Professor Alexander's article speaks for itself. I urge all readers of this blog to read it. There are a few excerpts, however, that I will quote that form the basis of my comments in this blog:
"... recognizing that Bernie, like Hillary, has blurred vision when it comes to race is not the same thing as saying their views are equally problematic. Sanders opposed the 1996 welfare-reform law. He also opposed bank deregulation and the Iraq War, both of which Hillary supported, and both of which have proved disastrous. In short, there is such a thing as a lesser evil, and Hillary is not it."
"The biggest problem with Bernie, in the end, is that he's running as a Democrat--as a member of a political party that not only capitulated to right-wing demagoguery but is now owned and controlled by a relatively small number of millionaires and billionaires. Yes, Sanders has raised millions from small donors, but should he become president, he would also become part of what he has otherwise derided as "the establishment."
"Even if Bernie's racial-justice views evolve, I hold little hope that a political revolution will occur within the Democratic Party without a sustained outside movement forcing truly transformational change. I am inclined to believe that it would be easier to build a new party than to save the Democratic Party from itself".
On important issues such determining for whom to vote or whether to even vote at all in this forthcoming Presidential election my own personal political experiences and observations require me to respectfully disagree with the advice or suggestions of Professor Alexander, whom I too, greatly admire and respect.
As I write this, I can hear in my ear the words from the sonorous baritone voice of legendary labor and civil rights leader A. Phillip Randolph. On more than one occasion, in speaking about the two major parties, Republican and Democratic, and the role that African-Americans should play in voting, he said "Negroes had no permanent friends(political) or permanent enemies. We have only permanent interests." Your political "friend" today, could be your "enemy" tomorrow. He advised that we(African-Americans) should always vote in support of our "permanent interests"
Considered on the historical landscape of what African-Americans have endured and achieved in obtaining the right to vote, not voting as a "protest vote" will not assure and protect our "permanent interest". Not voting is not a "political option" in the 2016.
agree with most of the the domestic and foreign policy issues and challenges described by Senator Sanders and some of the solutions he proposes. I plan to vote for him in the Democratic California Primary as my form of voter support for him bringing his views to the public during our presidential election.
However, if as a result of the Democratic National Party Convention, Secretary Clinton is chosen as the party's nominee for President instead of Senator Sanders, I will support and vote for Hillary Clinton for President of the United States.
Why? First, because not voting at all would be to dishonor the work, struggle, and legacy of so many persons, several of whom I knew and worked with personally during the Civil Rights Movement. These "Winter Time Soldiers" worked tirelessly, and, in some cases loss their lives, to insure that I and others living today can vote.
How could I ever, or anyone else, who disagrees with several of Secretary of State Clinton's past or current positions on major domestic or foreign policy issues, not vote, because, they like me, preferred several of Senator Sander's proposals for addressing major domestic and foreign policy issues?
How would I explain not voting to Fannie Lou Hamer, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, murdered by the Klan in Philadelphia, Miss. in the summer of 1964, or to the young girls Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Denise McNair, who were also killed by the Klan on September 15th, 1963 in the Sixteenth Baptist Church, Birmingham, AL, or, my friends and colleagues, Rev. James Bevel, James Orange, Reverends King, Abernathy, Billy Kyles, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, Jimmy Lee Jackson, Viola Liuzzo, Unitarian Minister James Reeb and Amelia Boynton, who in March of 1965, was beaten unconscious as she sought to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL to register to vote?
Similarly, how I could face and ever speak again to my beloved colleagues and friends, still with us, like Congressman John Lewis, Rev C. T. Vivian, etc., if I followed the advice of Michelle Alexander and others, and chose NOT to vote in this Presidential election for Hillary Clinton because the Democratic Party did not choose MY preferred candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders?
A measure of the maturity, sagacity, and political integrity of an African-American political leader today is again, whether or not he or she has the wisdom and courage to know how to vote and support the candidate, best among available choices,most consistent with the permanent interests of the African-American community.
Equally, a measure of a non-African-American political leader in the Democratic Party today is to encourage other Sander's supporters that it is also in their best interest to vote for Hillary Clinton, if that is the choice between her and Donald Trump.
The son of one of my dearest friends and colleagues, Stanley David Levison, deceased, with whom I often worked daily in our joint efforts on behalf of Dr. King, recently wrote me an email in response to our reflections about Michelle Alexander's article. He wrote:
"Clarence:
"One other historical analogy that is relevant to this debate is the agonizing choice many third world national liberation movements had to make in the early 1940's".
"The militants in these struggles had been fighting British imperialism for their entire lives. They had seen friends and family members tortured and killed in the struggle. But, as Hitler began his campaign of conquest they were faced with the imperative to suppress their battle with the British and instead ally with them to defeat Hitler."
"Almost without exception, they made this viciously hard choice. Only the very stupidest of them though there was no difference between the British and Hitler or that it was "revolutionary" to stand aloof from the war."
"If the militants of the national liberation struggles could make the agonizing choice to work with their former enemy the British imperialists because Hitler was a greater evil, it's really infantile self-indulgence for current radicals to imagine that Hillary is so great an evil that its worth allowing Donald Trumpallini - a modern version of Mussolini - to triumph."
"But, of course, the kind of people who think this ultra-leftist way don't read enough history to know why they are wrong."
Andy"
Hallelujah! Help me Somebody!
If not now, when?
If not us, who? "WE are the Ones That We Have Been Waiting For"!
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