Politicians discuss black Democrats

State Rep. Joseph Preston Jr., D-24th district, still recalls fire hoses being turned on him… State Rep. Joseph Preston Jr., D-24th district, still recalls fire hoses being turned on him when he participated in civil rights protests during the 1960s. He still bears marks on his back from being hit with nightsticks during a protest in 1968, he said Wednesday night in a three-person panel discussion about black people’s involvement in the Democratic Party.

State Rep. Jake Wheatley Jr., D-19th district, and Pittsburgh City Councilman Sala Udin, D-6th district, were the other two panel members.

Preston said that black voters today don’t have the same fire to mobilize and fight for their rights.

“You have something different than what we had,” he said. “You have freedom. You have a different level of freedom.”

As a young adult, Preston said, he could not even go into any restaurant he chose.

“That lack of freedom caused people to say, ‘Damn it, we want our freedom!'” Preston said, emphasizing his statement by pounding his fist on the table.

But that same urgency is not there in young adults and black people today, he said.

“I don’t think either [political] party effectively pursues young people or black people,” Udin added, offering another reason these groups are not involved in politics. “They lack any outreach.”

Voter registration is not organized by political parties, either, he said. Other groups, like the NAACP, instead organized registration.

“There’s an active resistance against us,” Brian Byers, an audience member, said to the panelists.

Byers said he had tried to become involved in the Allegheny County Democratic Committee, but was told he was too young and inexperienced, and that they already had enough people.

The Allegheny County Democratic Committee could not be reached for comment.

Wheatley referred Byers to people from his office, with whom he could talk about getting involved, but he added that people should not wait for doors to open for them.

“Believe that if anything is going to happen, it’s going to happen because of you,” he said. “People are not going to readily embrace you.”

“Sometimes you have to bang the damn door down yourself,” Preston said.

The panelists also said that black people should make politicians more accountable.

“We need to negotiate hard with candidates before the election and hold them accountable after they’re elected,” Udin said, in regards to a quote from a politician who had said, “I don’t want to buy the black vote, I just want to rent it for a day.”

“That’s how we avoid being bought,” Udin said, adding, “If we are dumb enough to sell our souls for a couple of dollars, then we deserve what we get. I don’t think we’re that dumb.”

But the Republican Party has started to appeal to more and more black people and college students, Wheatley said, because too many college students aspire to become wealthy — something that the Republican Party emphasizes and benefits from, the panel members suggested.

Instead, people should be fighting to make healthcare, food and education accessible to everyone, Wheatley said.

Many black people did not have opportunities at education when they were young, leaving them in poverty and with low or no healthcare coverage, Udin said.

“[There are] more black millionaires today,” Udin said, “but there are also more black people in poverty.”

Udin also added that 3 million jobs have been lost since George W. Bush became president.

“It’s absolutely necessary to send George Bush back to Crawford, Texas. Let his ass be unemployed,” Udin said, which elicited laughs and clapping from the audience. “He’s an absolute disaster for this country.”

Udin noted that he only gets invited to Pitt every three or four years. If he were invited more often, he said, he would be willing to do more panel discussions or training sessions.

“We come when we’re invited,” Preston said, adding that both he and Wheatley had been in Harrisburg earlier on Wednesday, but they made the trip to visit Pitt. “You’re important.”