An African American Declaration of Independence: The Cure For Political Chumpism.

"You put them first and they put you last. 'Cause you're a chump.

A political chump! .... and you are dumb enough to walk around

continuing to identify yourself with that party -- you're not

only a chump but you're a traitor to your race." Malcolm X

The Strategic African American Declaration of Independence

We, the African American population of the United States of America represent a free and independent people and constituency of the said United States and as such declare and believe ourselves entitled to and therefore demand the following rights and emoluments set forth hereinafter:

Allegiances

We will recognize no obligation of allegiance to any political party that does not advance and actively pursue as part of its primary platform and legislative agenda the following issues of fundamental importance to the African American community:

Federal Protected Class Designation

African Americans must be immediately designated a federal protected class as intended by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution as well as the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1871, 1875, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968 and 1991 . Such protection shall include review of all actions affecting African Americans under a strict scrutiny standard of review. Such designation shall remain in full force and effect for 100 years from the effective date.

Reparations

(slavery, segregation and wealth inequality)

The Governments of the United States (federal, state and local) were complicit in the maintenance of the African slave trade and utilized its ample power to insure its continued existence.

For more than a century the United States Government has sponsored, supported and enforced segregation and inequality in housing, education, employment that has and continues to impact the lives and fortunes of African Americans.

For centuries the lawful governments of the United States (federal, state and local) have designed and implemented policies and procedures whose intent it was to prevent the accumulation of wealth by African Americans and maintain segregated impoverished communities to insure our continued and increasing wealth inequality.

Since 1986 by the use of racially targeted enforcement of criminal statutes the Governments of the United States (federal, state and local) have manipulated the mass incarceration of two generations of African American men, women and children which unconstitutional action resulted in the wholesale economic and social disruption of families and communities. without compensation.

For these and other abuses too numerous to mention we demand reparations in an amount sufficient to restore us to the economic position we would have been at had they not occurred. At all times since the end of slavery African Americans and their communities have been subject to wholesale surveillance, harassment and intimidation at the hands of police departments which included but is not limited to stop and frisk, warrantless searches, seizures and arrest, profiling, police brutality, and extra judicial executions. These atrocities must addressed and compensated.

Complete Overhaul of Criminal Justice System

Political parties must advance and actively pursue as part of their primary platform and legislative agenda a complete overhaul of the criminal justice system that must include but is not limited to bail and sentencing reform, repeal of the Anti-drug Abuse Act of 1986 as amended, restoration of all rights and expungement of criminal records upon completion of sentence.

African American Economic Stabilization

Political parties must advance and actively pursue as part of their primary platform and legislative agenda the following ameliorative measures designed to immediately address African American economic stabilization through parity.

Tax Relief

African Americans who are descendants of African slaves and/or African Americans whose direct descendants have been in this country since 1945 must be exempt from federal state and local individual income and property taxes for 100 years from the effective date of the legislation.

Tuition Relief

Dedicated payments of tuition and living expenses to attend college or vocational/technical school. Free tuition at all state colleges and universities for a period of one hundred (100) years. Low interest loans for business start-ups.

Housing

Low cost mortgages and subsidized housing in newly constructed housing complexes in prime areas.

Hiring Preference

For federal and employment.

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For the last few months I have been deluged with emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). These increasingly urgent messages have come from Tom Perez, Keith Ellison, Hillary Clinton and a host of other DNC operatives I have never heard of. All of them proclaim the urgent necessity to elect Democrats to office - all of them ask for a donation. They also reminded me that Republicans are outspending "Us" by a considerable margin. They reassured me that they are confident that "We" can take back the House and Senate as well as many state legislatures in the 2018 election cycle if we just vote Democratic and, of course, donate.

Here's the problem. Once again we are being told that what is important is that we elect Democrats! That raises an interesting question. If African Americans are staunch Democrats who can always be depended on to vote Democratic why are they preaching to the choir? The answer is that they recognize, as they always have, that African Americans can be depended on to vote Democratic when we vote and that our vote can decide the outcome of an election when we vote in sufficient numbers. In short, in close elections our vote becomes the deciding vote.

What this means is that we represent the balance of power in virtually any close race. But, and this is also important, if and only if, we stop declaring our allegiance in advance. If we declare this simple tactic and adhere to it we will increase our leverage exponentially.

Let's face it: Republicans do not earnestly seek our vote because they believe they won't get it - to them the African American vote is simply not in play. Democrats, on the other hand, take us for granted because they believe we will always vote Democrat. But this view is not necessarily the reality. The simple fact is that the Republicans cannot win unless we do not vote and the Democrats cannot win unless we do. What this means is that neither party can win without action (or lack of it) on our part. That makes us not a power deficient minority group but genuine power brokers. When the Republicans recognize that if their policies advance our core interests we will support them (remember until the 1930's we voted overwhelmingly Republican) and the Democrats recognize that our support is not guaranteed and therefore should not be taken for granted we will then be able to write our own ticket and achieve power proportionality in America.

Cases in Point

Part of the reason Donald Trump is now President of the United States is because he carried three states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In each of these states the contributing if not deciding factor was the African American vote or non-vote. It is said that "... the 2016 presidential election was decided by about 77,000 votes out of more than 136 million ballots cast. According to the final tallies, Trump won Pennsylvania by 0.7 percentage points (44,292 votes), Wisconsin by 0.7 points (22,748 votes), Michigan by 0.2 points (10,704 votes). If Clinton had won all three states, she would have won the Electoral College 278 to 260."

Michigan

In Michigan where Detroit is home to the largest African American population in America “70,000 Detroit voters were so distraught with both major party candidates that they declined to vote for any candidate....” Remember the election was decided by 77,000 votes out of the more than 136 million cast.

Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, overall turnout was up from 2012 (from 5.6 million to 6 million), but the racial composition of the electorate was significantly different. Clinton won 92 percent of African-Americans and Obama won 93 percent of African-Americans. But in 2012, black voters made up 13 percent of the electorate; in 2016, they comprised just 10 percent of the electorate.In terms of raw votes, that means roughly 130,000 fewer African-Americans voted in Pennsylvania in 2016 than voted in 2012. If those voters had shown up on Tuesday, that alone would've been enough for Clinton to hold Pennsylvania by a razor-thin margin.

Wisconsin

In Milwaukee County Wisconsin nearly 60,000 fewer votes were cast in 2016 than 2012. Clinton received 43,000 fewer votes than President Obama did in 2012 - that is nearly twice Trump’s margin of victory in all of Wisconsin.""Milwaukee County is home to 240,203 African Americans, comprising 69.4 percent of Wisconsin's African American population." The African American voting age population (18 and over) in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin in 2016 was over 151,000.

It is high time that we, as African Americans, began to take advantage of what Brother Malcom X referred to as our "strategic position" and stop being "political chumps". Our collective problem has been and remains the sad unjustified belief that if we just work harder and forgive more, keep our heads down and our spirits up we will some day overcome. The problem with this age old misguided policy is that it does not lend itself to a realistic time table. Unless and until we develop a strategic, realistic, plan of action and carry it out with relentless, laser focused determination we will continue to be a listless, rudderless ship of state tossed by the whims of our enemies.

"You put them first and they put you last. 'Cause you're a chump.

A political chump!

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Johnnie Cordero holds a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and a Doctorate in Jurisprudence. He is the author of Total Black Empowerment: A Guide to Critical Thinking in the Age of Trump. His new book Theodicy and The Power of the African Will is now available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and other on line book sellers.