Stop Voting Out of Misplaced Loyalty

Vote according to your real interests, regardless of party or skin color

STOP VOTING OUT OF MISPLACED LOYALTY

Vote according to your real interests, regardless of party or skin color

Barrington Martin II

“All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk,” an adage originated by author Zora Neale Hurston, expresses a concept that’s still going strong. It's meant to profess a common understanding among black people that just because a person is “black,” that doesn’t mean they act for the greater well-being of all “black” people. You may recall that during a live appearance on MSNBC last year, retired Los Angeles police sergeant Cheryl Dorsey said this about Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron with respect to the Breanna Taylor case: “Let me say this as a black woman, [Cameron] does not speak for black folks, he's skinfolk but he is not kinfolk.” Then there’s the LA Times op-ed from Erika D. Smith titled, “Larry Elder is the Black face of white supremacy. You’ve been warned.” Or more recently, the black intelligentsia’s own Dr. Eric Michael Dyson stated, in regards to Winsome Sears winning the Virginia Lieutenant Gubernatorial race, “To have a black face speaking in behalf of a white supremacist legacy is nothing new.” 

What is ironic about the examples above is that there is no evidence the lives of black people have improved under the tenure of the black elected officials whom Dyson, Smith, and Dorsey do consider “kinfolk.” Chicago, Baltimore, and Detroit are just a few American cities with heavy black political representation, yet black citizens are still violence stricken and impoverished in these places. If the standard is improving black life, shouldn’t the black leaders of these cities also be considered skinfolk but not kinfolk?

The overwhelming support black Americans have given to liberal/leftist ideology over the last 60 years has not been good for black political discourse—it’s led to an ideological rather than, say, a results-oriented test for “kinfolk”—and it has not been generative of new and creative ideas in American politics writ large. This is not to say black voters are solely responsible for the current state of American politics, but 90% of an immutable-trait-based demographic always voting the same way in local and national elections is not ideal. 

The conservative nature of black Americans is largely ignored both by the politicians they vote for and by the media. Although black turnout for Democrats is high, black people are less likely to identify as liberal than whites or Hispanics, are pro-gun ownership, are the most religious ethnic group in America, and favor school choice. Yet the media platforms only a narrow sampling of black authors, such as Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Ibram X Kendi, whose positions are antithetical to more widely-shared values. Despite their basic social conservatism, their great variety with respect to other political beliefs, and their diversity in socio-economic background, black Americans are often sorted, in the societal psyche, into one giant collective of people.

As Malcolm X warned, black leaders are usually “non-accredited” individuals, often entertainer-influencers or sketchy organizations like Black Lives Matter. They are typically anointed as the voices of black Americans not by a consensus of black people but by other celebrities and media corporations. These black “voices” typically promote a far-left political agenda that is not embraced by most black people. BLM, for example, advocated for “disrupting the nuclear family” and “defunding police,” neither of which is especially popular with black people. In this way, such unelected “voices” do a disservice not just to the black Americans they supposedly represent, but to all Americans, who thereby receive an inaccurate impression of black people’s differing priorities. 

In our post-George Floyd era and even well before, we’ve witnessed a push for representation and for more blacks in political office, all while ignoring the substantive policies needed to deliver the change black people are actually seeking. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, crime, poverty, and housing are the top concerns amongst blacks, while racism falls toward the bottom of the list. A primary focus on “representation” has not moved the needle on the priorities of black voters. Instead, violent crime in black neighborhoods is worsening and, after hitting a low in 2019, there is now a spike in black poverty. Black politicians elected out of either sheer racial allegiance or out of a misplaced push for representation have given their constituents little in return.

If we want America to be a melting pot of ideas held by people of all races, creeds, and religions, we must lay off our futile focus on racial identities, representation, and “kinfolk” tests of political correctness. We must eradicate from American political thought the idea that Black Americans are part of one big collective whose needs, wants, and ideology are uniform and exclusive to the group as a group. In order to address issues that affect us collectively, we must start at the individual level. Family breakdown, violence, and crime, for example, are ultimately individual phenomena. These problems must be solved by individuals, regardless of race, within whose power it lies to foster strong families, abstain from violence, and lead law-abiding lives. Racial allegiance in voting patterns, the privileging of “representation,” and a refusal to see “kinfolk” outside of the Democratic party: these are not organizing principles that will contribute to this effort. They will instead prevent America from evolving into the nation we know it should be, for us and for all Americans.

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Barrington D. Martin II was born and raised in the great city of Atlanta, GA. He is a graduate of Georgia State University and the founder of the United Alliance of America Super Pac. He is a former congressional candidate and a political thought leader, with his own Substack and writing credits and appearances in Newsweek, Fox News, ScoonTv, and various international news media. He is the host of “The Barrington Report” on ATL Talks radio on iHeart radio. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.