Blacks In The Hudson Valley Help To Elect Republicans Who Do Not Share Their Interest…

One of the things that offend me is to see politi­cians allowed into places of wor­ship to pan­der to our peo­ple for their votes.
Now, full dis­clo­sure, I have zero tol­er­ance for any­one who sup­ports the Republican par­ty, period.
As a Black man, I can­not find any­thing redemp­tive about [any] per­son who sup­ports the GOP, a par­ty that does not hide its dis­dain for peo­ple of col­or and blacks in particular.
On every issue that would ben­e­fit Black peo­ple, the Republican par­ty and those who run that racist cabal is opposed to those issues.
Voting rights: Republicans are opposed.
Reparations: Republicans are opposed.
Civil Rights: Republicans are opposed.
Protections from police abuse: Republicans are opposed.
Wage increas­es: Republicans are opposed.
Reformation of the Criminal Justice sys­tem: Republicans are opposed.
On and on, it is no acci­dent Republicans have no use for Black folks except for the few but-kiss­ing Negroes who would rather live on their knees than die on their feet.

I find it odd that when­ev­er those Republicans come beg­ging for votes, they nev­er men­tion that they rep­re­sent the Republican par­ty. They present them­selves as one of us.
Only that they aren’t.
It is not that peo­ple like Rob Rollison, the for­mer Town of Poughkeepsie cop, turned City of Poughkeepsie Mayor and now state sen­a­tor-elect, or Marc Molinaro, the for­mer Dutchess County exec­u­tive, are nec­es­sar­i­ly bad people.
It is that the poli­cies they sup­port are bad for Blacks, and that makes them unacceptable.
One of the non­sen­si­cal things I hear from some black folks reg­u­lar­ly is that they are not opposed to vot­ing for a Republican.
I’ve even heard some say they vot­ed for Rillison in the last may­oral elec­tion because they did not know the vibrant, young Black male can­di­date who ran as the Democrat chal­leng­ing Rob Rollison.
I’ve always con­tend­ed that Republicans do [not] elect Democrats to office. Why would Democrats elect Republicans to any office?
It is a sil­ly deci­sion that makes absolute­ly no sense. I wrote recent­ly about this silli­ness, which has seri­ous con­se­quences for the Democratic agen­da and the coun­try over­all. If a sit­ting Democratic US Senator dies in a blue state that has a Republican Givernor, that Republican Governor gets to appoint a Republican replace­ment (not a Democrat in line with the vot­ers’ wishes).
In that sce­nario, say as in the 50 – 50 sen­ate before the last elec­tions, Mitch McConnell would be back as major­i­ty leader, some­thing the American peo­ple did not vote for.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​p​a​t​r​i​c​k​-​l​e​a​h​y​-​i​s​-​8​2​-​a​n​d​-​n​o​t​-​w​e​l​l​-​i​f​-​l​e​a​h​y​-​d​i​e​s​-​m​i​t​c​h​-​m​c​c​o​n​n​e​l​l​-​i​s​-​s​e​n​a​t​e​-​m​a​j​o​r​i​t​y​-​l​e​a​d​er/.

Rob Rollison, a for­mer cop won the may­oral­ty in the city of Poughkeepsie, which is heav­i­ly African-American because far too many Blacks in the city do not even under­stand the impor­tance of par­tic­i­pat­ing in their own lives. Others are church folk who do not think for them­selves, and so they elect these Republicans to pow­er­ful offices who then mil­i­tate against their val­ues and interests.
Rolison pre­vi­ous­ly said changes need to be made to the state’s bail reform mea­sures, such as allow­ing judges to con­sid­er dan­ger­ous­ness, such as past court appear­ances, when decid­ing on bail. “Dangerousness” was a con­tentious issue dur­ing the craft­ing of the bail leg­is­la­tion. Advocates say judges can­not fair­ly decide on dan­ger­ous­ness because of implic­it bias and that pre­vi­ous court appear­ances can­not be relied on due to dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices with­in law enforcement.
There is just one thing; there is absolute­ly no data sup­port­ing the claim that non-vio­lent offend­ers who com­mit minor offens­es and are no longer locked away in for-prof­it pris­ons and jails are respon­si­ble for the rise in vio­lent crimes.
Marc Molinaro is going to Washington and will have no more respon­si­bil­i­ty for my County or town; in a con­ver­sa­tion with him some time ago, he told me that I should sup­port him because my Pastor does.
I told Marc no one speaks for me.
Dutchess is a red coun­ty, but Blacks here should not give away their votes to peo­ple who do not share our values. 

These peo­ple do not share our values.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.