Race (Blog Post)

[A]n African-American man who was one of a group of Democrats said something like, “There’s no such thing as a black Republican. You guys must be Uncle Toms.”

The Cain who had worked so hard to make his own way was deeply offended.

“I said nobody had a right to tell me how to think and how to vote,” he says. “I was so adamant that I registered as a Republican.” *

Herman Cain weighs heavily on race relations in the United States. Cain believes that the media does not treat candidates fairly. There is race relations through the lens of the liberal media and race relations through the experiences face ever days. Media does not distinguish between the two. Cain believes that Trump gets attacked by his tone and not his content. Donald Trump gets criticized for talking to black people and not talking to black people. Hilary Clinton just ignores the truth. Cain really begins to analyze the differences in race relations in politics.

Race relations can improve by listening to the black community. There is a difference in problems in the inner city. Black American is not one homogeneous group. The issues are so far behind the rest of America and need targeting approaches and that will not be done through handouts. Economic prosperity is important over economic stagnation. Of course we cannot deny the oppression over hundreds of years that has occurred in this world dating far back. In the Transatlantic Slave Trade there was a new era of exploration in this century. Social and economic problems that came to surface was the need to use forced labor to expand. So unfortunately, Africans were captured and enslaved and taking on the transatlantic trade. Africans were transported in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There was Christian-Muslim conflicts as well. The “New Word”, sugar and international trade manifested and created the source for forced labor. The means of securing labor was a social, political and economic problem that rings through to this day. “Within ten years of Columbus’ 1492 voyage, enslaved Africans were in the New World, along with sugarcane and experienced planters from Portugal in the Canaries” (63, Gomez). There were a number of free Africans that entered the New World and took part in military conquests. Britain, France, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Brazil and the United States all took part in the slave trade.

So yes the oppression is real and should not be ignored. Sub oppressors in the transatlantic slave trade took away African slaves basic human rights. Many Africans did not survive the harsh conditions. 10- 40 percent died en route to sea. Another 10 percent died waiting along the coast. So, an estimated 30 to 670 percent of those captured never even made it to the Americas. Self-depreciation is a term that fits into this chapter as well. So many people died being forced to do something they did not want. These are all oppressive acts and violence. “There can be no doubt that European and American demand for slave labor drove the entire enterprise. It is also the case that Europeans entered Africa and hunted humans like prey, especially in the case of the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique” (72, Gomez).

This huge act of evil still haunts the world today and you can see it through Herman Cain, Tim Scott, and Barack Obama as they get discriminated against while trying to be productive members of society. They have grown accustomed to the oppression and discrimination that they still receive.

References

* Capehart, Jonathan. “Herman Cain’s Race Problem.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 19 Oct. 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/herman-cains-race-problem/2011/03/04/gIQAO1dGyL_blog.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.910123d4b1be.

Gomez, M. A. (2008). Reversing sail: A history of the African diaspora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tim Scott (Video Analysis)

Police Relations with African Americans

Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) gave his second speech on police relations with African Americans. He says the country needs to recognize that “because you do not feel the pain, does not mean it does not exist.” He says he’ll be back on the floor Thursday to speak about solutions and where the country should go from here.

The history of hip-hop culture summed up in 10 minutes video watched in our class relates to this video as well. In that video they are channeling their oppression and violence into music via hip hop. Many people were getting pulled over by police officers. Tim Scott was pulled over by a police officer and was held a at gunpoint because of a head light that was out on a traffic stop. That is terrifying. In the course of 1 year Tim Scott was pulled over 7 times. The vast majority of the time was for driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood or some other trivial reason. This is oppression. In the history of hip hop video the sub oppressors (police) were conflicting heavily with these “gangs” and rappers. They are being harassed by the police too.

In the hip hop history culture video people of color know the corrupted police will keep causing problems and they want to stop the oppression. So through music, they are creating a healthy outlet. Tim Scott’s story also relates to “Tell Them We Are Rising”. Tell Them We Are Rising focused on a time when colleges and universities were forced to accept black students. However, even though black students were rising through “know thy self” they were still meeting resistance as well as those in this video. Tim Scott knows the importance of “know thyself”. He has almost grown accustomed to the discrimination he has faced. For example, when he receives an apology for an officer discriminating against him after they discovered he was a senator, he was like this happens all the time. It does not matter what you do for a living, you can be discriminated against.

Tim Scott says that many black women and men have similar stories of oppression and discrimination by the police. When Tim Scott entered a building, as a member of congress, he was stopped by a guard saying that i recognize your pin but not you. Later he received a phone call apologizing for the discrimination. He says that when you are targeted for being nothing more than just yourself, it is humiliating, frustrating and damaging to your soul. he is following the rules and being treated like he is not. It is important to abide by the laws. “Returning violence with violence only lead to more violence as MLK JR. has said. There is never an acceptable reason to harm a person in law enforcement. Tim Scott is not encouraging violence against police officers. He wants to hear concerns because he is a public servant.

Situations like these happen all across the country all the time. it happens way too much at all times of the day. This is an issue that has wounds that have not healed in a generation. Tim Scott thinks it is time for the American country to have a conversation to find a way to fill these cracks in the very foundation of the country. So there needs to be people solutions. He believes that government is not the solution because only individuals can create the change since discrimination is on a person to person basis. Ignoring struggles does not make them disappear, it makes you blind.

References

History of hip-hop culture summed up in 10 minutes

“Tell Them We Are Rising”.

Obama (Blog Post)

Barack Obama was elected president of the United States over Senator John McCain on November 4, 2008. He was the 44^th president and the first African American to be elected to that office. Obama served two terms.

Obama’s father grew up in Kenya and his mother was a white woman of Kansas. His father had worked on oil rigs during the Great Depression and even served in World War II. Obama was actually born outside the continental United States. He was the first president to be born in Hawaii.  His mother, Ann, worked at a U.S. embassy. In 1995 Obama wrote about racial tensions because of his mixed background called Dreams from My Father. In David Walker’s “Article II, Our Wretchedness in Consequences of Ignorance, from Walker’s Appeal” Walker speaks about education and people of color. “Our development also must be tied to the contemporary economic and political position of black people.” This quote is important because in order to attain autonomy and equal freedom then you must achieve that through education and finding a skill that will benefit the economy. Obama graduated at Columbia University in 1983 with a degree in political science.

Obama began his political career in 1996 when he was elected as State Senator as a Democrat in Illinois. And 13 years later he became president of the United States. The legacy he left behind was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). It went into effect 2010-2020. Obama was also an LGBT rights supporter. In 2010 he signed the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Act”. This brought an end to the policy of open service of LGB people. Obama had also escalated drone strikes in suspected terrorist locations. A take away from his presidency is that he left office with a 60% approval rating as shows in the chart below.

In Booker T. Washington’s “Industrial Education for Negro” he explains several solutions. “I believe the way for the redemption of the Negro was being prepared through industrial development”.  For example, Booker explains that if a “white man did business with the negro in a way that no one else has done business with him. In most cases if a Southern white man wanted a house built he consulted a Negro mechanic about the plan and about the actual building of the structure”. The same goes for having a suit made. Black people were trained for years already, “not only as farmers but as carpenters, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, brick masons, engineers, cooks, laundresses, sewing women and housekeepers”. To harness these skills in a way to provide economic growth for the country is the way in which blacks can fight segregation. Obama ties into that because his skills were in politics and foreign relations. For example when Obama addressed the nation that Osama Bin Laden has been found and killed.

Obama meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2015 (skills in foreign relations)

This was an important event that occurred during his presidency was the death of Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden was the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. U.S. special forces raided an al Qaeda compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. On May 1, 2011, President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden has been killed. The nation rallied behind Obama.

References

Booker T. Washington “Industrial Education for the Negro” .

David Walker “Article II, Our Wretchedness in Consequences of Ignorance, from Walker’s Appeal”.

Prosperity Continues (Video Analysis)

Herman Cain claims that, “prosperity continues” in the economy. Here he speaks about the state of the economy and the job market and the impact of the new Congress over the next two years. This is a positive perspective. Fans of his argue that the fundamentals are great in relation to the national debt. We are near full employment and increasing GDP and stock rally. Many of his fans think that we are on our way to prosperity again. Most of his fans hopes he will run for a House or Senate seat in the next election.

Herman Cain is viewed as an American patriot and a very wise individual with a lot of great experience. Retail sales numbers are beating expectations right now. He has background in restaurants and retail. He was questioned if raised wages were something he has thought about. He said that is places had more money. If the businesses have more money, then they will pay the workers more. He says that we will see a balance of paying employees more money if the business makes more money. But he says predicting a recession and trying to administer a scare tactic is bad for the community.

               Health care and administration were also being discussed. He believes that the democrats are not going to get anything because they have not for years. For the, “past 8 years to get something done for DACA and they did not. They could have done something for Health Care and they did not for 8 years” (Fox). Cain believes they are not willing to compromise and expect the president to pull a rabbit out of his hat.

              In conclusion, Herman Cain thinks nothing will get done in the next 2 years in Congress. “878,000 new millionaires have been created out of this new administration” according to this Fox news interview. That is a lot of new millionaires. However, Cain is still not optimistic that congress will pass anything for the economy because each party has their own agenda and primarily that the democrats are incapable of compromise.

Are political opponents becoming the foundation of this economies success now? We see it on the news every single day now. CNN and FOX news have become the new MTV showcasing reality TV shows. Maybe it is best to turn off the tube and research facts before believing in headlines from biased news sources.

References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBuKmXr9gyw

Herman Cain (Blog Post)

Herman Cain is a politician. Cain’s tax idea was really nice. The “9-9-9” (Cain) proposal in 2012 meant that there was a 9% personal tax, 9% business tax and a 9% sales tax. It would have been the best tax plan ever. Why? Well right now the taxes are ridiculously high. For personal taxes there are 5 different tax brackets from 0-36%. Business is at 21%. There is no current national sales tax. This definitely would have upset our founding fathers. The tax was just lowered to 21% thanks to Trump. it was previously at 35%. Not to mention the additional payroll tax all businesses pay for every employee which is a little under 10% of every employee pay. Why are taxes so high? Some could argue that businesses are all evil and greedy. But Cain does not think so. The 9-9-9 would be great because then even every illegal alien and tourist would pay a 9% sales tax. Right not they pay nothing. 30 million more people would be paying taxes with Cain’s plan. People complain about a 9% national sales tax though because businesses would have lower taxes nd payroll taxes eliminated. The tax rate would be evenly distributed on a national level making it more fair. Cain saw this but the 9-9-9 plan was not executed. It was a very genius idea though.

Tim Scott

Tim Scott

According to Tim Scott, “There are good people and bad people in all organizations fundamentally however, when you look at the basis of the Tea Party it has nothing to do with race. It has to do with an economic recovery. It has to do with limiting the role of our government in our lives. It has to do with free markets.”

Tim Scott is an American politician and business man serving as Senator for South Carolina since 2013. From January 2017, Scott has been, “one of three African Americans in the Senate, and the first to serve in both chambers of Congress” (Guide to New Congress). Time Scott was the first black senator from South Carolina. He is the first African American senator since Reconstruction. “Scott’s conservative views and his raised by a hard-working single mom background strike a chord with Americans of every race” (Curtis). He is a big second amendment supporter. His strict upbringing gave him his Republican views. However, he noticed the spending problem Americans were having because he is a business man. “We have a spending problem, ladies and gentlemen, and not a revenue problem,” Scott said. The country’s economy is “definitely and definitively on the wrong track” (Curtis). He gave the GOP a new point of view. In 13 Documentary, it explain the 13th amendment but also how prison is the new form of slavery. “Khalief Browder hung himself after being released” (13). What Tim Scott represents in office is someone who holds power and a voice. He is proof that what you think is very important an acting upon that is even more important. In David Walker’s Article II, he claims that blacks should band together to fight their common enemy, the white man. This entirely goes against what both Tim Scott and Herman Cain believe in. They recognize societal problems as an economic factor. Seeing men like Cain and Scott prevail shows the United States what great thinkers this country has. In Frederick Douglas “Speech on the Dred Scott Decision” the case was looked at again. “This is one view. It is, thank God, only one view; there is another, and a brighter view” (Frederick Douglas). “
“In conclusion, let me say, all I ask of the American people is, that they live up to the Constitution, adopt its principles, imbibe its spirit, and enforce its provisions” (Frederick Douglas). Cain and Scott are prime examples of this. This speech was given in May of 1857. And here we are today 162 years later.

References

13 Documentary (directed by Ava Duvernay on Youtube or Netflix) 

• Thirteenth Amendment Documentary (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

999 Plan, HermanCain.com, archived from the original on September 26, 2011. Retrieved 30 March 2019.

Curtis, Mary (18 December 2012). “Tim Scott’s importance as GOP senator and symbol”. Washington Post. Retrieved 30 March 2019.

David Walker “Article II, Our Wretchedness in Consequences of Ignorance, from Walker’s Appeal”

Frederick Douglas “Speech on the Dred Scott Decision”

“Guide to the New Congress” (PDF). CQ Roll Call. Retrieved 30 March 2019.

Politics

This blog will focus on the political attainments and achievements of Herman Cain, Tim Scott and Barrack Obama in African American Studies. Upbringings and success of Africans in United States history have been cut short due to the oppression and enslavement the United States mistakenly inflicted upon its own people. Now we are at a time in history where the success of an African American male has been honored in the highest form of executive leadership in the country, the president of the United States.

African Americans in Politics

Thanks for joining me!

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. -Barack Obama

President Barack Obama is photographed during a presidential portrait sitting for an official photo in the Oval Office, Dec. 6, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)