Since Kamala Harris dropped out of the race for president last week and Cory Booker has yet to make the cut for the December presidential debate. This has raised the question for some of what does it mean not to have a black candidate in the 2020 race for president? The answer should be OK SO WHAT!!!

The 2008 election of Barack Obama as America’s first black president was a tremendous historical event in American history. Before 2008 all one could hope for was that a black candidate like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton would make a symbolic run for president. After 2008 for American Blacks, Barack Obama’s election was another milestone on the road to the “promised land” that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. predicted American Blacks would reach. For American Whites, Barack Obama’s election was another milestone on the road to eliminating America’s tradition of racism and bigotry. Now that it appears that there might not be a black candidate in the 2020 race for president, some people are making disturbing and obsolete assertions.

There is no question that the more diversity of race and background among candidates in a political debate or political race is always a good and preferred thing. That’s why the prospect that there may not be a black candidate in upcoming Democratic debates or primary elections is an unfortunate turn of events. But the declaration that one racial group cannot represent or address the needs and issues of a racial group that they don’t belong too, or that the absence of a racial group means that the absent racial group’s needs or issues will not be addressed is a one-sided narrative.

It’s a one-sided narrative that only acknowledges America’s history of racial, religious, gender, and sexual orientation discrimination and not the historical racial game-changing events that have occurred despite America’s discriminatory history. For instance, in 1954 9 American White Supreme Court Justices ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation of American Black and American White students was unconstitutional. In 1964 434 members of the U.S. House, with only 5 of them being American Blacks, and 100 members of the U.S. Senate, with none of them being an American Black, passed into law the Civil Rights Act that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

In 1965 435 members of the U.S. House, with only 6 of them being American Blacks, and 100 members of the U.S. Senate, with none of them being an American Black, passed into law the Voting Rights Act that outlawed racial discrimination in voting. In 1967 an all-white U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Loving v. Virginia, that all state laws banning interracial marriage were violations of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

These 4 racially life changing actions prove that it’s possible for a group with no presence or with such an insignificant presence that it has no impact, can still have their needs, rights, or agenda addressed by people who are not a member of their group. In other words, just because there is no black candidate in the 2020 race does mean that issues important to American Blacks can’t and will not be addressed.

The most disturbing assertion made since Harris’ exit is that if there is no black candidate on the debate stage and in the race, American Blacks won’t tune into the debates and won’t turn out to vote in the elections. If this is true it’s the most self-defeating thing American Blacks can do to themselves since the 1960s riots in Watts and Detroit, and the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri riot where American Blacks protesting American White oppression destroyed economic and residential infrastructure mostly in their own American Black neighborhoods!

It’s also an obsolete way of thinking. In the immediate aftermath of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, the thought and need for American Blacks to vote only for a black candidate running against a white candidate was an understandable show of American Black unity. But now the time for American Blacks to only vote for people that look like they do is over, the time now is for American Blacks to vote for people that THINK like they do. The most important place for American Blacks to have one of their own race represented is in positions like federal judges and loan officers at banks, but political candidates are the least important place as long as American Blacks aren’t committing the stupidity of not voting for the political candidate because they aren’t black.

Federal judges and bank loan officers are non-elected appointed individuals whose independent individual decisions are guided by laws, rules, and most importantly their own personal life experiences. That’s why America needs more judges of color who pass judgment on people, more judges of color who sentence people to prison, and more loan officers of color who decide if people of color are a good loan risk or not. So that more of these decisions are based in part by people who have the personal experience of living a colored life in America.

On the other hand politicians, black or white, are political compromisers who base 90% of all the policy decisions they make on who votes for them and who votes against them. A politician does not have to be black to support or enact good policies that benefit American Blacks, but they do have to attract and receive American Black votes in order to be counted on to deliver beneficial policies for American Blacks.

The logic of the 21st century sentiment that the time is over for American Blacks to vote for people that look like they do, now is the time for American Blacks to vote for people that THINK like they do, was illustrated in 2016 when there was no black candidate on the presidential ballot. Since there was no black candidate in 2016, large numbers of American Black voters in the states of Michigan and Pennsylvania decided not to turn out and vote for their next president. As a result, those American Black voters didn’t get a president that thinks like they do and who would have enacted policies that benefited American Blacks, they didn’t get a president whose spouse proudly accepted the honorary label of being America’s first black president before America elected a real one, they didn’t get a President Hillary Clinton.

Instead what they got was a president who won because 100,000 of those American Blacks in the states of Michigan and Pennsylvania didn’t turn out to vote, since there was no black candidate running for president. What they got was a president who called countries where black people live “shit hole countries”, what they got was a president who called American cities with majority American Black populations “rat infested”, what they got was a president who does not think like they do and called white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville “some very fine people”, what they got was President Donald Trump.

Those American Black voters who did not turn out to vote in 2016 because there was no black candidate running for president, can’t now legitimately complain about President Trump. Had they followed the wisdom of voting for the candidate that thinks like they do, as opposed to following the stupidity of only voting for the candidate that looks like they do, they would now have a President Clinton who thinks like they do and not now have a President Trump who does not think like they do.

The time now is truly over for American Blacks to only vote for the black candidate that looks like they do. The time now is for American Blacks to vote in every school board election, every city election, every county election, every state election, and every federal election for every candidate black or white, Democrat, Republican or Independent that THINKS like they do EVERY TIME EVERY ELECTION!!!