Robert P. Lee, vice president NAACP, senior member Henderson County Black History Committee
On Nov. 11, I picked up my Gleaner and was drawn to Frank Boyett's piece on the local election, "Hite draws well, shows support across city." I read in depth the 14 precincts that Ms. Hite carried. I also viewed the total votes received by the candidates.
After reading the whole piece, I was drawn to the back page, a continuance of the A1 story. It mentions that Mr. Robert Pruitt carried 10 precincts. The part that struck me, not as odd, but I'd like to know what The Gleaner or Mr. Boyett is saying when writing that Mr. Pruitt carried East and West Bells by large margins, which historically have larger percentages of black voters. Are you saying if these were not historically black precincts, he wouldn't have carried them? That's exactly what's being said.
Why this mention of blacks as though we vote on the basis of color rather than merits? The fact is that others carried all the "white" "rich" precincts. Why was it not mentioned that if every black who was able to vote, voted for Mr. Pruitt it still wouldn't amount to 4,983 votes? Blacks are not monolithic.
The gerrymandering of the districts in the '90s was designed to spread the black vote so as to weaken a candidate who may seek office that is black or a white who could possibly garner black votes.
Well, I'll burst the bubble of ignorance and take The Gleaner and Mr. Boyett off the box. How many blacks have held elected office in Henderson County, Ky.? I'm sure that when blacks were finally given the right to vote, denied by Kentucky and other states in total violation of the U.S. Constitution, we voted for white people. Is it because they were white? What if blacks who did vote, did so because Barack Obama and Mr. Pruitt are black? So what! We've been voting for folk who care more for animals than they do for black people.
What Mr. Boyett should do is find out why so many folk seeking office bypass the black community. I'll tell you why. They feel like to hell with it. We will go to our old outdated base.
The Gleaner and Mr. Boyett can try to reduce our intellect to race, but history shows that we have thrived in this country in spite of the worst holocaust perpetrated in the history of humanity.
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