Blacks: Do-For-Self!

New York City Councilman Charles Barron is currently the only Black elected official to qualify for our vote. Unless we take immediate action, an injustice is about to occur in New York.

(Columnist Maddox says Barron belongs in Congress).

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad would often say that Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was the only Black elected official who qualified for our vote. 

In other words, you should be very careful about putting a sell-out in political office. Blacks ignored his advice. Today, politics is infested with Black sell-outs. They serve as buffers between field Blacks and white slavemasters. 

See for example Congressman Charles Rangel. We are paying a heavy price.  Statistics show that as we put more Blacks in politics, our condition is getting worse. Blacks are endorsing their own oppression. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad also advised Blacks to do for self. Most persons associate this advice with economics. Dick Gregory embraced this advice, ignored traditional politics, and ran for president as a write-in-candidate. This was 1968 and the first presidential campaign in which all Blacks, on paper, enjoyed legal protection.

A do-for-self candidate ignores running as a Democrat or a Republican. A purist runs as a write-in candidate. A bid as an independent candidate comes in second and a third-party candidate comes in third. Dick Gregory ran as a purist and his campaign stopped the Democrats from taking Black voters for granted. A donkey was kept out of the White House because Gregory’s campaign controlled the margin of victory. In either economics or in politics, you only need to control the margin. This gives political leverage.

Seeing that Gregory was on to something, the political establishment started to put money into Black politics to kill connecting Mr. Muhammad’s advice to politics and to replace Gregory with the “Country Preacher� as the paradigm for Black politics. “Run Jesse Run.� “Run Jesse Run.� The Democratic Party intends to promote City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke to Congress for selling out Blacks locally—See Atlantic Yards Project. Her recent success in the primary election in the Eleventh Congressional District was the product of a bait and switch campaign and the fear of New York City Councilman David Yassky facing Ollie McClean.

With strong volunteer support and fund-raising efforts, McClean, an independent candidate, could be the spoiler. McClean made history. A Black person is not supposed to secure an independent bid for Congress. She will be the first Black independent in Congress. New York City Councilman Charles Barron is currently the only Black elected official to qualify for our vote. Unless we take immediate action, an injustice is about to occur in New York. The sell-out, Yvette Clarke, will be going to Congress and Charles Barron will remain in the New York City Council.         

It will prove that the white ballot is “sweeter� than the Black ballot. So far, only whites have promoted Blacks politically since they own the Democratic and Republican parties. Under this approach, only Blacks, who sell out their people, get promotions. Blacks can change this format on November 7 by supporting a write-in campaign and promoting Barron to Congress.        

It will take an army of show-ups to form immediately to promote Barron. This organizing campaign will start in earnest at the Elks Plaza, 1068 Fulton Street (Harriet Tubman) in Brooklyn on Wednesday, October 4 at 7:30 p.m.  Tell family, neighbors, co-workers and friends.  How to write-in Charles Barron in the polling booth will be a key discussion. Next year, he should be in Congress from the Tenth Congressional District and conducting foreign policy with world leaders like Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe and Fidel Castro. 

The New York Board of Elections, however, refuses to teach poll workers about the write-in vote and for good reason. The political establishment is unable to keep a write-in candidate off the ballot. Pre-screening in politics is the key to maintaining the status quo.

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