ICHEOKU says anyone who listened to or heard President Joe Biden's speech last Tuesday at the Atlanta University Center Consortium, the oldest and largest association of historically Black colleges and universities, to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, would think that the struggling United States of America president just landed from Mars or became a politician a few moons ago. Suddenly there is now an urgency of time for him to "pass it now" and to have the courage to stand up to "protect the right to vote." He even went to the extent of threatening a change in the Senate rules to get rid of the filibuster just for "this".
This is a guy who has been in politics for fifty years, majority of which he spent in the Senate and had every opportunity to do right by and for "voting rights" in America, but did not. He was also Vice President to a black president Barack Obama for 8 years with a democrats controlled House of Representative and Senate, yet he did nothing. Suddenly, he woke up from his good ole boy's racially induced convenient coma, to the fact that voting rights in America has been abridged and needs to be urgently and speedily fixed now; and that centuries old Senate rules should be broken if that is what it will take to make his wish a fait accompli.
Why did President Joe Biden not fix the voting rights problem when he was a Senator of the United States of America from Delaware? Why did he not fix the voting rights issue when he was the Vice President of the United States of America? Why did he not fix the voting rights question when his party had both houses of Congress with a black president Barack Obama in the White House? Whose voter in America is still being denied voting privileges during elections? Whose voter's right is it anyway that is still being infringed upon which Joe Biden wants to desperately fix such that he decided to throw caution to the wind by demanding that the Senate do away with its rules which have been in place for centuries in the interest of a stable union.
If Joe Biden is suddenly tired of being quiet, how much ruckus did he raise about it when he was still a young and vibrant politician, when his energy would have possibly seen the bill through. But no, he did not do the needful then when it would have been fruitful, only to now be feeding some black folks gathered in Atlanta this bull-crap simply because he generally looks down on black people and sincerely doubts their intelligence quotient and capacity of cerebral recollection. ICHEOKU says which other ethnic or racial group in America would Joe Biden have had the shameless impetus to so barefaced to say what he said in Atlanta, after spending half a century in Washington DC and doing nothing about the issue of voting rights.
But it was a black audience and he felt that soundbites will be sufficient to appease them just like the doses of it which they get each Sunday from their black pastors in their black churches. So he said "Pass it now" and you ask yourself why didn't he "Pass it then" when he could have easily done it? So, he said the Senate should have the courage to change Senate rules and you ask why didn't Joe Biden have the courage and changed the same Senate rules then when he could have easily done it? Who exactly is the president fooling with such vacuous speech when most people who listened to it or heard it knew that nothing will become or ever come out of it.
New Georgia Project's CEO Nse` Ufot was right that giving dozens of speeches for Build Back Better did not get them Build Back Better and that it is not crazy nor unreasonable to ask how a speech on voting rights is going to get them voting rights. Georgia's elected but not serving governor Stacy Abrahams, who boycotted Joe Biden's speech event, followed suit by stating that it is just speeches and that Joe Biden is so full of it, all talks and no walking of his talk. NAACP president Derrick Johnson added his own frustration, saying that it is time Joe Biden's administration matched their words with actions. Martin Luther King Jr admitted that attending the speech event was a very difficult decision and that he shares the frustrations of black community over the all talks and no action of the Joe Biden administration.
Such reactions are a definite statement that the scales are beginning to fall off the eyes of many black people and they are realizing that they are only good and used for their votes every four years by the Democratic Party. Like Bob Nestor Marley said, you can fool some people some time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. So, President Joe Biden has been put on notice that his comical bag of tricks have been opened for all to see and there is nothing in it for black people. Therefore, whatever role he may think that he is playing in "protecting the right to vote" fades in comparison to the role he failed to play to protect the same when he could have, during the past fifty years of his extensive political sojourn in Washington DC.
How much did he actually stand up for democracy then and when exactly did he finally switch sides from George Wallace to now Dr King; and when was the moment of truth that did it for him? CHEOKU says the only possible explanation for what black people do, listening to the likes of Joe Biden and following the Democratic Party, is that they are simply too forgiving. They cannot possibly be suffering from dyslexia and retentive memory deficiency, otherwise no black person will ever be listening to what President Joe Biden had to say about the exigency of voting rights reformation in America, his lengthy swampy dwelling in Washington DC considered.
ICHEOKU says enough of the pandering and always invoking some electoral reforms in some Republican controlled states as a testament that the voting rights of black people are being restricted. It is simply idiotic and simplistic to try to pigeonhole such a broad electoral legislations as targeted only against black people because they are not. They are broad laws meant to fix existing loopholes in the electoral process and they apply to everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender and religion. So why try to pass it off as if they are only black people specific, targeted at them when they are not; or are white people and other races exempted from those laws?
There is no reason for black people to be parceled out by Democrats as invalids and handicaps who cannot do what other racial groups do in America, including voting. Black people can secure a driver's license and have identification cards. Black people can register to vote early enough too. Black people can also withstand the rigors of waiting in line, without being given food and water, to vote on Election Day. If other races in America can do these things before they vote, so can black people as well. So, enough of the condescending treatment of black people as if they are Americans with special needs, who must be assisted specifically in order to enable them to vote in elections.
It is very demeaning and very insulting of President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to be singly treating black people in this manner. It is about time they see and treat black people as very competent and very capable Americans, who are equal in every facet with their counterparts of other races. President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party should be ashamed of the psychological warfare which they waging on black Americans by continuously making them to feel and believe that they are incapacitated and not at par with other Americans. This has to stop and needs to stop now. They must stop making voting rights in America a black people's sole problem because it is not.