Have to admit, I was just as taken aback initially (obviously, LOL). Glad everybody straightened that out.
In another post, you said:
African blacks may have borne some responsibility for their fall to whatever malevolent forces first began the long process of enslavement and degradation against them. I do know, for instance, that African tribes collaborated with the slave traders, and sold their fellow blacks into bondage in the 1600's.
That makes me think that a people who have such a long history of being bought and sold and viewed as inferior beings designed for simple labor had much to overcome in terms of perception of their own place in any society.
Now add the birth and rise of Marxism to the equation. That happened right around the time of the Civil War (The Communist Manifesto was written around the mid-1800's I believe) and populist movements gained steam here in the US through the late 1800's into the 20th century. So you had thousands and thousands of freed blacks trying to find a place in post-Civil War American society, and I believe they were easy pickings for the anti-capitalist/pro-worker philosophy (which evolved into the platform of the Democrat party). A people with a stronger collective sense of worth might not have been so vulnerable.
A people with a stronger collective sense of worth might not have been so vulnerable.
I believe this is precisely what happened.
It began in earnest with FDR's New Deal, and continued with LBJ's Great Society welfare programs. These government entitlement industries were largely directed at blacks, and served to undermine their self-worth, and to atrophy their ability to fend for themselves. In time Uncle Sam replaced the father in many black homes, which resulted in the breakdown of the basic family unit among blacks.
Today, fully 70% of black children are born out of wedlock, blacks are greatly over-represented in the prison population, and there is a high percentage of black single parent households. This is cultural destruction on a massive scale, yet Democrats, liberals, and most blacks have their eyes firmly glued shut to these facts.
I believe that once blacks were given the right to vote, they were targeted as a potential voting bloc which could be manipulated into monolithically voting for "the hand that feeds", i.e., the Democrats.
Most folks may not know this, but blacks had to be pried away from the Republican party. Until FDR's time, most blacks voted with "the party of Lincoln". My grandparents were all lifelong Republicans.
Many blacks of my grandparents' generation resisted the temptation to switch parties, and saw through the transparent snake oil sales of FDR's time, but their kids fell for it across the boards. JFK and LBJ went on to solidify the Democrat lock on the black vote.