[Peace-discuss] Sundiata Cha-Jua

[David Green]

This column, certainly not for the first time, seems profoundly misdirected
on multiple levels.



SUNDIATA CHA-JUA: REAL TALK: A BLACK PERSPECTIVE

The white Midwest and ‘electability’ arguments are false

Addressing the NAACP convention in Detroit, Democratic presidential
candidate Kalama Harris challenged the false narrative of the Midwest as a
white region.

Harris rightly claimed the pundits’ notion of “electability” reflects their
misconception of the region, the type of candidate who can appeal to
Midwestern voters and it privileges white male candidates.

She contends the pundits’ notion of the Midwest is “simplistic” and
“narrow” and “leaves people out . . . it leaves out people in this room who
helped build cities like Detroit.”

The “electability” argument is wrongheaded. It represents a return to the
failed presidential campaigns of 2000, 2004 and 2016. It prioritizes white
working- and middle-class voters and diminishes and neglects African-
Americans, the Democratic Party’s base.

Moreover, because it privileges whites and minimizes and erases
African-Americans and Latinx, Arabs and Native Americans from residence in
the region, the “electability” argument reeks of racism.

Since the second decade of the 20th century, African-Americans in
Midwestern cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, St.

Louis, Kansas City and Indianapolis have played a major role in shaping
African-American culture, business, politics and social movement activism.
The erasure of blacks from the Midwest is a phenomenal historical and
political deception.

In African-American history, the Northeast, especially New York, is
contrasted with the South.

In the dominant narrative, blacks fled Southern slavery, largely for the
Northeast, which had abolished slavery in 1820s-1830s. Thus, the North came
to represent freedom, if not equality, while the South embodied
enslavement. Since the first Great Migration, 19191935, African-American
history has been shaped by a narrow New York-centric bias.

In the wake of the first wave of the Great Migration, New York City
attained the largest black population. Ever since, New York City (and the
Northeast region) has held a privileged place in the black imagination. It
was the site of the Harlem Renaissance. Author and NAACP Executive Director
James Weldon Johnson termed Harlem the “cultural capital” of Afro-America.
Alain Locke, the father of the Renaissance, considered it a “race capital.”

New York and the Northeast’s pride of place is curious when we consider
demographics, cultural trends, business, politics and social movement
activism. Despite having similar numbers and percentages of black people,
the Midwest is imagined very differently than is the Northeast.

Interestingly, while elites designated Harlem the “capital” of
Afro-America, common black people called Chicago “the Mecca.” Since the
late 19th century, many of the most significant African-American social
movement organizations and leaders were founded or headquartered in the
Midwest, chiefly in Chicago.

The Chicago Defender (1905) accelerated the Great Migration by encouraging
blacks to flee the oppression and repression that characterized the South.

After New Orleans and Memphis, the most important centers of black music
production, were Midwestern cities — St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago and
Detroit. By the 1940s, Chicago had surpassed Durham, N.C., as the black
business capital.

The large numbers and percentage of black Midwesterners in key cities
encouraged and facilitated high levels of organization and militance.

Oscar De Priest, the first black congressman since Reconstruction came from
Chicago. Three of the eight 20thcentury black U.S. senators were elected
from Illinois. The state has sent the most blacks to the U.S. House, 16.
Carl Stokes and Richard Hatcher, the first two African-American mayors of
major cities were elected in Cleveland, Ohio, and Gary, Ind. And Barack
Obama, the only black person to occupy the U.S. presidency, came from the
Windy City.

>From the founding of the National Afro-American League in Chicago in 1890
to Ida B. Wells’ move there in 1905 to the National Negro Congress’
founding in 1936 to Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party to Jesse
Jackson and Operation PUSH to Louis Farrakhan, Chicago has been home to
significant black social activists and movements.

>From the Trade Union Leadership Council’s formation in 1957 to the creation
of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Detroit has given rise to
major African-American labor organizations.

Demographically, since the Great Migration, there has been virtually no
difference in the numbers and percentage of blacks residing in the
Northeast and Midwest.

In 1940, 11 million blacks lived in both regions and comprised 4 percent of
each’s population. In fact, as late as 1975, more blacks lived in the
Midwest than in the Northeast, 20 million to 18 million.

However, at 9 percent to 8 percent, the Northeast contained a slightly
larger percentage. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that in 2016, about 8.2
million black people lived in the Northeast and nearly 8.1 million in the
Midwest, comprising 18 percent and 17 percent of their respective regions.

Also, in 2016, African-Americans represented 79 percent of Detroit’s
population, over 50 percent in Cleveland, 43 percent in Cincinnati, 40
percent in Milwaukee, 27 percent in Columbus, Ohio, and 19 percent in
Minneapolis.

These numbers and percentages confirm Harris’ argument. The Midwest is not
a white region. It has a significant black population. A candidate can win
in the key states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by
increasing the number and percent of black voters and by preventing voter
suppression.

Therefore, a strategy that targets white working-class voters who flipped
for Trump in 2016 is not only shortsighted but carries a distinctly racist
odor.

Sundiata Cha-Jua is a professor of African-American studies and history at
the University of Illinois and is a member of the North End Breakfast Club.
His email is schajua at gmail.com.
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