Kinchlow: The Black Two Percent

As GOP presidential rivals jockey for delegates and contemplate strategies for influencing “independents” and/or “undecideds,” one group of voters cost neither Obama nor the GOP candidates much concern, time or money – the GOP candidates, because they have no hope, and the Democrats, because they have no fear.

The group? The black vote, the 98 percent of African-Americans who consistently vote for Democrats.

What of the black 2 percent? No, I am not talking about blacks who earn the “vast sums” that the Occupy Wall Street crowd find so offensive (in others). I am talking about the real minority in America – you know, the “sell-outs,” those “Oreos,” “Handkerchief Heads,” “Clarences” (as in Justice Thomas), “inauthentic black” Uncle Toms – formerly coloreds, negroes, Afro-Americans – and now, as we are officially labeled, “African-Americans,” who vote Republican.

According to the U.S. Census, 42 million African-Americans comprise approximately 13 percent of the population. Of the approximately 16 million blacks who voted in the 2008 presidential election, 96-98 percent voted for Obama.

That’s not surprising, considering all the precedents this charismatic young black man shattered not only in the U.S. but for the entire Western world. (I am willing to stand corrected, but I cannot recall an elected black leader in any predominately white, European, English-speaking Western nation.)

Most people are unaware that from Lincoln to FDR, blacks voted for the Republican Party in the same percentages they now vote for Democrats. As they truly prized the value of their voting privileges, a much higher percentage of the population participated. For example, of the 42 million blacks, only 16 million voted in 2008.

Why do blacks overwhelmingly vote for Democrats – so much so that many no longer consider them merely voters but Democrat voters? Blacks vote for Democrats because they labor under the illusion that the Democrat Party supported – and was/is a champion of – civil rights victories for blacks. Three misconceptions, based primarily on this scenario, have been instigated and supported by both the black “leadership” and the mainstream media, black and white.

(Read about them here..)

[Ben Kinchlow is a minister, broadcaster, author and businessman. He was the long-time co-host of CBN's "700 Club" television program]