A month or so ago, I sat amongst students and faculty at the University of Chicago anxious to hear thoughts from Tom Perez, the recently elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, on the direction of the Democratic Party, looking ahead to the 2018 midterm elections.
Just a few days prior, news of the DNC’s role in a Russian dossier, which had been hanging over Donald Trump’s head like a chandelier for more than a year, was released. Days after the dossier story, Donna Brazile, who formerly held a seat in which Tom Perez now sits, made headlines leading up to the release of her book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-Ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump In The White House, which not only detailed a grand power struggle within party leadership during the 2016 election, but also served as an alternative to the point of view Hillary has been selling on her own nationwide book tour.
That struggle inevitably led to Democrats putting out a ticket that black millennials never totally vouched for. I saw first hand the energy that surrounded Bernie Sanders campaign. And while he rightfully faced criticism for not being a "true progressive," the fervor he created was nearly as rambunctious as the following Trump was receiving.
And while the images alone of Sanders marching or being arrested during random protests movement shouldn’t be enough to earn our vote, they sure has hell appealed to us more than Hillary’s "super-predator" statements, or her videotaped dismissive attitude towards a Black Lives Matter protester.
To think that inner-party squabbles may have played a role in preventing the effervescence of Sander’s campaign to compete with the vitriol from the Trump camp is a bit discouraging for those of us whose political pilot lights were lit by the dynamism of Barack Obama. Is the party listening to young, marginalized groups? Until Democrats realize that the groups Trump has so successfully alienated — young African Americans, Muslims, members of the LGBTQ community — are the very groups that should be at the center of the Democratic Party, there will continue to be chasm between these groups and the party as a whole.
Right before the floor opened up for questions, Perez was asked what the Democratic Party message would be going forward into the 2018 elections. His response was to remind us that the Democratic Party is the party that has “always had your back.”
Going against my natural inclination to meet the statement with an instant “get the hell outta here,” I gave it some thought. I wondered, "Is he right?" As I looked around and took stock of the room, realizing mine was one of just a handful of black faces in a crowd of 300 or so, I thought, “In this room, he’s probably right.”
Historically, there is a degree of truth to Perez’s assessment. The Democratic Party does have a bit of history having the backs of working class folks and, in some instances, blacks specifically. The New Deal and Civil Rights were mentioned specifically to exemplify the Democratic Party’s dedication to having our back.
But let us not be victims of revisionist history. Aspects of The New Deal, specifically as they relate to housing, overwhelmingly benefited whites. Considering that two-thirds of Americans built their wealth through home equity, suffice to say, those housing policies are largely responsible for the insurmountable lead white Americans have with respect to wealth. In fact, of the $120 billion allocated for housing from 1934–1968, less than 2 percent was allocated to non-whites.
And as far as Civil Rights, yes, democrats were indeed in control of the White House to oversee the signage of both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. But these legislative victories would have been no more than pipe dreams if not for the decade of pushing, advocating, marching and dying by those committed to the movements.
The lives of black millennials, particularly those of us who hail from America's ghettos, have been largely dominated by republican rule. We were born in the very beginning of the crack era and Reagan Era, which spanned the entire '80s, followed by his vice president taking the helm to close out the '80s and jump off the '90s. We were just kids in the '90s. so the pseudo blackness of a saxophone playing, weed smoking Bill Clinton perhaps glossed over some of the detrimental criminal policy he and many elders in the black community, saw as a necessary deterrent to the rising violence.
When it comes to mass incarceration, we love to blame conservatives like Nixon, Reagan and Bush. But while the tough on crime mantra of the 20th century was largely championed by republicans, in many ways the most damning legislation to exacerbate mass incarceration, the 1994 Crime Bill, was spearheaded by Democrat Bill Clinton.
With whom, then, should the hip-hop and millennial generation align itself with politically now, during a time when the Republican president has labeled white supremacists as “fine people” while calling black athletes “sons of bitches” for protesting racial inequality? Should we be aligned with any party at all?
The 2008 election was the first for many of us. Perhaps we are cursed to have had our national political cherries popped by such a dynamic and historic candidate in Barack Obama. Traditional ties between the youth and the Democratic party, particularly the church, are slowly unraveling. A report on black millennials released last year showed that black youth are considerably more loyal to the Democratic party than whites are to the Republican party. But how long can that stay the case? Certainly not forever. In fact, a recent focus group revealed that Democrats have still have "a lot of work to do" with Black millennials.
On the local and state level, last month we saw eight transgender officials elected nationwide, including the first African-American transgender individual in U.S. history.
It remains to be seen if this trend of marginalized groups gaining elected position will continue, but this is certain: until Democrats realize the sections of society that Trump has so successfully alienated (young African Americans, Muslims, members of the LGBTQ community, immigrants) are the very groups that should be at the center of the Democratic Party, there will continue to be chasm at the national level.
