Yvette Carnell: Why Do Neo-Nazis Have Lobbying Groups But African-Americans Don’t?
by Yvette Carnell
Black people have been here, what? 400 years? And we still don’t have a strong presence on Capitol Hill, leaving our issues
in the hands of Ben Jealous? Is this a serious approach to politics? And, a better question; how’s that working out for us?
Ben Jealous is on TV nonstop, but what about – the rest of us? How have their efforts lessened the mass incarceration of young black men? In spite of all the rallies and protests, isn’t a black boy getting ‘Stopped and Frisked’ as I write this?
Funny enough, when most demographics become serious about changing the modern American political system in ways that benefit them, they become serious about raising money to lobby Congresspeople.
That’s what the Neo-Nazis did when they recently filed paperwork to actively lobby the Hill. Paul Mullet, of the neo-n**i Crusaders For Yahweh-Aryan Nations LLC, filed paperwork to be a lobbyist on Capitol Hill, The Hill reported on Monday. So where are the African-American lobbyists and think tanks on The Hill? Nevermind, we’re still – marching.
“The white race is being targeted as a hate group. Everywhere we turn, we are being depicted as a bunch of inbreds. … It is time we take a stand,” Mullet told The Hill. That’s right, he wants to end you, and all that you hold dear. But instead of working to start a PAC to combat Mullet, and filling that PAC with money, we’re using our financial resources to consume things we don’t need.
This is not to say that there aren’t black lobbyists on the Capitol Hill. There are. But they’re all lobbying for someone else’s interests. They’re hired hands. When are we going to stand up for ourselves and take our own plight seriously? Or are we just more suited for the role of perpetual domestic, happy to place the needs of others ahead of our own?
It may very well be true that we’ll never be able to outspend the PACs that support conservative interests, but what does it say about us that we won’t even try?
Yvette Carnell is a former Capitol Hill and campaign staffer turned writer. She is currently an editor and contributor to Yourblackworld.
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Yvette thank you for writing this article. Given you’re a former Capitol Hill and campaign staffer what do you suggest are the first few steps that need to be taken to create lobbyists on the Capitol Hill?
“THINK, PLAN, EXECUTE!”
This article simply states why black folk are forgotten in politics, or have little influence over policy.
I was so angry when the NAACP held a march in Detroit to bury the N word. Really? That’s where someone decided to put their energy? The N word is the least of our problems.
n****s… Oops… Excuse me! African-Americans don’t have the financial infrastructure from which to draw the necessary capitol to support lobbyist efforts…! It takes MONEY and lots of it! Blacks… Oops… African-Americans have NO manufacturing, production, distribution, imports, or exports, to speak of… And the few that do have a little something, are not interested in sharing it with the whole of their community! Capitol Hill will NEVER respect the Negro… Oops… African-American, until they learn to do for themselves…! Killing each other, aborting your children, and abandoning family values, is NOT the way to do it! Unification is the key to winning ANY revolution..! But don’t don’t just take my word for it… Just look at the Asians, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, and Europeans that all run successful business in YOUR neighborhoods… Hmmm! Guess what?? Capitol Hill hears their concerns, because they can PAY for their attention! (IJS)
Your use of derogatory words against African-Americans is disgraceful. If you were trying to make a point, you missed horribly.
Whites gave us those names, and we continue to use them like idiots. We are Africans living in America, why are so many of us against using our proper name?
It is very insulting to me when other African-Americans or racists whites refer to us as “n****s”, “n****r”, “Colored” and “Black” as I am none of those things. n****s and/or n****r means people who steal and we are all of a certain color. What is wrong with you?
Elizabeth… What is wrong with YOU…?? You totally missed the point because you got caught up in the “semantics”, and not the issue itself…! YOU are a prime example of why Blacks have NO power…! I know where the words came from, and I purposefully put them in there to stress the fact that as long as we see ourselves as that, we will never get any further than where we are… As the last 40-50 years have shown us! You can’t see the forrest, cuz your mind is still hanging from a tree…! smdh
Exactly…. Exactly.
Seems to me there are more than enough wealthy black entrepreneurs, stars, and athletes to fund a lobbying effort if there was a desire to make it happen. Jay Z and Oprah alone could send an army of lobbyists onto dc.
It can be done. It is possible.
Because they can pay and will pay for their lobby.
When black people become smart and are willing to put their money where their mouth is and pay for such service they can and will get them. When we apply ourselves rather that talking about thing we need to ge done. It will be done.Instead of asking the question help the people to organize to get a lobbist who will represent our cause.We have been looking for freeby for so long we seem to expect that everything come free, well it do not come free, you have to pay.
MONEY /\…………If we would put our money were our pie hold is, we would have Lobbyist doing our bidding too. Give us what they have, MONEY /\……There is a reason why African Americans don’t have access to loads of money. It’s power d**n it….
Obama raised more money than any candidate, ever, when he first ran. Millions of housewives across America made Oprah a fixture of American tv for over a decade.
Americans of all colors, including a heck of a lot of white people, are more than happy to give money to a black-owned, black lead, institution/business/movement.
Money is the by-product of an idea that has come to fruition. It is not the secret reason behind everything. Mishandling money is quite easy to do. Vast fortunes can vanish in a click of a mouse. Empires can crumble with one bad bet. In a word: money does not make the man.
It follows that “Power” can’t keep a good idea down forever, or a good product from selling, or a good song from being heard, or a good book from being read.
Be inspired by passionate minds who have pursued their ideas to fruition. Black role models abound. Like them: build, write, innovate, take risks, fail, and never loose faith.
We have been conditioned to believe that “Jesus” is coming back to save us and therefore all we have to do is believe that if we “Just Hold On” and love everyone they will change the way they feel about us. And they will respect us and help us to rise above our situation. Until we as a people “Unify” and begin to run Asians, Indians and Arabs out of our communities and begin to assert our own collective economic agenda for survival. We will continue to be regarded as a “Throwaway People”. We have millions that we give to those that depend on our disunity for their survival. We send people to D.C. and because they do not have a cohesive support system that ensures that they stay on course. They become corrupted(Sell Out Artist’s) S.O.A’s. that only think about enriching themselves as they become the example that we are never to be taken seriously as a people because the illusion is that all we want to do is think about partying,s*x getting high. Our issues will continue to be placed on the back burner until we learn to set aside ego,religion and self interest above the whole and begin to act function as a single organism. OUR SURVIVAL AS A PEOPLE IS AT STAKE,AND THE ODDS ARE STACKED AGAINST US!!!!
this article is very true ,I hate to say this ,but even though we have great Black Mind’s all around the country as a collective group or body.BLACK PEOPLE SUCK!!!!
All of your comments are excuse driven. Instead of stating what others should do, what do YOU do? Do you Vote? Do you WRITE your representatives and voice your concerns? Do you have unwed mothers in your family who are drop-outs and living on govt. checks? Do you have young men in your family who are drop outs and/or in jail? Do YOU save, bank account anyone? Do YOU have to have every new sneaker and/or electronic toy?
African-Americans look for any excuse not to do the hard work, always looking for a leader instead of stepping up and leading your own lives for a change….sickening!
I noticed that my comment was not posted…! Hmmm… Truth hurts huh…? Shame… Cuz I’m just as Black as you, and have my own point of view… But I see the concern is not for a true understanding of the issue… Just what appeases the “Poster”! Censorship at its finest..! But yet still another reason why Blacks get no respect… Because they fail to look at the root of their problems with an open mind and heart…! I’ll be sure to share with my others in my Network to avoid this Kulture Kritic site, because the “Poster”, hates for people to actually be “CRITICAL”! lol
What do you call the NAACP ? it most certainly is a lobby group, and a racist one at that.
Blacks have no lobbyist group?
Ignoring the obvious entities such as the NAACP, UNCF, Sharpton, Jackson, et.al., the absolute predictability of the black vote (Democrat >90%) invalidates any need. Since blacks have accepted the forbidden fruit by making a deal with their political masters: the exchange of unwavering political loyalty and subservience for entitilements. The Democrats have delivered $16 Trillion in gifts since the begining of the war on poverty but all that has been purchased are democratic political profits and the requisite corrosives of cultural illegitimacy, violence and dependency.
Appropriately imbibed on the goods delivered by generous Democrats wearing masks of benevolence – intended to conceal the inherent condescension and bigotry of lowered expectations – blacks have no political bargaining chips left to play. Are blacks going to threaten a shift in preference to Republicans? On what grounds, that the Republicans promise more programs, more entitlements, more fruit from their neighbor’s labor? Nonsense, Republicans would disapoint with the virtues of independence, self-reliance and the counter-intuitive notion that programs intended to help most often accomplish the opposite.
Leverage expended by the deal made with dems, there is no need to lobby and frankly, no reason for the Democrats to listen. They have you in the bag, restrained on the proverbial “government plantation.” What chains could never do to keep blacks subordinate and from running away, handouts have. Slave owners who destroyed family continuity by destroying the nuclear family have been soundly trumped by Uncle Sam who pays black men to inseminate, then stay away. Education, once the greatest threat to a slaveowner threatened by suddenly aware slaves, is similarly destroyed by terrible urban schools who renounce school choice and vouchers but reward union teachers who grant phony educations to the 50% of blacks who manage not to drop out of high school.
No, blacks don’t need a lobbyist, you are precisely where you were designed to be. Slavery masked as government benevolence; a drug that destroys, but one that cannot be denied.
What many of us think but are not saying, we failed when we followed Dubois and his cohorts plan for our community. Our leaders had no maturity allowing Dubois and his group to denigrate Marcus Garvey and his plan of Black self reliance that would have served us so much better.
@ E-Sharp.. I bet your mom scraped you off a whorehouse wall..
we don’t stand for nothin only hair,skin color,who’s got a new rap song,looking at shows woman acting like they never left the ghetto. how much money a star has. what new gym show is out stand in a line over night if its something where we have to use our brain we go to sleep.
We don’t have lobbying groups bcuz because majority of us with resources in a position to support it don’t, we’re too busy supporting everything else but our issues which are worst then all others combined, and give passes to those like President Obama who ignore Blacks issues being forced to do so for re-election, or thinking we’re a better than the average Black . When Blacks (I use this term very proudly and unapologetically) with resources and media power utilize their resources and voices to ACTUALLY help other Blacks who are committed and trying to buildup our race then we will see positive changes, until then we will keep watching every other race advance ahead of us.
Too many blacks are focus on things that doesn’t matter to ever obtain real power in America. Just look at the CHILDISH, mind numbing c**p our people call entertainment, and it becomes obvious that our collective minds have not yet evolved into responsible adulthood.
Far too many blacks buy what we want (hair products, shiny trinkets, etc.), and beg for what we need. Until we as a people “man up” and take responsibility of our own destiny, nobody is going to give a d**n what happens to black folk. And I for one am not sure they should.
Nice post Marvin. I’d like to add my favorite quote from Booker T. Washington which addressed the key (self-determination) to black empowerment:
“If we want to be valued, we need to make ourselves valuable.”
The answers to this obvious question lies in history as we all know but if you want a concise explanation of how and why this situation persists, please watch this on Youtube:
Tim Wise: The Pathology of Privilege
I promise you won’t regret it nor will you be bored for a second….