They Not Like Us: They VOTE!
By Betty Jean Grant
I have always been proud of the fact that I don’t allow others’ negative opinions of me over something I might have written or said get under my skin. I realize there are some people out there who believe their mission in life is to make someone as sad or unhappy as they are. That being said, I am just going to leave that right there!
Betty Jean Grant
So, I decided, a few days ago, that I was going to write about the declining enrollment among black voters in the City of Buffalo. It is not just the young who have turned away from the voting machine, it is also a large number of black men as well. At a time when we discovered the large percentage of black, male voters who voted for President Donald Trump in his first presidential election, many of we black sistahs were shocked at the increased number of black men who voted for Trump in his 2024, second, presidential bid simply because his opponent, vice-president Kamala Harris was not a man and some men, including more than few ‘brothas’ who were forceful in stating that they would not vote for a women to be president.
In trying to find out why anyone would vote for Trump, especially after he publicly mocked a disabled person and called our war hero, John McClain, ‘weak’ for allowing himself to be captured and imprisoned as a Prisoner of War (POW), some of our Eastside Buffalo men said they could identify with him (Trump) more than they could with the black woman (Harris). They cited the 34 felonies or convictions for Trump and said that Trump was more relatable to them because they will have shared prison experiences. These misinformed or maybe, reformed street hoodlums failed to realize that Trump was not like them: he was never going to see the inside of a jail cell!
Several months ago, this writer wrote about our second time elected president and his connection to Project 2025. One prominent male leader in our community took me to task for accusing our president of some devious actions regarding the urban landscapes and his agenda for managing and controlling large areas in cities, which have elected black people in those largely, black and democrat political strongholds.
Meanwhile, at the Christian-oriented Lin coln University, over 10,000 students, mainly white (from published pictures), were jumping up and down in unison. These kinds of ritualistic productions were being held in many American colleges and universities that had a Turning Point on their campuses.
I have a hunch that all of those 10,000 stu dents, who were jumping up and down at Lincoln University, will be run ning to the polls on Nov. 4th to exercise their right to vote in the country’s annual, General Elec tion. It is my fervent hope that the populace of our young people, and all of our community’s black men will recon sider and join the large bloc of black women, whose votes have ‘saved’ the local, as well as the National Democratic Party, from staggering defeats and irrelevancy over a period of several years.