Republicans Suppress Black Vote; Democrats Scatter It | Black Agenda Report

Republicans Suppress Black Vote; Democrats Scatter It

30 Jan 2013

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Republicans tend to concentrate African Americans in majority Black voting districts, while Democrats like to scatter Blacks around to help white candidates win office. “Both parties are playing plantation politics with Black voters, for their own purposes.” Coalitions are fine, but African Americans need to address their own problems, on their own terms.

Republicans Suppress Black Vote; Democrats Scatter It

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“The real question is: Whose plantation?”

Democrats in Virginia are up in arms, because the Republicans took advantage of a Black state lawmaker’s absence to push through a redistricting bill that increases the GOP’s chances to take decisive control of the state senate. The Black state senator felt it was more important to attend President Obama’s inaugural. The Republican redistricting plan would increase the number of majority Black districts to six, from the current five. But, in pulling enough African Americans together to make a new Black district, the plan moved Blacks out of districts represented by white Democrats, weakening the party’s chances of taking the senate.

The Democratic state caucus chairman was livid. “This was nothing more than what I call plantation politics,” he declared. The real question is: Whose plantation? Certainly, Virginia Republicans intended to weaken the Democratic Party as a whole by moving African American voters out of some white Democrats’ districts. The Democrats like to scatter Black voters around, so they can provide the winning margin in a close contest. They want to keep Blacks as reliable voters on their plantation. Republicans would prefer to keep Blacks from voting, at all, but if they must vote, the GOP wants as few of them as possible in contestable districts. So, let’s be clear: both parties are playing plantation politics with Black voters, for their own purposes. In this case, it is the Republican plan that would result in an additional Black state senate seat.

“The political life of the community is stilted in a process in which they must choose between the lesser evils among white politicians.”

The Democrats claim that concentrating the Black vote dilutes Black voting strength, even if more African Americans are elected to office. But that’s only true if one accepts that white Democrats who win office with Black help actually represent Black people. In reality, Black concerns rarely see the light of day in electoral contests in which Blacks are not majorities or near majorities. The political life of the community is stilted in a process in which they must choose between the lesser evils among white politicians. In such elections, Blacks never get to argue among themselves about the kind of future they want to build for their own communities. They are just fodder for white Democrats.

Truth be told, conservative Black politicians have mastered the art of marginalizing Black voters, even in majority Black districts. In 2002, former Black Republican Denise Majette defeated Cynthia McKinney for Congress, in Georgia, in a Black majority district, while winning only 15 percent of the African American vote. That same year, former Black New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, a lifelong Republican, won office in a Black city as the white people’s candidate. Philadelphia’s horrible Black law and order mayor Anthony Nutter won in 2007 because of his “unprecedented appeal” to whites. And City Councilman Charles Barron, a former Black Panther, won half the Black vote but still lost by a landslide in a majority Black congressional district to Hakeem Jeffries, a darling of Wall Street and school privatizers.

Need I mention the name, Barack Obama?

No, what Black America needs are Black political conversations, preferably in Black majority circumstances. To hell with the Republican and Democratic plantations.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130130_gf_BlackDistricts.mp3

More Stories

Ramzy Baroud
Why Didn’t Iran Put Gaza on the Table? A Difficult Answer
03 Jun 2026
From Gaza to Tehran, from the politics of resistance to the limits of regional diplomacy, a pressing question has resurfaced amid the 2026 war: why was Palestine not explicitly placed at the center…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio May 29, 2026
29 May 2026
In this week’s segment, we talk about the latest iterations of immigration enforcement and their connections to racist public policy, mass incarceration, and the settler colonial foundations of the…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Solidarity and the Cuban Revolution
29 May 2026
Our guest is Dr. Rosemari Mealy. She is the author of "Fidel and Malcolm: Memories of a Meeting," which analyzes the significance of the 1960 meeting between Fidel Castro and Malcolm X. She has lived…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Racism, Mass Incarceration, Settler Colonialism and Immigration Enforcement
29 May 2026
The Trump administration is accelerating policies meant not just to deport undocumented people, but to restrict every avenue of legal immigration from the Global South. Abraham Paulos is Deputy…
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , José Luis Granados Ceja , Kurt Hackbarth
'The people who most love the game won't be able to go': Ajamu Baraka on Resistance to the World Cup
27 May 2026
In this episode of El Taller, hosts José Luis Granados Ceja and Kurt Hackbarth sit down with Ajamu Baraka, national organizer and spokesperson for the Black Alliance for Peace, a former vice-…