Black-Vote

The ongoing nationwide protests calling for social justice have amplified the significance of the upcoming election in November, which could determine whether or not the demands of Black Americans will be heard and how the country's future will be shaped. In an effort to encourage voting during this critical juncture in American history, BET has organized the first-ever National Black Voter Day. Partnering with the National Urban League (NUL) and several other civil rights organizations, the network plans to hold the historic event on September 18, according to a statement sent to Blavity.“With 100 days until Election Day—it is critical for BET to utilize all of our resources and partnerships to drive Black civic engagement across the country, and the National Black Voter Day is a key part of this effort,” BET President Scott Mills said. “We will use the momentum of the fight against systemic racism to galvanize those marching in protest to march to the polls in November.”Protesters, mobilized by the police killing of George Floyd, have been calling for police reform and the dismantling of America’s long-standing systemic racism. Continued police brutality, coupled with the disparities exasperated by the coronavirus pandemic, has inspired the increased social justice efforts of BET and its partners. Nothing about us should ever be decided without us. In just 100 days, Black futures are on the ballot. We are proud to partner with @BET and @naturbanleague for the inaugural National Black Voter Day on September 18th.Get ready NOW → https://t.co/JQvbQNZQVz pic.twitter.com/3x6LojeLME— When We All Vote (@WhenWeAllVote) July 28, 2020 “The pandemic and racial justice protests have shone a bright light on the stark racial disparities that exist in health care, the economy and our criminal justice system,” NUL President Marc H. Morial said. “If we are to repair these gaps, we must commit ourselves to making sure every Black American has the tools they need to register and cast an informed vote, whether by mail or in-person, early or on Election Day.”The idea of mail-in voting has been discussed in recent months as many Americans worry about the risk of going to the polls during the pandemic. As Blavity previously reported, former first lady Michelle Obama launched an initiative in April to urge the government to expand voting options and keep Americans safe from the coronavirus.“Americans should never have to choose between making their voices heard and keeping themselves and their families safe. Expanding access to vote-by-mail, online voter registration and early voting are critical steps for this moment — and they're long overdue," Obama said in a statement.President Donald Trump has been a strong critic of voting by mail. In an interview with Fox News, the president said that if voting became easier, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again."Trump openly admitting if we made voting easier in America, Republicans wouldn't win elections Trump: "The things they had in there were crazy. They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again." pic.twitter.com/x5HmX6uogo— Lis Power (@LisPower1) March 30, 2020Trump doubled down on his sentiment during a press conference."Mail-in voting is a terrible thing," he said. "If you vote, you should go. Even the concept of early voting is not the greatest because a lot of things happen."As part of its #ReclaimYourVote campaign, BET is now focused on fighting against voter suppression. “We have witnessed attempts to exclude Black Americans from the voting process through the purging of registration rolls, restrictive voter ID laws and other forms of voter suppression – a legacy of Jim Crow,” said Jeanine Liburd, chief social impact and communications officer for BET. “We are thrilled to be partnering with the National Urban League and an incredible group of impact partners to declare September 18 National Black Voter Day to energize our audience to reclaim their vote during this upcoming election and beyond.”Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of National Action Network, is also partnering with BET to eliminate hurdles in the voting process. Sharpton said the election of Trump in 2016 "proved in the most dangerous ways that elections have consequences.""Which is why 2020 is shaping up to be the most important election of our lifetime," Sharpton said. "I, along with the National Action Network, wholeheartedly stand with BET's voter registration efforts through National Black Voter Day. The last few months have shown us that we are literally fighting for our lives."BET and its partners will be busy in the days leading up to National Black Voter Day. The advocates plan to provide voter registration information, educate eligible voters about their rights and highlight important issues in discussions with candidates. National Black Voter Day falls on the same date as the first early voting days in South Dakota and Minnesota, where Floyd was killed. The event is the latest part of BET's #ReclaimYourVote campaign, which launched earlier this year."To date, #ReclaimYourVote has leveraged activations, talent, civil rights partnerships and television spots to urge the Black community to be counted in the census and to take a stand and vote," the network...

If you’re interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more.____In 1967, psychologist Dr. Kenneth Clark addressed the Kerner Commission with a bleak and resigned verdict on its findings.“I read the report of the 1919 riot in Chicago,” he said, “and it is as if I were reading the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of 1935, the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of 1943, the report of the McCone Commission on the (1965) Watts riot. I must again in candor say to you … it is a kind of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, with the same moving picture shown over again, the same analysis, the same recommendations, and the same inaction.”If Dr. Clark was still with us today, he would be watching the same tired movie and drawing the same heartbreaking conclusions.But that doesn’t have to be the film we show our children.Because, today, underneath the deep-rooted racism that has kept our power oppressed and our voices silent is a simmering craving for action that’s started to boil. And with the combination of the grievous mishandling of the national response to COVID-19 — which disproportionately affects Black and brown folks — and the series of murders that violently stole the young lives of Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, our once quiet appetite for meaningful change has started to burn.For centuries, we've known that Black lives have not mattered. To say otherwise would be an egregious misunderstanding of the architecture of our very country: one that was built on the backs of Black bodies and fed by Black blood, all while tempering a man’s value to only three-fifths of a whole person. The systemic racism entrenched in America today is an echo of the same bigoted principles that have long stood to protect the political machine of the privileged status quo.If we look at any level of government, in any state in this country, the picture is ultimately the same. There are very few people in elected positions of influence who look like us and who understand the complexities that we deal with every day simply for daring to exist. Yet, those in power tell us that we’ve “come so far,” and we are expected to be satisfied with table scraps — to be thankful for the crumbs of progress, as if there haven’t been tens of us murdered in the streets for every one of us who makes it to a seat.As the National Director of Leaders of Color, a program that recruits Black and brown leaders for public office, I have never felt the sheer necessity of my job more than I do now. In fact, it’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of ushering in elected officials who understand the need for lasting change, because the very same pulse beats within their own chests.In order for real movement, we have to flood every level of government — from our local school boards, to governors and beyond — with candidates who are willing to look the current political apparatus in the eye and say, “Your time is up.” We have to vote in leaders who know of the staggering inequities our children face in the fight for quality education, and the exhaustion of the myriad disparities that exist in communities of color when it comes to access to healthcare, pay equality and the ability to freely walk out our front doors secure in the knowledge that we will come back.And to do all of this — to do any of this — we have to vote. Vote to support your local council members; vote for a mayor who knows you; vote for a President who doesn’t hate you.Vote as if your life depends on it, because it does.Those in power do not want their long-enjoyed comfort to be tried. They do not want us to shake the tables; they do not want us, period. But if America is ever going to truly be able to say that Black lives do, in fact, matter, we must show them that we will not be silent, and we will no longer be sated by empty shreds of progress.Today, we have an opportunity to show our children — and the spirit of Dr. Kenneth Clark — a new film. We’ve already started the process, now we just need to press play.I’ll see you at the polls.____Michael Bland is the National Director of the Leaders of Color initiative under the Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). Michael contributed to the incredible success of the Obama for America Campaign, where he served as the Northeast Regional Field Director in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and conducted region wide plans for voter registration and event organizing for...

If you’re interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more.____If we're not careful, coronavirus may end up being the ultimate voter suppression tool. Bad enough that it's a global pandemic. Even worse that it's exposing an array of dangerous gaps in daily life and all sorts of essential infrastructure — from healthcare systems to food and medical equipment supply chains — all while exacerbating current race and income disparities. But, now, the current panic is convincing many of us that the right move is to delay the election. That idea is already underway with five states postponing their primaries until later dates.Ohio didn't show up on this week’s Super Tuesday III roster as the governor made a split-day decision to override a judicial order and postpone until June 2; other states such as Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia and Maryland are also acting as if any sort of election postponement is the brave thing to do. Other states, like crucial battleground Pennsylvania, are also considering it.  We don't need to do that. In fact, we have no business doing that.Suggesting that we shouldn't vote draws a mix of panicked and angry glares from those who believe critics like us are being careless, at best — completely mean, at worse, for putting the health of voters and polling precinct workers at further risk. Yet, even with the coronavirus, the move to delay primaries — and thereby create a slippery slope towards pulling the plug on the rest of the election — is premature and full of overreaction. Don't go down this road, fam. Doing so puts us on a slippery slope we'll end up regretting in the very near and foreseeable future.The Democratic National Committee's outrage and threat to penalize states who do postpone is warranted. It shows that some Democrats, including Chairman Tom Perez, understand how high the stakes are. Not only does it begin to create dangerous precedent for a process that's always occurred without delay even in the midst of war (Abraham Lincoln didn't have a problem keeping the 1864 presidential election going even as the country was embroiled in a massive Civil War — even when the risk of losing his own presidency loomed large), but it will undercut efforts to remove the current "existential threat" in the White House and to replace the powers in the Senate which embolden him. This is the most consequential election in modern American history, and it will be a last shot opportunity to resolve the current Constitutional crisis we're faced with now.Stopping the election on any level suddenly stops the needed electoral mobilization to pause the accelerated meltdown of American democracy. It also potentially dismantles our ability to repair a dysfunctional federal government that is partly responsible for triggering the current global crisis.The impeachment acquittal was, indeed, the final removal of checks and balances on the Trump presidency. Given the administration's penchant for open-air retaliation, we need to stop operating under the assumption that a political opposition will be allowed to exist if Trump is reelected. It won't.Hence, there should be no talk or encouragement of election delays — especially from the historically disenfranchised Black electorate. Nor should we be entrusting any responsible postponement of primaries or any election to Republican policymakers. One should eye any Republican-dominated moves to delay with caution. The majority of states that have postponed primaries — three out of five — are Republican; four out of five are reliably conservative or "red states" (with the exception of split-government Maryland, where Democrats run the state capitol). Even the two states with Democratic governors — Louisiana and Kentucky — are places where the state legislatures and much of the electorates are so deeply conservative that they aren't risking re-election hopes for later on. All five states, in addition, have their elections and voter registration administered by Republican Secretaries of State.With the GOP track record, so far, on actively franchising voter suppression, do we suddenly trust them on their word to protect voters from a public health emergency?We shouldn't.Instead, now is the time for a national movement under the moniker of "distance voting." It's not completely necessary, anyway, for all voting to take place on one election day full of crowded polling places. No, we haven't yet designed a secure enough digital tool so we can vote as easy as American Idol. But, voting cycles should be and can be spread out over a period of months anyway, with the outcome announced on the more ceremonial "Election Day." That's how we should be doing it.Rather than delay, states should be immediately transitioning to the option most of them have available: some form of alternative ballot processing that doesn't involve a polling location. Most states have absentee ballot, mail-in ballot or early voting options in place on some level, or a combination of all three. Indeed, all states provide absentee ballots to certain classes or segments of the voting population, and two-thirds will provide the absentee option without requiring an excuse. Vote-by-mail is universal in five states, and the option is available in others.States should have been using federal election security funding to implement these sorts of alternative or distance voting measures more universally. If that had been the case, we wouldn't be talking about delays. This is where civil rights, voting rights and other voter mobilization organizations should start stepping up. The Black political community, from grassroots organizations to Black elected officials, should be putting public pressure on their respective states to resist the temptation to postpone election dates. But, both grasstops and grassroots organizations should be consolidating their resources and pushing a unified national 50-state strategy that (1) demands states expand their distance voting and early voting infrastructure while (2) identifying the states where distance voting and early voting options are available, along with a central calendar of dates and finally, (3) activating aggressive efforts that ensure voters use those options.In the meantime, on a separate track, there should be a national effort to also hire younger polling precinct workers. That would immediately address the health concerns of elderly poll workers; according to the Election Assistance Commission “less than one-fifth of poll workers were younger than 41 years old, whereas more than two-thirds were 61 years or older.” There's an opportunity for municipalities and states to hire younger poll workers (a move that could also help energize Gen Z and millennial turnout).Elected officials and aligned interest groups should also be suing states who delay election dates or show signs of complicating distance and early voting options. Pressure should be put on Congress to pass comprehensive distance voting legislation.Voting can still happen along with coronavirus social distancing. The key is making sure this national "distance voting" effort is ambitious; it's not simply PSAs. It's every level of the historically disenfranchised and vulnerable communities pulling together their advocacy infrastructure to make this happen.Our ancestors, not too long ago, went through much worse, much deadlier hurdles to exercise their right to vote. Or did we forget about that? If they could find creative ways around poll taxes, police blockades, arrests and lynch mobs on the way to the polling place, we can find ways around coronavirus. It's that important.____Charles D. Ellison is an award-winning thought leader, political strategist, commentator and advocacy expert with nearly two decades of applied expertise in the arena of politics, public policy, campaigns and elections, crisis management and emerging/digital media strategy....

Super Tuesday turned into Super Wednesday for Texas voter Hervis Rogers who waited in line for seven hours to cast his vote.The polling station at Texas Southern University experienced delays due to high voter turnout and a lack of voting machines, according to The Daily Beast.Rogers was the last person to vote at TSU and ended up casting his ballot at 1:30 a.m. Afterward, he reported directly to his job for a night shift which he was late for. Rogers didn’t seem upset by the long lines though, as he was smiling when he walked out and told ABC13 that he used the time to watch the results come in on his phone."I wanted to get my vote in, voice my opinion. I wasn't going to let anything stop me, so I waited it out," Rogers said. While he kept mum on who his candidate of choice is, he did tell Houston Chronicle reporter Nicole Hensley, that he’s confident “it was the right choice.”Hervis Rogers is out. Here’s what he had to say as he left the polling site. pic.twitter.com/AZV2b0xzzL— Nicole Hensley 📰 (@nkhensley) March 4, 2020Pizza was given to voters by volunteers to keep their spirits high. However, some voters became irritated with the hours-long wait time, calling civil rights groups and even leaving in some cases..@OrganizeTexas tells me that wait times are so long in Harris County’s Black and Latino neighborhoods that people are going from location to location, and some voters are giving up on voting— Kira Lerner (@kira_lerner) March 3, 2020Clerk Diane Trautman said more machines were sent to the site in order to accommodate the high turn out. At Houston Community College, 12 more voting machines were sent after polls had already been officially closed in order to help the line of 300 people move along, Vox reported.“Literally the whole time we’ve been out here, none of the machines have been functioning the way they said they were,” Justin McVay told MSNBC.McVay waited five and a half hours at the HBCU to cast his vote. Although the long lines and lack of machines were frustrating, the Texan made sure to stay and stick it out.“At the end of the day we all stayed and we motivated each other because we really wanted to get our vote across and we really felt like they must have been doing this on purpose to kind of steer people or discourage people to come vote,” he said. “Maybe next time, but you might not get a next time.”Black and Latino voters were affected mostly in Texas, specifically in Harris County where the population is made up of 40% Latino residents and 19% Black residents, according to Data USA.The state has also shut down more polling sites than any other southern state, creating an easier opportunity to win for Republican candidates, as Blavity previously reported.Since 2012, Texas has closed down 750 polling sites, leading to voter suppression. The areas in which these sites have shut down are in communities heavily populated by Black people. It has also affected more liberal-leaning cities in central Texas, such as Killeen. Other polling sites that have been shut down are located near the U.S.-Mexico...

Presidential candidates are working overtime to court the Black vote. Prior to ending his presidential bid on Saturday night, Tom Steyer made a bizarre last-ditch effort of his own.The billionaire invited several guests from the culture to stump for his campaign during a stop in South Carolina on Friday, per Rolling Stone. Juvenile was one of those guests and performed a sanitized version of his classic “Back That Azz Up.”So tonight I saw Tom Steyer hop on stage and dance with Juvenile like a Hot Boy. To say 2020 politics is wild is an understatement. pic.twitter.com/v43OuFi8Ci— Chaunte'l Powell (@chauntelpowell) February 29, 2020Tom Steyer’s seasonless dance moves provided a field’s worth of corniness. He also offered a few adlibs while Juvie kept the crowd hype.Like y'all...I wasn't ready... pic.twitter.com/ktAyXURd20— Chaunte'l Powell (@chauntelpowell) February 29, 2020Steyer’s wife Kat went full Karen in the background and dropped it like it was room temperature. At least they appeared to have a good time even if they were on the ones and twos while everyone else was on the threes and fours. Clips of the dancing made their way around the internet. Twitter definitely got a kick out of it.Tom Steyer entering the after-party, after backing it up to Juvenile’s song on stage.pic.twitter.com/hncIuTcW1Q— Jermaine Watkins ✍🏾 (@JermaineWatkins) February 29, 2020Nobody: Tom Steyer and Juvenile: pic.twitter.com/3bsfcJhlll— Souf Sil Fa Lil 🏁 (@Nictheegr8) February 29, 2020I am a WoC and I support Tom Steyer because seeing him mouth "I need a fuckin' hoodrat, that's a fact" from Juvenile's Back That Ass Up convinced me he's kinda nice with it.— Sister (@sisterofonline) February 29, 2020I'm not over this. I live in Iowa. I watched @TomSteyer commercials for like a year, yet, we got not a single hint of Juvenile nor Cash Money Records taking over for the 99 and the 2000! https://t.co/vzhjXqssoo— Ty Rushing (@Rushthewriter) February 29, 2020STOP. I’ve now seen everything in this primary. Tom Steyer dancing to Back That Ass Up at a rally with Juvenile? He actually looks like he’s having a good time https://t.co/EEjFpjryVu— Atima Omara (@atima_omara) February 29, 2020Other guests included gospel star Yolanda Adams, who sang “America the Beautiful,” and DJ Jazzy Jeff.Steyer got his life during the visit to South Carolina, a state with a sizable Black population. He seemed hopeful even though he isn’t as popular as his opponents. According to an Emerson poll, Steyer shared third place with former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, per The Hill who also dropped out of the presidential race over the weekend.“Win, lose or draw, I fell in love with the people of South Carolina,” Steyer told the crowd. “I’m never leaving. Honestly, I am never leaving. Because this is a completely righteous fight, and we’re going to win this fight.”Two-stepping with Juvenile wasn’t the only way Steyer has attempted to reach Black voters. The Washington Post reported Steyer spoke in favor of reparations for descendants of enslaved Black people.“Every single policy area in the United States has a gigantic subtext of race. We’re talking about education. We’re talking about criminal justice. We’re talking about housing. We’re talking about loans. I started a bank to basically correct the injustice in the financial services industry. Basically, to make loans to black-owned, Latino-owned, and women-owned businesses. We’ve supported over 8,000 affordable housing units,” he stated.“But more than that, I believe I’m the only person on this stage who believes in reparations for slavery.”He also advocated for the creation of a commission dedicated to retelling “the story of the last 400-plus years in America of African Americans, of systematic legal injustice, discrimination, and cruelty, but also of 400-plus years of contribution in terms of building the United States of America and leading the United States of America from a moral standpoint.”One of Steyer’s campaign commercials also promoted atonement for American slavery, as reported by MSN."For 400 years, this country has built a racist system of profits made on the backs of incarcerated black bodies," the narrator said. "Reparations are well overdue."While in South Carolina, Steyer told patrons at a Mexican restaurant there has to be an honest conversation about American history.“You've got to tell the truth about what happened," he said. “You've got to repair what's done so that we can move on...

An Alabama law, set into place in the early 1900s, barred Alfonzo Tucker Jr. from voting because he owed the state $4.In the late 1980s, Tucker got into a physical altercation with a University of Alabama football player while in a club. He was convicted of a misdemeanor of third-degree assault, reports The Guardian. A few years later, he got into a fight with a police officer and in turn, was convicted of second-degree assault, which is a felony. He served a prison sentence of two years and was on probation for many more.After being released from prison, Tucker worked to pay off the court-mandated $1,600 fee.Alabama is one of 30 states which require people with felony convictions to pay off financial obligations associated with their sentence before they can vote again.In order to further disenfranchise Black people, the government of Alabama passed the Permanent Plan in 1903 which states that anyone convicted of a crime of “moral turpitude” — or "an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community" — will be stripped of their right to vote.  Tucker said the racist policies put in place back in the day are still affecting people like him today.“I read about the challenges during the 60s, 50s, that Black people had to overcome just to vote,” Tucker told The Guardian. “It’s the same thing going on in 2020.”Tucker had no interest in voting before prison, but while serving his sentence, he learned of Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist and the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. Once he got out of prison, he began voting regularly.He received a letter in 2013 stating he could no longer vote, but it did not inform him of the steps required to reinstate his registration. He did not act on it until his son received a letter a few years later, stating he was unable to vote. The letter was a mistake as they confused Tucker and his son, who have the same name.As the 2018 midterm elections neared, Tucker was determined to get his registration back. He attended an event where activists were helping people with felony convictions learn about their voting rights. The volunteers contacted the board of pardons and paroles to get more information about Tucker’s case. Two weeks later the board notified him of a $135.10 balance he owed from his conviction. Tucker borrowed money from a family member to pay it off. He thought he was in the clear, but a courthouse clerk told him he owed an additional $5,535.47 from a criminal offense decades ago, which he had to pay off before voting again.Tucker turned to a Campaign Legal Center attorney, Blair Bowie, who immediately realized Alabama made a mistake in Tucker’s case. To restore their vote, people with felonies only have to pay off the fee originally given as part of their conviction.Tucker had paid off most of his debt by 2018, but the court still tacked on a $131.10 fee, which should not have affected his voting rights because it was added after the original conviction. The $5,535.47 fee was from a misdemeanor. He, in fact, only owed $4 in order to regain his right to vote.“What is voter suppression if not officials wrongly telling you that you can’t vote?” Bowie said. “That’s been a classic way of disenfranchising people, particularly in Alabama.”He paid the $135.10 fee but still could not cast a ballot. Tucker was eventually connected with John Paul Taylor, an organizer with the Southern Poverty Law Center, who contacted the board and got Tucker registered.“Here’s a very clear example of a person who has jumped through every single hoop that you’ve given them and they’re still being denied because of something that they really don’t even know about,” Taylor said.Tucker and his friend, Bill Foster, organized a group to help people with felony convictions restore their voting rights. They estimate they’ve helped about 10 people so far. Tucker plans to cast his first vote, since restoring his rights, this...

If you’re interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more.____Co-written by Dr. Rahsaan Harris____The Democratic debate stage on the evening of December 19, 2019, was “melanin challenged.” Andrew Yang was the only candidate of color to qualify to participate. By January 14, the debate stage was “melanin absent” with no candidates of color participating in the debate! As Buggin’ Out famously asked the pizza shop owner, Sal, in Do the Right Thing, people of color are wondering, “How come ain’t no brothers on that wall?" (Sal responded, “This is my pizzeria!”)Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Andrew Yang are the only people of color that remain in the Democratic Party presidential primary and they aren’t frontrunners in early primary states. Their odds for success are slim. Relatively unknown billionaire Tom Steyer seems to be a more viable candidate due to his massive spending on television advertising and a recent second-place showing in a South Carolina primary poll.Will voters of color be able to support a candidate that understands their struggle to gain equality in the United States? Does this tell us anything about the current state of the country and people of color’s place in it? The Democratic field of candidates for the President of the United States was once the most diverse in American history. It has become nearly whitewashed as candidates of color exit the stage.Kamala Harris dropped out of the race for president over the Thanksgiving holiday because her “campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources [they] need to continue.” The latest candidates of color to exit are Julian Castro, who offered "it simply isn't our time" for why he ended his campaign, and Cory Booker, who cited lack of money as the primary reason for dropping out.In this presidential campaign, big money is the difference maker for the outcomes of two candidates who had strikingly similar views on people of color and the criminal justice. One of those individuals is no longer in the race and the other still is. What is even more telling, one by one candidates of color are being systematically outspent out of the race. A billionaire could possibly win the nomination because of their ability to outspend other candidates!Michael Bloomberg entered the race for president on November 24, 2019, in his words, “… to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America.” Interestingly, he went on an “apology tour” before he entered the race. Bloomberg explained that he was wrong for pushing the "stop and frisk" policy that disproportionately affected Black and Latinx boys and men while he was mayor of New York City. Reverend Al Sharpton “welcomed the former mayor's remarks but reminded him that ‘it will take more than one speech for people to forgive and forget a policy that so negatively impacted entire communities.’"Kamala Harris was consistently taken to task for her position as a prosecutor and the impact she had on the imprisonment of Black and brown folk. It will be interesting to see if Bloomberg is challenged in the same way as Kamala Harris was. People of color are disproportionately negatively impacted by the U.S. prison system.Criminal justice reform is an important issue for Black and brown communities. What may be (or perhaps should be) disconcerting for Black and brown people is the diluting of their collective political power to reject a candidate who is detrimental to their socio-political and economic interests because of the power of money in politics. It is reported that Bloomberg’s first campaign ad exceeded in cost what other candidates’ advertising budgeted for the entire year.We understand that the Black vote is not monolithic and that voting for someone just because they look like you does not mean that the candidate has the electorate’s interest at heart. For Blacks, it could very well be that Harris was not their ideal candidate because of her views and actions on Blacks in the criminal justice system. She is no longer in the race.The power of big money in politics should not be permitted to overshadow the will of the people. Bloomberg may not be the candidate of choice for Blacks either because of his similar views and record of support for aggressive policing of Black and brown people. Unlike Senator Harris, he is still in the race.It is concerning that Bloomberg is able to infuse his campaign with massive amounts of capital to possibly subvert the will of a segment of the electorate. This outcome is a frightening proposition for Black and brown people, the groups most negatively and disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system. Big money in politics is a reality. It has the power to dilute the net effect of Black and brown support of candidates who understand issues important to their communities.As we recently remembered the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., like him, we recognized that engaging in the political process is an important means for gaining equity. He encouraged Blacks “to continue to struggle through legislation and legalism” in his speech at the NAACP Emancipation Day Rally in Atlanta, GA in 1957. Dr. King asked for individual Blacks to “go down in our pockets and give big money for the cause of freedom.” He knew that this path of freedom required financial resources.Black investment in electoral politics has long been a conundrum. Many people of color believe the vote is impotent to bring about positive change in the lives of everyday people. Removing big money from politics could change that dynamic. Perhaps the solution to the outsized importance of money in elections lies in campaign finance reform that restricts private money. Alternatively, people of color may gain access to more electoral power through increased participation in political giving.Whatever the path forward, it’s worth exploring ways to ensure more brothers and sisters are on that...

If you’re interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more.____No single group was targeted more than African Americans: that was the conclusion of a Senate Intelligence Committee report which looked at digital deception efforts in the lead up to the 2016 election. Released early this month, the report has become the latest piece in a mounting pile of evidence that a large part of Russia’s strategy when it interfered in the 2016 election was to suppress the vote, and especially the Black vote.In 2017, when research into Russia’s role in the 2016 election began emerging, efforts to sow division in the American public through hyperpartisan posts were widely reported on. Much less covered was the Internet Research Agency (IRA’s) wide use of voter suppression messages, largely targeting communities of color, especially Black and Latinx Americans.Standard tools used to depress the vote and perpetuate racism in our democracy such as voter identification laws, a scarcity of polling stations and voter roll purges have all been on the rise recently, encouraged by the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision to gut the Voting Rights Act. But another more subtle form of voter suppression has also emerged over the last few years: digital deception.This new tactic has substantial reach. On Facebook alone, the IRA had an audience of 126 million Americans that we know of. One of the Facebook pages the IRA set up, Blacktivist, got 360,000 likes — more than the official Black Lives Matter page. In the run-up to the election, the Blacktivist page ran posts and ads claiming that the candidates didn’t care about Black people, encouraging voters to stay home, to not vote or to vote for third-party candidates.It wasn’t just Russia either: the head of Trump’s digital campaign (now his 2020 campaign manager), Brad Parscale, has admitted to employing strategies meant to depress voter turnout. Analyses of propaganda surrounding the 2018 midterm elections have found similar instances of voters being told to vote on incorrect days, to vote online or that their vote does not matter — either explicitly or via messaging aiming to discourage and dissuade them from participating. More recently, Facebook has disabled IRA-linked fake accounts posing as swing state voters, one of which was using the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag to slam Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden about his history on race issues.At the end of October, thanks in large part to efforts by civil rights advocates, Facebook announced new measures meant to combat voter suppression on its platform. They include labeling state sponsored media, labeling debunked posts and banning advertisements that discourage voting. Twitter has taken by far the most comprehensive action of any of the platforms so far: In addition to stopping all political advertising globally, the company has stated that “malicious election content” will be removed. However, it has provided little information on what malicious content is or how it is detected, meaning it is still vulnerable to disinformation and voter suppression efforts.While the efforts to address voter suppression by the platforms are a small step in the right direction, they all fall far short of fully addressing the issue. They do not, for example, address more insidious forms of voter suppression, including manipulative posts or ads by politicians containing lies and disinformation. Civil rights groups have called on Facebook to restore fact checking and labeling paid and organic posts by politicians. Platforms’ efforts also do not address the pervasive problem they have with fake accounts. Truly combatting this problem requires regulation.A central issue that needs to be tackled is that of microtargeting. Digital voter suppression efforts are only possible because posts can be targeted to specific communities, making such posts harder to find, regulate and counter. When communications are only visible to the sender and recipient, it prevents accountability. In order to address the issue, individuals targeted by political communications need to be able to see exactly who is targeting them and what targeting criteria is being used. Regulations ensuring this transparency — including disclosures on political communications, a comprehensive database of political communications that includes microtargeting criteria and reporting requirements equal to those that exist for traditional media — are desperately needed.Additionally, more needs to be done to prevent fraudulent accounts from being created on social media platforms. Despite the fact that foreign actors are banned from participating in American campaigns, loopholes in campaign finance law — including a dearth of information on who is actually paying for political communications and insufficient identity verification policies — make monitoring and enforcing this policy extremely difficult. To correct these problems, the loopholes need to be closed, automated accounts need to be identified as such and all three platforms need to implement systems that will allow for better flagging of "inauthentic behavior."The bedrock of a representative democracy is participation. When individuals are prevented from voting — whether through increased physical barriers or through digital deception — that undermines our entire political system. It is our job, as a country, to ensure that voter suppression in any form is stamped out. Anything less contravenes the very ideals and values on which the entire country was founded.____Ann M. Ravel is the Digital Deception Project Director at MapLight and previously served as chair of the Federal Election...

Protesters interrupted an event Wednesday that was meant to promote Mayor Pete Buttigieg's relationship with the Black community in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. Buttigieg, who is running for president in the 2020 democratic primary, did not attend the event but did have seven local politicians, pastors and activists there to speak on his behalf. Sharon McBride, a South Bend city council member who joined him on the campaign trail in South Carolina earlier this week, was addressing the crowd when a man began to heckle her from the audience.  “Who chose these people as the Black leaders?” he asked. “Who organized this? Why are you talking about Pete Buttigieg?”There was just a major ruckus at this event with prominent African-American leaders that are supporting Mayor @PeteButtigieg. People who appear to be from Black Live Matter stole the mic from councilwoman Sharon McBride pic.twitter.com/OpONPL3bo5— Max Lewis (@MaxLewisTV) December 4, 2019Buttigieg has faced criticism from activists for his handling of a police involved shooting that took place in South Bend during his tenure as mayor. An exchange Buttigieg had with a protester made headlines after he was stopped outside of a town hall event he hosted for concerned residents. One protester asked Buttigieg, "You running for president and you expect black people to vote for you?" He responded by saying he was not "asking" for the protester's vote, to which another protester said, "You ain’t gonna get it, either.”Mayor Pete Buttigieg: “I do not have evidence that there has been discipline for racist behavior...” Protester: “You running for president and you expect black people to vote for you?” Buttigieg: “I’m not asking for your vote.” Protester: “You ain’t gonna get it either.” pic.twitter.com/tK1Ys0Yvfc— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 22, 2019Staffers and supporters of the Buttigieg campaign took to social media to express their concern for how Black Buttigieg supporters are treated when they announce their allegiance. This is what Black folks who support Pete experience all the time on Twitter. White men, grabbing the mic, insulting us, calling us “uppity” “purchased” and “tokens” all in support of certain white male candidates. Careful YOUR racism is showing. https://t.co/XfqrLQQp2m— Nina Smith (@ninasophia81) December 5, 2019“This is what Black folks who support Pete experience all the time on Twitter,” Buttigieg’s traveling press secretary, Nina Smith, tweeted. “White men, grabbing the mic, insulting us, calling us ‘uppity’ ‘purchased’ and ‘tokens’ all in support of certain white male candidates. Careful YOUR racism is showing.”In the latest Hill-Harris poll, Buttigieg received only 1% of support from the Black...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren received an endorsement Thursday from a group of more than 100 Black women and gender-nonconforming activists. In a video released by Black Womxn For, a political safe space for all Black folks who do not claim male identity, the group's leadership explained that while every candidate has flaws, Warren was the candidate that most embodied the causes for the empowerment of all people. “We endorse Senator Warren with the full weight of accountability,” the group announced in a statement on its website. “Our endorsement is not a blanket approval of all of her acts, both past, present, and future but rather a firm and calculated understanding that should she fall short of her commitments to us and our communities she will be held to account.” Warren's campaign has been working to improve her support from the Black community. The Massachusetts senator has secured multiple prominent endorsements, with the latest being from Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who broke away from the other members of "The Squad" who all endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders.  For her part, Warren has accepted the endorsement as a responsibility, tweeting that she is committed to continuing the fight for the issues that made her the group's choice in the first place. "Black trans and cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy and I don't take this endorsement lightly," Warren tweeted. "I'm committed to fighting alongside you for the big, structural change our country needs." Last month, a Quinnipiac poll showed Warren's popularity at 20% among Black voters, an improvement from 10% in August but still well behind former Vice President Joe Biden who stands at 36%.Warren is set to take the stage at the next Democratic debate on Nov. 20 at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta....