[2020 Election]
Black Men: “For too long Black women have been asked to do everything from rally the troops to risk their lives for the Democratic Party with no acknowledgment, no respect…Failing to select a Black woman in 2020 means you will lose the election.”
Photo: YouTube
More than 100 prominent men have released a statement demanding that former Vice-President Joe Biden pick a Black woman as his running mate.
The list includes: Sean “Diddy” Combs, Bishop William J. Barber, Ben Crump, Chris Paul, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Omar Epps, “Cedric The Entertainer” Kyles, Nick Cannon, Doug E. Fresh, Al B. Sure, Van Jones, to name a few.
Here is their statement:
As someone who has said throughout the campaign that VP Joe Biden needs to choose a Black woman VP, the urgency for that pick has gone from something that SHOULD happen to something that HAS to happen. It disgusts us that Black women are not just being vetted in this VP process but unfairly criticized and scrutinized.
Was Joe Biden ever labeled “too ambitious” because he ran for president three times?
Should President Obama not have made him the VP because he had to worry about his “loyalty” when he clearly had ambitions to be president himself? Why does Senator Kamala Harris have to show remorse for questioning Biden’s previous stance on integrated busing during a democratic primary debate?
Have Democratic Party leaders, allies, or donors ever required Joe Biden to show remorse for the 1986 or 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse bills, which established mandatory minimum sentencing and subsequently crack-cocaine sentencing disparities, and by his own admission, led to mass incarceration? What about the 1994 Crime Bill? Let’s be clear about the kind of remorse and reckoning that matters in 2020 when the Black community is still suffering the consequences for these oppressive measures.
So, Black women are the only ones required to stay in their place and to show remorse for even questioning their own oppression?
For too long Black women have been asked to do everything from rally the troops to risk their lives for the Democratic Party with no acknowledgment, no respect, no visibility, and certainly not enough support. More than 700 Black women signed on to a letter demanding a Black woman VP. And we, black men, stand in solidarity with them.
Failing to select a Black woman in 2020 means you will lose the election. We don’t want to choose between the lesser of two evils and we don’t want to vote the devil we know versus the devil we don’t because we are tired of voting for devils—period.
