The greatest irony and tragedy of all is that our nation, which initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world, is now cast in the mold of being an arch anti-revolutionary.
Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., "The Casualties of the War in Vietnam," February 25, 1967
Black lives matter--at least since the presidential election in November of 2016. The black vote was down from 12.9% in 2012 to 11.9% in 2016, according to Pew Research. So pollsters have been busy.
For months now, former Vice President Joe Biden leads among black voters as the most likely candidate to beat the racist Trump in November of this year, 2020. Sen. Bernie Sanders is second with black voters--at least black voters under 35 years old. And according to pollsters and pundits, black voters see in Biden Barack Obama. Biden, too, declares he's not a racist since Obama selected him to be the first black president's VP.
The ambitious do gravitate toward each other.
But I recall Anita Hill, Dr. Hill, seated in the senate, giving testimony against a nominee for a seat on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas. A baffled Biden questions Hill's narrative against Thomas, a good ol' guy.
Selective memory. Recall Obama but forget Hill sitting at the table in front of those cameras being humiliated by white men.
What is most troubling for me about polls showing Biden in the lead among older African-American women is the way the pollsters assume all African Americans grew up in the "black church." All are Baptist. All are familiar with the long Sunday services. Preachers and Mothers.
I'm familiar with the Baptist tradition. I grew up in Chicago, and every Sunday, my grandmother had the dial of the kitchen radio tuned to a black radio station. From early morning until late in the afternoon, one Baptist church after another was given an hour for the choir to sing and the preach to delivery a sermon. It was easy after a time to know the most stirring of choirs and the most profound pastors.
Did I mention that my grandmother (both maternal grandparents) were devout Catholics?
My mother worked for years for the Catholic parish church and school (where I and my five younger siblings and five younger cousins attended grammar school) until the very day she died in 1986. And, when I attended Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church for a year or two while in high school, during the early 1970s, the family was furious.
The older deceased family members were Catholic. I no longer. And, if you believe the Pew Research poll (2016), I'm among the 78% of Americans considering themselves of no religious affiliation.
There are Catholic blacks in the US, Muslim, Buddhist, and who knows what all else! Agnostics! Nones! Vegans! Trans! Single Mothers! Professional women without children! Just humans!
Do these black Americans matter too?
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