(Photo Credit: unsplash/ Element5 Digital)

By Dayvon Love

Mainstream political discussions that urge Black participation in electoral politics are promoted most vehemently by a neoliberal, establishment Black political class. This network of Black spokespeople has been grifting off of the suffering of the masses of our people by proclaiming to the consultant class of the Democratic Party that they can get us to vote for Democrats in exchange for their own social, financial and political advancement. In this arrangement, our community gets economic and political scraps, at best. 

The last time I appeared on Roland Martin’s show was in 2020, when I pushed back about his characterization of Black people who chose not to participate in the electoral process as stupid or ill informed. While there is certainly plenty of that in all political persuasions and ideologies, what I was trying to explain to him is that many Black Democrats, locally, produce policies that are harmful to our communities and create an environment where our folks see Democrats actively working against the interests of working class Black people. Whether that takes the form of complicity with right wing efforts to reverse progress on criminal justice reform, tax breaks for wealthy developers, lack of enforcement of affordable housing or inaction on environmental racism– there are plenty of policy outcomes that make many people in our community disgusted with the Democratic Party. This doesn’t mean that Republicans are better on any of these policies, but it should make sense that when you aren’t delivering on policy for Black people locally, then mobilizing these same voters for national elections would be nearly impossible. It definitely doesn’t help to mobilize voters by calling them stupid because they don’t want to vote for people that are beholden to the Democratic Party establishment.

In Maryland my organization, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS), has been engaged in an intense battle to push the Democrats to deliver more substantive policy for Black people than what they have done traditionally, and have done so with moderate success. 

We have been able to advance cannabis legalization policies that allow for resentencing of cannabis related offenses and prohibit police from using the odor of cannabis to stop and search people. We were successful in repealing the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights which limited community oversight of law enforcement. We also championed a Reparations study bill that would devise a plan for how to implement a reparations policy in Maryland, along with other racial justice measures, but a herculean effort was required when it came to seeing these legislative initiatives turn into successfully passed bills. Maryland still engages in the practice of automatically charging youth as adults and putting youth in adult prisons. Maryland advocates are still fighting to overturn a veto from a Democratic governor on a reparations study bill. The Democratic Party continues to be a roadblock to revolutionary political activity that is needed to deliver policy on a consistent basis that would improve the quality of life of the masses of our people and move us toward liberation. 

Dayvon Love is director of public policy for the Baltimore-based think tank, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle. (Courtesy photo)

Even though Democrats, their White dominated consultant class and the Black gatekeeper class have been the most visible champions in mainstream media of voting rights, those of us that have revolutionary politics to the left of the Democratic Party have a stake in the Supreme Court case regarding the congressional districts in Louisiana. This case is about whether requiring Louisiana to have two majority Black congressional districts out of six is unconstitutional, in a state that is a third Black. Republicans are arguing that race should not be considered in drawing congressional districts in order to justify drawing maps that reduce Black political representation in the House of Representatives. 

The victories that I mentioned earlier in reference to the work that LBS has done in Maryland was made possible because of our ability to mobilize the electorate of the largest Black Caucus in the country. Having Black elected officials in office who are elected largely by working class Black voters has provided important leverage that has been necessary to push the Democratic Party beyond its centrist, White dominated corporate core. Black radicals should have an appreciation for the fact that diminishing the number of majority Black congressional districts hurts our ability to be a formidable force in the political landscape.  

While many of the Black people in elected office are neoliberal, reformist mainstream Democrats, our ability to unseat them and elect more revolutionary Black political figures that can advance an anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, revolutionary pan-africanist agenda is hindered by a Supreme Court ruling that would allow for Republicans to draw a map in Louisiana that only has one congressional district.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.