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
Famous quotes containing the words politics and, politics, social and/or issues:
“Our family talked a lot at table, and only two subjects were taboo: politics and personal troubles. The first was sternly avoided because Father ran a nonpartisan daily in a small town, with some success, and did not wish to express his own opinions in public, even when in private.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places for believing practices.... Politics has once again become religious.”
—Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)
“The new supplants the old. Yet men’s minds are stuffed with outworn bunk. Educating the young in the latest findings of authorities and scholars in the social sciences is important. It is equally important to devise ways and means for aiding the middle-aged and old to reexamine hang-over unscientific doctrines and ideas in the light of recent discovery and research.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“To make life more bearable and pleasant for everybody, choose the issues that are significant enough to fight over, and ignore or use distraction for those you can let slide that day. Picking your battles will eliminate a number of conflicts, and yet will still leave you feeling in control.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)