BlackPerspective.net
Discussing the Diaspora as seen through an internal Black lens
Jim Crow Democratic Convention
May 30th, 2008
Well, the final bloggers pool came out last night, and the DNC has held firm its position of exclusion and extreme under-representation.
Black people represent a 5th (20% or so) of the democratic party voters. We’re the most loyal demographic constituent voting between 85 – 90% for Democrats in national elections. No other major demographic group comes even close to matching.
How are we rewarded by the DNCC for such loyalty, with only 7% Black bloggership in the general pool, and a wooping 3% receiving the permanent convention floor position with all its advantages.
Well thank you Mr. Charlie. I’m happy to know that you’re going to let Black people on your bus, even if they just have to stand in the back.
The DNCC: ‘but there are floor passes for the general pool bloggers’.
Wow! You mean for 30 to 45 minutes Blacks can get a plantation pass to roam around free before their sent back; while dozens of white bloggers get permanent station on the floor of the convention for 4 days straight.
Well golly, gee wiz, I can hardly contain myself.
Two and a quarter centuries ago, Absalom Jones and William White weren’t even allowed up front for any time. They got sent to the back immediately. But now in 2008, at the Democratic National Convention; Blacks get a few minutes at the front before we’re sent to the back. What great progress this is.
We’ll now be allowed a smidge of time at the alter; before they come tap us on the shoulder and send us away. Let’s hope they’ll be nicer to the bloggers then they were to Jones and white.
And I understand that we should accept the DNC’s decision as is and just smile; yes indeedy, cause this is great pro-gress. I know how to Wear the Mask like Paul Laurence Dunbar; so certainly I shall chin and grin and bear it.
Except - I stand with my forefathers in declaring that this separate but equal is not equal.
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posted in Politics, Social Commentary, Racial Injustice | | | View blog reactions | Print This Post
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Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.
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I feel deeply insulted that the DNCC had the audacity to continue to insist that the group with the most floor privileges will be virtually all-white. I am very glad that we have assured that there will be AfroSpear blogs credentialed at the Convention. But the result is going to be a lot of negative publicity for the DNCC when those Black blogs are harassed at the Convention by the very same apartheid rules that have been announced:
Blacks will have to wait in line for floor passes, perhaps spending as much time waiting in line as we spend on the floor of the Convention. Whites, meanwhile, will not have to stand in line at all, but can go about their very important business, very self-importantly.
Blacks can stay on the floor for 30-45 minutes, but whites can stay for as long as they like.
Blacks get unceremoniously herded off the floor by security guards when our thirty minutes elapse, while whites smile condescendingly at us and pity us for the lower status that makes our expulsion inevitable at the end of our 30 minutes.
Blacks have to leave the floor and go running to an over-crowded press center in order to file their reports. Whites sit comfortably at their desks and type their reports into computers provided by the DNCC, while Black bloggers write their reports with pencil and paper. We have less time to write our reports and we don’t have computers with which to write them, but white bloggers do!
Finally, will come the all-white photographs of the state-bloggers corps, which will infuriate Black bloggers and occasion weeks and months of anti-DNCC blogging at the very time when we are supposed to be working to get out the vote for the November election.
Those all-white photos will even cause Black Americans to doubt that electing a Black president can make any difference for them, if the Democratic Party is to remain segregated even as a Black president is elected.
All of the double-talk and tokenism is a shame. I had hoped the group would be more diverse. One of the DNC coordinators was on Gina’s show the other night. He claims that there is diversity, but that he wasn’t at liberty to state the proportions ‘in the interest of not exposing folks business’ (tightly paraphrased) which I find suspect.
Shine on
-PZ