Politics and Social Issues
Since the passing of the Voting Rights Act, African Americans are voting and being elected to public office in increasing numbers. As of 2008 there were approximately 10,000 African American elected officials in America. African Americans are overwhelmingly Democratic. Only 11% of African Americans voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential Election.
Social issues such as racial profiling, the racial disparity in sentencing, higher rates of poverty, institutional racism, and lower access to health care are important to the African-American community. While the divide on racial and fiscal issues has remained consistently wide for decades, seemingly indicating a wide social divide, African Americans tend to hold the same optimism and concern for America as whites.
An area where African Americans outstrip whites in their conservatism is on the issue of homosexuality. Prominent leaders in the Black church have demonstrated against gay rights issues such as gay marriage. This stands in stark contrast to the down-low phenomenon of covert male-male sexual acts. There are those within the community who take a different position, notably the late Coretta Scott King and the Reverend Al Sharpton, the latter of whom, when asked in 2003 whether he supported gay marriage, replied that he might as well have been asked if he supported black marriage or white marriage.
Read more about this topic: African-American Culture
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