I was reading my paper the other morning and the first thing I saw was mass headliner that read “Black Voters’ Influence Waning”. I thought to myself, someone finally dares to put this into print. Personally, I saw this coming from my kitchen window a mile away.
When it comes to Black voters in Louisiana, and Black America for that matter, this is one of those situations where some of us can’t see the forest for the trees! I believe we have been straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel for so long that we miss a very large issue that everyone is acutely aware of, but nobody wants to talk about. Perhaps a sore spot or a political hot potato, it's something that no one wants to touch with a ten foot pole. You know; the elephant in the room.
Well! Allow me to take a stab at it! You see, when most of Black America chooses to “serve” a party rather then the Almighty God, waning influence is a great possibility. In fact, you count on it. What we “serve” can become an idol and render us ineffective. Serving one party as a block vote makes our influence a commodity to be used at the pleasure and discretion of the party as it deems it beneficial to do so; or even traded and pimped out by our own “leaders” for their benefit more than the people’s benefit.
When our own desires, ideals, and philosophies began to replace Gods’ plan for our lives, we will be silenced! When our voting is not based on an understanding of and commitment to biblically inspired principles of limited government, constitutionalism, due process, and liberty of individuals, we will be given over to voting based on self-centered desires like pulling a child out of the womb piece by piece for the sake of convenience; a man marrying a man and a woman marrying a woman; or wanting the government to supply your every needs at the expense of fiscal stability rather than God providing by moving on the hearts of those who are blessed to be a blessing to others less fortunate.
I believe we have sold our soul to the “party” for something God has freely given to us! God gave us rights; all we need to do is fight to protect those rights. His way! He gave us economic opportunity and relief; all we need to do is work for it. Genesis 3:19 puts it this way, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food”.
At the risk of sounding like I have never been poor, and I have, there are some things more detrimental than not having enough money; it is having all the money in the world and losing your soul. Because the black vote as a block is based on putting our worldly concerns first and not putting God’s eternal concerns first, our influence is slipping. More people are voting to avoid the fiscal meltdowns seen in European countries based on financially unsustainable levels of social programs that encourage a dependence of government.
It is hard to convince people that the solution is taking more money from the rich when the root self-focused culture of wanting more from the government before taking more responsibility for self is never addressed. While we do have legitimate arguments that institutionalized racism and some corporate crooks have negative effects on economic opportunity, we cannot forget to sweep around our own front door before we sweep around someone else. We cannot continue to solely blame others that our communities have broken families, high drop-out rates, and crime; and then consistently vote for the party that encourages us to continue blaming others as the reason we cannot improve our community.
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