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Page 2 EDITORIALS
Spelman Spotlight
December 19X0
The Presidential Election Reconsidered— Part One Of
A Two Part Series: The Lack Of Real Choices
By Manning Marable
Syndicated Columnist
The circuis is over at last. After all the
campaign rhetoric and misinformation,
after the cynical promises and political
posturing, the 1980 Presidential race is
history. A lackluster electoral choice
between three “Republicans” Carter.
Reagan, and Anderson alienated and
frustrated the overwhelming majority of
voters. Ronald Reagan was the selection
of the public the choice of less than 28
percent of the eligible voting public. The
large margin of Reagan’s victory is not a
political statement representing a shift to
the right, but a rejection of Carter’s
record of ineptitude, duplicity and
administrative chaos.
Reagan’s election, however, is merely
the sorry continuation of the badly
bungled, antihumanistic policies and
practices of a near-moribund political
system that historically rewards the
owners and managers of corporate wealth
at the expense of the poor and working
classes of every ethnic group. Nothing has
changed with Reagan’s victory: the chains
that fetter our people to an existence of
permanently high unemployment,
inadequate medical care, poor housing
and crime would be as secure as if Carter
or Anderson had won instead. The
problem for our generation is not to
decide who will run the plantation, but
whether we will organize to uproot the
plantation burn it to the ground, and
build a newer, democratic order which
advances the material interests of our
people.
Thousands of black people have
concluded that the central crisis in
American politics is not that the selection
of candidates is so poor. The real problem
lies not with personalities, but within the
very definition of American poltiics itself.
No one seriously believed the statements
of politicians during election campaigns.
No one really believes that the democratic
charade called electoral politics has a
decisive effect upon those forces within
the centers of multinational capital and
finance that actually determine
significant issues within this system. As
one Black Philadelphia resident, 22 year
old Charles Adamson, recently
complained to the Philadelphia Inquirer:
“I voted since I was 18. Man, I couldn’t
wait to pull the ballot. But I’ve given up
on the politicians. They just ain’t doing
the job.”
The ramarkably low voter turnout in
this year’s Presidential election illustrated
at least three significant points. First, the
majority of Black people expressed no
confidence in Carter, Anderson and
Reagan, neither as individual candidates
nor for that body of politics which they
represent. Second. Black people rejected
the “boogy man thesis” propounded by
Carter spokesmen like the Reverend Jesse
Jackson and Andrew Young, which
claimed that Carter was the “lesser evil”
and that any Black non-voter was
actually voting for Reagan. The reality of
our political situation was that the Negro
Old Guard's backroom politics of petty
patronage could no longer persuade' the
majority of Black voters to cast aside the
experiences of four hard years of benign
neglect at the hands of the Carter
Administration. And third, many Blacks
were implicitly declining to participate in
a process that has ceased to have
legitimacy as a way to decide things
and implementation of the
comprehensive health care legislation
proposed by Congress-person Ronald V.
Dellums of California. We must mobilize
our families and friends to demonstrate in
the streets against the climate of racist
terrorism against our communities, as
graphically illustrated in Buffalo and
Atlanta.
The election of one candidate or
another to the Presidency in any given
year does not decide the ultimate goals
directions and or necessity of the Black
Freedom Struggle. The members of the
National Black Political Party Steering
Committee believed that the ultimate
struggle for Black, Third World and
oppressed people is that struggle for
complete social transformation and self
determination. We believe that the great
Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass
was speaking to our current political
plight when he declared that, “Power
concedes nothing without demand; it
never has and it never will.” We believe
that there will be no hope for the masses
of Black people in America, until such
time that they assume final responsibility
for their own emancipation, and that they
reject any efforts to compromise their
historic battle for full economic
democracy, political and cultural equality
in America.
A LONG WALK ON A SHORT PIER
affecting public policy. In short, the very
rationale of the electoral system was on
Trial, that system which is accused of
operating against our interests as a people
no matter which lever we pulled on the
Presidential line in the election booth.
And a majority of Blacks decided,
privately and publicly, that this system
was found guilty as charged.
Balck America must organize
collectively, both internally and
externally, to a place on the public agenda
a more progressive set of priorities in
domestic and international policy.
Internally, we must develop Black United
Fronts to build bridges between existing
progressive political groups throughout
the nation, facilitating greater dialogue
and closer programmatic unity. We must
build consumer and producer
cooperatives providing critically needed
food and clothing to our people.
Externally, we must raise serious
questions in Congress and statehouses
across this country about the patterns of
divestmentol capital w hich throw tens of
thousands of Black and other Third
W orld people out of jobs ev ery year. We
must ‘iCne-w ohr demand for the'passage*
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