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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* Editor-in-Chief- Pamela D. Moore Associate Editor - Kiron K. Skinner Mews Editor - Bridgett Davis Feature Editors - Tisha Brown l a Rhonda Morris Photography Editor - Whitney Young Art Editor - Mary Barkley Advertising Manager - Janice Tillerson Asst. Advertising Manager - Elaine Terry Business Manager - Betty Jackson Circulation Manager - Lisa Vaughn Office Manager - Susan Hart Ptthlie delations Manager - Sonja Washington I he Spelman Spotlight is produced regularly by the Spotlight Staff composed of students from Spelman and Morehouse (alleges. Primary control, however, is vested in Speimutt undents. All auesiions and concerns from the public eoitcerning this paper should he directed to the Editor-in-Chief. Spelman Spotlight, line 3(1. Spelman College, Atlanta. Ijeurgiu MtM-t The i nii'. v phone number is 523-17-1.1.