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 From The Desk Of
Ron Walters
Friday, October 1, 2004; Page 19
The Presidential Debates: What You Will Not Hear
Recently Marc Morial, head of the National Urban League, proposed having a separate presidential debate on urban issues. I strongly support his proposal because the reason for Black political mobilization in elections is to achieve issues of their concern through the investment of their electoral power. This makes their agenda the key resources that motivate them to come out to vote. This is the answer to the question often raised with me. “What will motivate black voters to come out to vote?”
Like Morial, I am afraid that the issues deep in the concern of Black voters will not be addressed, so I want to suggest a partial listing of issues that might be addressed in the upcoming debate on domestic issues on October 8 and 13. They should discuss:
-The War in Iraq: Not just how to win, but when to get out and bring the troops home. One mistake does not justify a bushel of them. The waste of resources in Iraq is criminal when placed against the human needs at home. One simple example is that the plywood needed to build homes in America, especially in the aftermath of four destructive hurricanes, is being consumed in Iraq and costing American astronomical prices.
- Job creation: Not just the general increase in jobs but how to target jobs to the industrial belt where hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs are gone, to inner cities where in places like New York City, half of the Black males are unemployed, and in most cities 35% of Black youth do not have jobs.
- Health Care: Not just general health care coverage, but for the disproportionate number of Black and brown citizens who do not have health; and funding for Healthy People 2010 to close the gaps in disease and discriminatory access to health service.
- Social services:Not just for the “middle class” but for the poverty stricken, for people who sleep on the street, for the working class that is being squeezed for welfare moms who have lost responsibility for their children trying to keep a job, facing the cut-off of help in an economy that has ejected them.
- The Economy: Not just general economic growth, but targeted to areas where minority businesses can thrive and contribute to the development of the urban economy; and where funds are targeted to the urban infrastructure of land use transportation and utilities in an effort to provide a better quality of life.
- Housing: Not just home ownership, but funding home ownership programs to close the disparity with White home ownership at 70%; but also to build affordable housing not only to affect ownership, but rental housing in urban areas that are a growing expensive.
- Education:Not just funding “No Child Left Behind,” but changing the paradigm of education from a constructing a testing factory to a learning environment and reaffirming support for the public schools as the only institution that can deliver a national result that includes and affects all children.
- Higher Education: Not just increasing Pell Grants, but tailoring support to areas which combats the stagnation of the Black middle class, such as the falling rate of Black physicians being trained and the decreasing rate of college faculty overall.
- Criminal Justice:Not just racial profiling, but addressing the fact that half of everyone locked up in America today is Black and that they dominate the commission of crimes, nor the arrest record. They might consider the repeal of Mandatory Minimum Sentences, Three Strikes You’re Out and the whole hideous regime that passed in 1994. He might also champion the right of felons who have served their sentence to vote.
This message is not just addressed to John Kerry, but is sensitive to the fact that of the two candidates, he more than Bush should champion this agenda or something like it, if he is interested in mobilizing his base voters in the Black community. Of course, there is the talk on the street that the reason he has not addressed these issues is that, now having recalled the Clinton crew back on the field, they want to resurrect the politics of appealing to the Reagan Democrats, blue collar Democrats turned Republicans.
Well, Kerry cannot win this election without the Black vote and the issues that it represents should not be hidden from the American people.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Institute and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: White Nationalism, Black Interests, by Wayne State University Press. |
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