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In the hook to Drake’s new song, “Fake Love,” he has a lyric that says “I’ve been down so long it look like up to me.  I got fake people showin’ fake love to me. “

Can I be real this morning?

For far too long, those lines could perfectly describe the plight of Black folk in the Democratic Party. We’ve often been down so long in the party, that down looks like up to us.

The election of our first Black president was a beautiful thing, but now that Barack Obama is on his way out and Donald Trump is on his way in to the Oval Office, it’s giving us a real chance to look at what the Democratic Party truly stands for and I have to be honest, I don’t like what I see.

No single voting bloc or ethnic group in America was more loyal to any party, Democratic or Republican, than Black folk were to the Democratic Party. It’s not even close. 88% of Black voters voted for Hillary Clinton – including an astounding 94% of Black women.

Yet, the party ran a white presidential candidate and a white Vice Presidential candidate. Before they were fired, for most of the campaign, the head of the Democratic Party, both the chairman and CEO were white.

The Senate Majority Leader was white. The person appointed as the new Senate Minority Leader is white.  Only 2 Democrats in the entire Senate are Black – which is absolutely preposterous.

The Democratic Leader of the House is white.

We don’t have a single Black governor in the United States and in some major cities across the country that once had Black mayors, with gentrification, we’re losing many of those positions as well.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Now that a Black man is no longer going to be leading the White House, we’re are getting a chance to see just how white these houses truly are and I’m not here for it.

And you should not be here for it.

Black folk are the heart, soul, and backbone of the Democratic Party. Without our votes, no Democrat can win the White House.

But it is painfully clear that this party, for far too long, has simply counted on our votes without actually ensuring that we are fairly and equally represented throughout the halls of government.

What I’m about to tell you makes me sick honestly. Of the nearly $1 billion spent by the Democratic Party on the previous election, less than 2% of that was spent on vendors of color of ALL other ethnic groups.

Where I come from, we call that a hustle.

Democrats spend a billion dollars, white folk get all the top positions, get 98% of the money, yet count on us to be the most reliable, most loyal voting bloc in the country.

Nah. That’s not going to work. It’s not going to work for me and shouldn’t work for you.

Our loyalty can’t be that cheap.

Over the next few weeks, the Democratic Party is going to choose its new leader. It needs to be Congressman Keith Ellison – a progressive Black man from Detroit who is now the beloved Congressman in Minnesota.

The Democratic Party needs to pledge to use a fair representation of vendors of color moving forward. This 2% mess doesn’t work. That’s not good enough. Period.

And I’ll close with this thought – we cannot assume that any of the changes we wanna see are just going to happen naturally. We have to demand that the Democratic Party, which so badly wants our votes, and wants us to sing and dance before big events, and wants to come on our radio shows, actually looks like us from top to bottom. If we don’t demand it, it won’t happen. It’s that simple.

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