On the night of the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I was tasked with attending a watch party on the USF Tampa campus. I had never watched a debate before.
The online world has debated the debate to death, and so I want to take a break and instead talk about July 5, 1852, when iconic abolitionist Frederick Douglass was asked to speak about the Fourth of July in Rochester, New York — ostensibly in praise. Douglass chose to put forth something entirely different, however, and challenged the audience on the notion that all are created equal.
What, to the African American, is a presidential party?
I grew up in Ft. Myers, Florida, a small town nicknamed Lil’ Pakistan by some in reference to its crime rate; kind of like how some call Chicago “Chiraq.” While to many Americans, Iraq and Pakistan are battlegrounds upon which a fight for freedom is being waged, to the residents of these cities — and more like them — they're a testament to the life of difficulty that children in the projects had to endure, hopefully living long enough to make it out alive and perhaps even see an end to their poverty.
To African Americans like me, there was little meaning in each candidate's debate promises of bringing jobs back to America. I see the irony in America spending billions to gladly protect themselves against enemies on the opposite hemisphere, yet refusing to offer a fraction of that for improving black communities.
Barack Obama, to me, was many things: A hero. A champion. Someone I could look up to, someone who could make me think, “Well, he became president,” and use that as motivation to better myself. Watching the candidates on stage Monday night, exchanging shots about the each other’s stance on gun violence and the economy, I had to laugh, before I started to notice the differences between the two, particularly with regard to race issues.
“I just learned that [Trump] recently discovered African Americans,” said student Jordan Pride. “If he were to align with my views and my views of my people, I would be able to respect him.”
She felt as if, of the issues that were raised, the question of how to heal the racial divide interested her the most, and was perhaps the biggest factor in her deciding who to vote for.
Jose Flores, another attendee, said that he liked Clinton because she “clearly stated she wanted to work on fighting implicit bias in America.”
Whereas Trump was more interested in talking about his many endorsements from police departments, Clinton seemed to want to get rid of the violent criminal stigma facing African Americans.
And this is where the crux of the racial issue in America lies. The Republican Party equates the black vote and Democratic Party with welfare, looking down on both as if they taint American values. With laws that ostensibly target “voter fraud” while making it tougher for minorities to vote, the GOP chooses to tear down minority support of the Democratic Party, as opposed to building support for their own.
Democrats, meanwhile, are the ones who at least support helping children in these disadvantaged communities get better access to health care, education and even food.
Trump, instead of trying to bridge the gap between Republicans and minorities, has instead opted to build a higher wall. Like he denies global warming, he is also blind to the suffering in these communities with which he claims to have “improved relations.” People don’t vote Democrat so that they can get welfare. They vote Democrat to ensure corporations and the ultra-rich pay their fair share. To support candidates that enact policies that help them get better careers, so they can move to a community where they won't have the police called on them because of the color of their skin or their chosen hairstyle.
But even if the differences between the two major parties could hardly be more stark, an alarming attitude toward the candidates has emerged in this election cycle: indifference.
Many people I asked told me that they supported neither candidate, or were just behind Hillary because she was the lesser of two evils, or because Bernie Sanders lost the primary. Young voters — many of them Sanders fans — question why they are forced to register Republican and Democrat in order to vote in primaries, when their views aren't fully in line with either party's mainstream, and many don't think they'd be any better off with either Trump or Clinton in office. It's why some of them are looking at third parties like the Greens. And in an election year where voters are increasingly demanding that racial division be dealt with, the Republican Party should realize that reaching out earnestly to the black community — not trying to box them out entirely — can only help their cause.
After all, black voter allegiance to the Democratic Party may not be as solid as they believe.
Stephen Williams is a CL editorial intern enrolled at USF Tampa.
This article appears in Oct 6-13, 2016.