By William Reed | Business Exchange

African Americans’ most crucial issue into the 21st century is not getting a Democrat into the White House. The 2008 presidential race is about exercising Black voting patterns that get us public policies and legislation toward racial justice.

Sadly, such Black empowerment activities have been put on the back burner. African Americans are allowing themselves to be swayed away from issues critical for them, such as affirmative action and reparations, to mainstream propositions such as “colorblind” standards. Blacks’ unfl inching dedication to America’s two-party system establishment negates any notion of these parties engaging to correct public policies and practices that keep us at the bottom of America’s pile of plenty.

Programs deemed ‘un-American’
Status quo adherents use Black spokespeople to posture positions of both major political parties that, in reality, are impediments to African-American advancement through political policy. They staunchly support Republican and Democrat party officials’ positions opposing affirmative action and minority set-aside programs as “un-American.”

Maturing into the mainstream is the mindset of many middle-class Blacks. They have willingly bought into two bogus ideas establishment political parties and media have sold them —America is colorblind and centuries of injustices should be ceded.

Barack Obama’s mainstream candidacy dispenses a yarn that America has solved its race problem and can now be viewed as colorblind. They say “Racism is dead” and race-specific policies, such as affi rmative action, cannot be justified and are in fact “detrimental.” Even the most well-meaning liberal tends to believe that institutional racism is a thing of the past and that any racial inequalities—in criminal justice, wages, family income, and access to housing or health care—can be attributed to African-Americans’ cultural and individual failures.

In spite of America’s official line that we are now a colorblind society, Black Americans are foolish not insisting on affirmative action legislation and reparations remedies. Affi rmative action was supposed to correct injustices Blacks had been subjected to over centuries. Now, affirmative action has such a bad reputation that liberals and conservatives entice us to join the clamor for a colorblind society.

Some Blacks are blind
Blacks are the least colorblind segment of American society and any who buy into the deception are just plain blind. They take the public pronouncements of politicians and pundits at face value over their conventional wisdom of the serious public problems two-thirds of Blacks experience every day.

Colorblindness is a mainstream media myth. The concept continues racial inequality and impediments to Black Americans gaining racial justice and appropriate public policy.

The Establishment’s policy-making structure erodes affirmative action. It dilutes civil rights and spends fortunes building new prisons, most of whose occupants will be Black. America’s Establishment has sidetracked anymovement toward equal justice for African Americans and few seem worried.

Silence about disparities
Neither party offers us “a chicken in every pot” or mentions racial equity, and too many Blacks blissfully accept this. Racism persists in the effects of organized racial advantage across many institutions in American society, including the labor market, the welfare state, and criminal justice system; yet the tone of presentations of African- American pundits and offi ceholders are more about political positions and personalities rather than championing core issues to end persist racism in employment, education, criminal justice, and politics.

African Americans hired under affirmative action tenets are among its principal antagonists. If America’s “colorblind society” is measured by the 30 percent of Blacks who have assimilated into the American Dream by the “content of their character,” what does it say about the none-to-moderate- income 70 percent still suffering from institutionalized practices such as persistently doubled unemployment rates, having less than 10 percent of the wealth of average Whites, half the homeownership rates and triple the loan decline rates, all caused by the color of their skin?

The concept of America being colorblind is disingenuous in purpose and practice, and a costly proposition for Blacks. We are foolish to discard debts due us. But if we do “buy in” we have to realize that we are joining in on elimination of billions, possibly, trillions of dollars that could lead us to actual racial parity and real equity.

Contact William Reed via www.BlackPressInternational.com.