Juneteenth and the Direction of Black Politics
From here, will Black politics go progressive or moderate?
Juneteenth is a federal holiday celebration of June 19th, 1865, the day that enslaved African Americans in Texas found out that they were emancipated.
The federal holiday was established in 2021 especially after national protests over the 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
On this day Black voters are waking up to realize that their material lives have not changed since Democrat Joe Biden was elected president in November 2020. Have symbolic gestures like Juneteenth been signed by Biden? Yes. Have concrete policy changes like a $15 minimum wage (for all U.S. citizens, not just federal contractors) or student debt cancellation been signed by Biden? No.
These disappointments have culminated in a falling level of Black support for Biden. However Biden was not the most popular presidential candidate to begin with.
Up until Super Tuesday in 2020 U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders led the Democratic presidential primary race. Sanders’ bold policy proposals like universal healthcare, a Green New Deal, and free public colleges were voted popular by voters in lily-white states like Iowa and Vermont, his own state. Sanders’ breakthrough came when he won the state of Nevada, his most diverse state, proving to critics that he could earn more than just the white electorate.
“We have just put together a multigenerational, multiracial coalition, which is going to not only win in Nevada, it’s going to sweep this country,” said Sanders after his Nevada win.
After Nevada, however, things went downhill for Sanders. He lost the South Carolina primary after Congressman Jim Clyburn endorsed then-fourth-place and seemingly unpopular Joe Biden. Having served as Majority Whip since 2019, Clyburn used his status as the most popular Black politician in South Carolina to sway the (Black) electorate. In that state Biden won 48.6% of the vote as the moderate alternative to Sanders, who won 19.8 percent. After South Carolina the other moderate Democrats seceded from the race. Their votes largely went to Biden for the remaining states.
Jim Clyburn, a man influenced by Big Pharma, has inserted himself into at least two other congressional races to prevent progressives from winning.
In Cleveland, Ohio he backed moderate Shontel Brown (who openly accepted money from pro-Israel PACs) over progressive Nina Turner for the 11th Congressional District.
In South Texas, he backed conservative Democrat Henry Cuellar (who is backwards on guns and abortion rights) over progressive Jessica Cisneros for the 28th congressional district.
Turner supports reparations and Cisneros supports healthcare as a human right. These policies would especially help Black people, who lag behind white folks economically and in health outcomes.
For now the question is: Will a Black materialist politics emerge from U.S. Congress? Or will the status quo remain?
