By: Keli Goff
For some, the greatest political mystery haunting this presidential election is the case of the missing (or non-existent) weapons of mass destruction. However, for Democrats, another mystery should have them putting on their Sherlock Holmes hats and Columbo trench coats. This mystery would be the case of the disappearing voter.
In a recent interview with CNN hip-hop artist Talib Kweli expressed his admiration for presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom he has name-checked in his song “Say Something.” In addition to noting that Obama’s “name is a nugget of lyrical gold…It sounds like a gunshot going off…” Kweli also explained that Obama simply inspires young people, including Kweli’s own circle of friends, in a way that few other politicians have. Yet in spite of this Kweli also admitted that he has not voted in years and in spite of his admiration of Obama he was not sure that he will do so this election cycle either.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/17/obama.hip.hop/index.html
What was so significant about Kweli’s admission is that he represents the face of an increasingly large voter demographic (or rather non-voting demographic). Young, black males are becoming America’s disappearing voter.
As the media has reported at length black men are facing a variety of disturbing statistics: high school drop out and unemployment rates as high as 50% in some urban areas and more black men in prisons today than on college campuses (according to a 2002 report from the Justice Policy Institute.) With black men becoming increasingly disenfranchised from society at large, it should come as a shock to no one that they are becoming increasingly disenfranchised from the political process.
In an interview for my forthcoming book one prominent Democratic consultant noted that many black males have become inherently distrustful of a society that they believe has left them behind, therefore they are inherently distrustful of politicians and the political process. For this reason they have become tough target for campaigns to reach.
While having a high profile black male like Barack Obama on the campaign trail this election cycle is likely to inspire more interest in the process than usual among this demographic, as Kweli proves Obama’s candidacy provides no guarantees and for the record, it shouldn’t. After all, the responsibility should not fall on one man to renew the faith of an entire group of voters in our democracy, yet that’s exactly what some are banking on.
The logic goes that if a young, charismatic, black man who is cool enough to appear on the cover of Vibe magazine cannot woo young, black males back to the voting booth than who can? But this kind of thinking misses the point. There should not be just one candidate (or one party for that matter) that a group of voters look to for confirmation that they are relevant to this process. This kind of limited thinking only further alienates people.
Here’s a wacky idea. What if all of the candidates running for office actually treated all voters as equally relevant to the process instead of ranking them in order of whose votes they consider most worthy: (soccer moms and senior citizens at the top of the ladder; young people, particularly young minorities at the bottom)?
Just imagine how different our campaigns might look. If and when that happens, then just maybe we will finally be able to solve the mystery of the disappearing voter.
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