Multiculturalism, Political Power, and Black-Specific Interests
I love seeing the melting pot of different groups, races, cultures, and ethnicities in America. I love to travel and experience the customs of other groups, races, and ethnicities. Once again, I wish nothing but joy and prosperity for all groups, races, and nationalities. But using multiculturalism to dilute and deflect from Black-specific issues is dead wrong.
In 1972, the National Hispanic Party drafted a plan to subordinate Black Americans by the year 2000 by bringing a layer of minority ethnic groups between Blacks and Whites. They, along with Asian, Arab, European, LGBT, and women’s organizations, do not promote a Black agenda and they do not add Black interests to their own unique set of interests.
Over the last 200 years, immigrants have cut into Black opportunities in areas of employment, business, education, and political opportunities. Through most of the 1800s and 1900s, Black leaders were aware of this and made several petitions to the federal government to postpone open immigration until America had given justice to Black Americans for damage caused by slavery and Jim Crow discrimination.
It wasn’t until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s that the focus shifted from civil rights for Blacks to advocacy for all minority groups. Meanwhile, other groups generally advocate for themselves.
So, all in all, civil rights for Blacks moved from economic and resource-based concerns in the Civil Rights Acts of 1865 and 1866, to social and political rights with the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of 1964 and 1965 respectively. Now it has shifted further to broader social, political, and humanitarian rights for all allegedly aggrieved “people of color” and “minorities.”
According to Merriam-Webster, the term benign neglect means an attitude or policy of ignoring an often delicate or undesirable situation that one is held responsible for dealing with.
Daniel Moynihan introduced the “Benign Neglect” policy in 1969 as an advisor to President Richard Nixon. This policy was designed to neglect addressing race issues regarding Black Americans and suggested that talking about race was actually causing the problem.
Moynihan stated that greater attention to Indians, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans would be useful. So to this day, whenever Black-specific racial issues are brought up in the media, the subject is often replaced with a broader angle that includes Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and LGBT issues.
That is why many liberal celebrities or pundits say “Black and Brown” instead of just Black, or say “people of color.” This was planned.
Even though Moynihan advised Republican President Richard Nixon, he later served in the Democratic Senate from 1977 to 2001. Before advising Nixon, he had also served under President John F. Kennedy.
In 1965, Moynihan wrote The Negro Family: The Case For National Action, which discussed solutions to help the economic underclass, particularly Blacks. He also supported the AFDC welfare program, which included rules for payments provided that “no man was in the house.”
Basically, poor Black women were being paid to remove Black men from the household. Around that same period, Moynihan was also known as a political ally of Democratic Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Later, he served as a Democratic Senator himself from 1977 to 2001.
So no, that does not mean Republicans are the answer. The Democrats and Republicans are not your friend. Democrats want the Black vote, but not necessarily the actual Black people. So they pander heavily during campaigns but rarely deliver anything substantial in return.
Republicans, on the other hand, often make little effort to even pursue Black voters. Black people have no guaranteed political allies.
Many people believed removing Trump and replacing him with Biden would change everything for Black America. Yet police shootings and assaults continued in the Biden era just as they did before. Is Biden passing executive orders to stop police brutality against Blacks? No.
Yet he did announce actions to combat recent anti-Asian attacks and met with the Asian Pacific American Caucus to address that issue. Meanwhile, Blacks continue to watch cop-on-Black crimes go largely unpunished.
Trump would not have done anything either. So again, there are no guaranteed friends in either formal party. What remains is economic unity.
Many Black people become uncomfortable hearing that because many have been conditioned not to trust each other. There is often more faith in a supposedly kind-hearted Democratic White savior than in Black economic and political unity.
Other groups practice group economics. They vote and fund politicians at local and district levels. They often support politicians who directly reconstitute and strengthen their communities and institutions.
Some groups are such disciplined economic nationalists that neither party has much to offer them, so they do not feel dependent on either one.
This does not mean do not vote at all. It means practice group economics with the vote and use that leverage strategically. Organize economically first, then use political influence with discipline.
Final Thought
There is only one real political party in practice: conglomerates, special interest groups, lobbyists, and the billionaire class. That de facto oligarchical party influences both the formal Democratic and Republican parties. The path forward is not blind loyalty to either side. It is organizing the dollar nationally and globally so that Black communities can build enough leverage to influence outcomes for the better.