, cut spending on social programs, and thwart immigration. These are the issues that should have our attention. But no…”now we got to deal with this…ish!”

Stay Black & Smart!

“Why Black Folks Can’t Really Trust White Liberals”

I want to trust my White liberal friends…I really do. When I read about and listen to the things they say they stand for they seem so closely aligned with things that are in the best interest of Black folks. They argue for civil liberties, affirmative action, equal pay, raising the minimum wage, and universal health care, to name a few. Unfortunately, when the rubber meets the road and the going gets tough they seem to always bail when it comes down to Black interests versus White privilege.
The biggest skill these liberals have is critique. As soon as the President failed to work on things exactly in the way and order they wanted they subjected him to as much criticism as the conservatives. It is such odd behavior–this cannibalism. The Right rarely does it. Even when George W. Bush seemed to be a blithering idiot, they stood shoulder to shoulder with him. But as soon as Barak Obama managed to pass an historical, life-changing health care act, the Left started critiquing him for not passing a single-payer plan. When he was willing to talk about a balanced approach to maintaining or creating jobs versus environmental preservation they screamed at the top of their lungs about his failure to take a strong environmentalist stance. Despite his constant promotion of women (mostly White) in his administration and passing the Lettie Ledbetter Act, many of my White liberal women friends bend my ear about how “disappointed” they are in his leadership.
Outside of the presidential realm I am thoroughly disappointed in my White liberal friends’ total lack of interest in preserving affirmative action. With anti-affirmative action laws especially based on race, on the books in the states of Washington, California, and Michigan I rarely see or hear White liberal outrage about what this has meant for college admission in state universities in these areas.
I can’t find White liberal moral outrage about the condition of life in Detroit or gun violence in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia. Few White liberal voices are raised about the “whitening” of an historically Black city like New Orleans. And many of my White liberal associates have all but capitulated to neo-liberal policies that have brought programs like “Teach for America” to poor, urban classrooms. In fact, many of the TFA recruits call themselves card-carrying liberals.
I think the main problem with liberals is that at base they consider themselves smarter and more virtuous than the people they purport to help. They seem most comfortable “helping” poor people of color and telling them what’s “good” for them. When poor folks and people of color decide they want to run their own lives and make decisions that run counter to what White liberals want, they decide that those people are “angry” and “bitter.”
The place that White liberals seem most uncomfortable is any place where a person of color–particularly a Black person–is the one with stronger academic or professional credentials and authority. White liberals struggle to take orders and directions from Black folks, no matter how capable. And maybe that’s the crux of the President Obama issue. He is smarter and more knowledgeable than a lot of people who have held that office, but he has never received the kind of support that Bill Clinton did. Bill Clinton advanced a center-right agenda that dismantled Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC-welfare). He promoted NAFTA, a policy that has virtually destroyed the Mexican agricultural industry, and supported drug policies that had adverse impact on the Black community. He did this all while maintaining illicit sexual relations with a 20-something intern in the White House. But the White liberal establishment never wavered in their support of his presidency.
Something about me keeps hoping for a pang of conscience to emerge in the White liberal community. I keep hoping they will look at the quality of life disparities that exist between themselves and Black and Latino folks. I keep hoping they will be so embarrassed by their own actions and begin to work sincerely toward justice.
I don’t need White liberals to call out Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or John Boehner, or Mitch McConnell. Those people have made clear what their interests are and they have indeed been true to them. Instead, I want White liberals to measure their behaviors against what they claim they stand for. If they can look at their expressed values and say their actions are consonant with those values then Black people can expect some progress to occur. But, if they continue to look at these problems in esoteric ways but fail to act I can’t imagine I will arrive at a place where I can trust them.

Stay Black & Smart!

“Oh, We’ll Survive…But, Will We Thrive?”

Yesterday, Democrats suffered an overwhelming loss in national and state elections. Losing elections is what comes with politics in democracies. One party wins and the other loses. However, when I look at the dynamics of this election I see some deeply disturbing trends. For one, the rapid shift of racial and ethnic population demographics has not moved the needle one bit when it comes to who has the power and who governs this nation. As I tweeted earlier. “Demographics is not Destiny.” In the midst of our ma’afa (our suffering during enslavement) there were plenty of counties throughout the South where we WERE the majority.
The other thing this election demonstrates is my contention about the “limits of liberalism.” So-called liberals will only go “so far” in advancing progressive politics. The President understood this and realized he could have stuck his neck out further but he would be sticking it out all by himself. He tried to go for broke on health care and got hammered. He did everything he could and brought the nation back from the brink of financial destruction and people complained because his administration hasn’t prosecuted anybody on Wall Street. How about you still have YOUR house? How about you still have a job? His Attorney General called out racism loud and clear, got slapped down for saying it, and his “supporters” “never said a mumblin’ word!” I don’t want to sound like an apologist for the President  and his Administration because clearly they’ve made mistakes. But, as Les McCann used to sing, “Compared to What?” You really think Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would have been in your corner?
The thing about politics is that everybody deeply enmeshed in it realizes it is a game. The strategists on both sides are at their drawing boards right now planning for the next contest. But what are we doing…besides lamenting the loss?
I also learned that some people who should be in solidarity with me (because I have operated in solidarity with them) are not actually willing to “run on til the end” with me. The coalitions of “women,” “poor people” “union activists”, often fracture along racial lines. Billie Holiday was right, “God Bless the Child That’s Got His Own!”
So, where do we go from here? Well, as Black people we are used to losing in this rigged game. But we have to play a smarter game…one in which no one takes us for granted. I also tweeted, “They’re playing chess and we’re playing checkers!” In the addiction recovery community people often say you have to hit rock bottom before you decide you’re not going to live like this anymore. Is this our rock bottom? Are we ready to change what we’ve been doing?
Given our magnificent history I know that Black people will survive. We’ve been through MUCH worse. But we can never assume that other people are on our team. Despite everything we HAVE to be on the side of justice. Not just justice for us. Justice for all. Words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s last public speech echo in my ears today…”We’ve got some difficult days ahead…but it really doesn’t matter to me…. Because I’ve been to the mountain top and I’ve seen the promised land…. And we as a people will get to that promised land.
Oh, yes people we will survive this next era. The question is whether we will thrive!

Stay Smart & Black

“Are You Still Slapping Your Mama?”

Nothing and no one is more sacred in the Black community than our Mamas…Ma’dear, Mommy, Ma. From the time we have the chance to interact with others we have made clear than nobody, but nobody disrespects our mothers. How many fights have we gotten in because somebody said something we didn’t like about our mothers. In fact, the connection to mom is so deep that the only thing someone has to say to provoke a confrontation is, “Yo Mama…!” The same thing does not apply if they say, “Yo Daddy…!” “My daddy? What are you talking ’bout?” But “Yo Mama” makes our blood boil. We are so protective of our mothers that one of the ways to describe something incredibly delicious is to say it’s so good it’ll make you “slap yo mama!” Now THAT would have to be some kind of good because NOTHING could make me slap my mama.
However, if I failed to go to the polls and vote it would have the exact same effect. See, my mother (and father) grew up under legal apartheid–state sponsored segregation. They sat in the back of segregated public buses. They drank out of separate public water fountains, they went to separate public restrooms. Even though my grandfather worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad my mother had to change rail cars and sit in a segregated one once the train went south of the Mason-Dixon Line. My father served in a segregated unit in the U.S. Army and my mother could not try on hats in downtown department stores. So the idea that I would not take a few minutes of my time to go to the polls to cast my vote would be a slap in my dead mama’s (and daddy’s) face.
It drives me crazy when I hear Black people say they aren’t going to vote or that voting doesn’t matter or that their vote does not count. Let’s be clear…whether you vote or not THEY are holding an election. Whether you vote or not whoever wins WILL govern you and pass laws that WILL affect YOUR life.  And if you do NOT vote, you are right, your vote won’t count!
Our pattern of late has been to turn out in big numbers for presidential elections. In 2008 the Black electorate came out in full force and helped to elect the nation’s first Black president. But, in 2010 we fell asleep and let the Congress go over to the opposition party. Then in 2012 we mobilized again to re-elect President Obama but because of the 2010 mid-term election he has been hamstrung in trying to get legislation passed.
Now here we are in 2014 and the fate of the Senate is at stake. If the President’s party loses this election he will be rendered totally impotent and many of the things he has invested his presidency in can be lost–health care, raising the minimum wage, and equal rights to name a few. I worry about these things not for myself but for my children and grandchildren. They will have to live under the tyranny of a Congress that despises people like us. But, you apparently don’t have time to vote. Why don’t you just slap yo Mama?