Here we go again, with the white-male dominated corporate media telling African-Americans who their favorite politician is: Wall Street favorite and “New Jim Crow” prosecutor, Kamala Harris.
In 2016, the MSM had a similar narrative to peddle, ignoring considerable evidence to the contrary — because the establishment loved Sec. Clinton (far more than black people did) and wanted Bernie Sanders out of her way. But I’ve seen that some of the most significant early pushback against “centrist” Harris is coming from black Americans.
(Deja vu all over again.)
We should view with great skepticism the claim that the Clintons are much beloved by the African-American community.
Because it wasn’t just Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michelle Alexander expressing doubts about the Democratic Party’s pre-selected candidate, back in 2016. Actor/activist Danny Glover, MLK-friend and actor/singer/activist Harry Belafonte, former NAACP president Ben Jealous, Congresswoman Nina Turner, and other prominent black Americans also saw Bernie Sanders as the clear choice over Sec. “We came, we saw, he died” (ha ha ha) Clinton.
(That was Clinton responding to news of Qaddafi’s brutal rape/murder by terrorists the U.S. supported in the West’s overthrow of Libya’s government. That regime-change operation, pushed aggressively by Sec. Clinton, ended up being President Obama’s greatest regret in office. Clinton’s project from the start, her “greatest moment” as Secretary of State, resulted in a failed state and the return of open-air slave markets in Africa.)
Black voters saw how Sanders had fought, his entire life, for civil rights and equality. And how Bernie allowed BLM activists to speak at his events — to take over the microphone, even — while Sec. Clinton had Black Lives Matter activists forcibly ejected from the room.
I seriously doubt that an overwhelming majority of black voters were fooled by Sec. Clinton in 2016, any more than will be fooled by Sen. Kamala Harris in 2020. Because I don’t think an accurate vote tally happened in Southern states where Clinton supposedly did so well with the African-American community. The outcome was a lie. Just like the narrative that “black folks adore the Clintons” was a lie.
Rapper “Killer Mike” and Dr. Cornel West, along with other black leaders, were having a big effect on the electorate and the black community, rallying people against the right-wing Democrat and toward the progressive Vermont independent. In early 2016, Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow,” wrote in The Nation that “Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote.” And James Rucker, of Color of Change, detailed all of the dirty race-baiting, “Southern Strategy” tactics the Clintons used against then-Senator Obama in 2008 (even resorting to a little “Birther” politics, casting doubt on Obama’s birthplace and Christian religion).
I couldn’t believe then, and don’t now, that black Americans were so taken with serial racist and Wall Street neoconservative, Hillary Clinton. A purely corporate candidate, best known for being inauthentic, corrupt, and untrustworthy.
And I cannot remove from the equation the paperless, unauditable voting machines that likely played a role, possibly even a decisive role, in Clinton “winning” the South. A peer-reviewed Stanford University study in 2016 documented that the exit polls were far, far off from the recorded tallies, particularly in Southern states, casting doubt on the legitimacy of the primary.
For decades, African-American voters have been the savviest demographic in America, consistently anti-war and liberal. So, I doubt that they were as easily fooled into voting against their interests in 2016 as the corporate media would have us believe. The African-American community’s refusal to show up for Clinton in the general — even with Trump her opponent — speaks volumes.
And it’s hardly likely that they’re going to turn out in great numbers for the establishment’s latest Chosen One… particularly with Harris’s egregious record of wrongfully convicting poor people, disproportionately POC, for the profit of corporations and others who would reduce them to near-slavery (Harris’s office argued against early prison release for non-violent offenders, on the basis that they were needed as barely-compensated fire-fighters, risking their lives for $2.00 an hour).