Democrats have forsaken black Americans — it’s time for the GOP to step up

The way people in politics, whether it be media pundits or politicians, discuss race in America is like listening to bad parents brag about their ineffective style at a dinner party.

Black people are treated like adopted children that Democrats feel need saving from their unfortunate circumstances, but their paternal embrace shows more as theatrical symbolism to only convince their dinner party attendees they’re selfless people.

With the socially progressive wing of the Democratic Party narrating the supposed needs of black people in various parts of America, real concerns of violence and general criminality perpetrated against the black working class and poor have been overshadowed by a boutique ideology that encourages living in denial over facing an uncomfortable reality.

Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” just wondered out loud to his panel featuring Brown University’s Glenn Loury and University of Washington’s Daniel Bessner why we aren’t talking more about the violence happening in Chicago.

“But why isn’t anyone ever talking to, like Chicago, like most of the shootings are young black men killing other young black men,” Maher asked. “Is that not correct?” To which Loury responded, “Yeah, that’s correct.”

“OK, much more than what the cops do,” Maher continued. “Why doesn’t anybody talk about that? Why aren’t there, you know, a hundred giant black celebrities who would have the respect of those people say, ‘What are you doing to yourself, why are you killing each other?’”

Maher added to the conversation by stating that 85% of black students lack proficiency in reading skills and what he believes is its correlation to crime.

“We already spend a lot of money on schools. So are you going to keep telling me more money will fix this because I feel like this is much more connected to the problems of people who can’t read. Yes, they’re going to have problems with gainful employment, and it seems like, you know, a lot of times the solutions that come from the left seem symbolic.”

The reason Democrats avoid discussing the growing prevalence of violence in predominantly black communities in urban environments like Chicago is that it would produce more questions about their failing strategy to address common-sense concerns.

They would rather ignore the negative policy outcomes in less favorable areas of the city and gaslight anyone who notices when something isn’t working.

Maher is correct about Democrats’ love affair with racial symbolism as they’re more willing to erect statues of dead black men than erect concerns for preventing dead black men. They’re also unabashedly elitist in their actions as the only time they appear to care about crime is when it happens in their “good neighborhoods”; remember crime isn’t supposed to happen there.

Democrats show us off to their friends to appear inclusive and benevolent, but it’s become a one-way relationship that preserves the Democrat establishment’s image as the tolerant adoptee of black America while discarding the ambitions of black Americans below a particular tax bracket.

Yet if the Democratic Party is our braggadocious adopted political parental figures, the Republican Party is our judgmental absentee parents who tend to hyper-focus on only our problems from a distance yet do little to nothing to get involved in our lives.

A common dismissive Republican talking point is that the soft-on-crime Democrat approach in black communities is really black people’s fault because they “voted for it” and so our demise in urban areas is really our own doing.

But Republicans avoid the reality that the Democratic Party is the only show in town in Chicago, and it’s been that way for decades.

In the 2023 mayoral race, there were zero Republican-affiliated mayoral candidates, so how are black people in Chicago supposed to choose something that does not exist?

This situation is not an outlier: Chicago hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1927.

We’re supposed to believe that the Democratic dominance in Chicago is only because of popular demand instead of partly the Republican Party’s willful withdrawal.

This year’s mayoral run featured an incredibly low 30% registered-voter turnout, which tells me that many of the people who live there are growing tired of failing Democrat policies and lack the enthusiasm to vote for the status quo.

The constant political posturing from both sides leaves innocent Americans without a solution. And if either party cared about Chicago, they’d do something different because neither strategy is working.

Adam B. Coleman is the author of “Black Victim to Black Victor” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing. Follow him on Substack: adambcoleman.substack.com.