For Black Folks In And Around Pittsburgh

This is for my fellow Black people in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. First off, I'm letting everybody know that I am NOT voting today.

That's because I voted two days ago, on a Sunday, by dropping off my mail-in ballot at the East Liberty Post Office:

Yesterday, the County Board of Elections emailed me to confirm that they had received my ballot and that it would be counted.

With that said, I know that some Black folk today are planning not to vote today, not because they already have, but because they just don't want to vote, period. I wish I could sit down with you to listen to your reasons for not voting. My guess is that I would agree with at least some of what you have to say. For instance, if you feel that your vote won't matter, I get it - I have had that feeling myself, more than once.

But I ask you to consider one question: what if, THIS TIME, your vote matters more than it ever has? What if your vote matters MORE than almost anyone else's in the entire country?

I believe that to be the case.

Why? Because both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris visited Pittsburgh yesterday.

Think about that. Why would both of them visit Pittsburgh, of all places, on the very last day before the election? 

To understand why they did it, you have to understand how U.S. presidential elections actually work. That means you need to know about two things: the Electoral College, and swing states.

The Electoral College is made up of people called electors, whose job it is to elect the president and the vice-president of the United States.

Now, I hear you saying, "Wait a minute? Don't we do that when we vote?" Not really. What happens is this: after the election in which you and I vote, the electors have their own election. That election is the one that puts someone into the White House.

Each state has a certain number of electors, largely based on the size of their population. Pennsylvania has 19. When they vote in the Electoral College election, they vote for the candidates who got the most votes in their state in November. It's not their job to vote for their personal preference, it's their job to represent the voters of their state.

In 48 out of 50 states, including Pennsylvania, the Electoral College is a winner-take-all system. So if two-thirds of Pennsylvania voters vote for Donald Trump, and one-third for Kamala Harris, Pennsylvania's 19 Electoral College votes won't be divided so that Trump receives 12 or 13 and Harris receives 6 or 7. Nope, Trump will get all 19.

So, understand that whoever wins in Pennsylvania will pick up 19 Electoral College votes. All the states together have 538 electors, so a candidate needs 270 Electoral College votes - one more than half - to win. Pennsylvania is more important than most states because we have the sixth-largest number of electors. It's a lot easier to win with our 19 Electoral College votes than without them.

Your vote is more important than most people's vote, because you live in Pennsylvania.

That's one reason that Trump and Harris came to town yesterday - because we have so many Electoral College votes. The second reason that they've made a special effort in Pittsburgh is because Pennsylvania is a swing state.

What's a swing state? Well, in most states, voters vote so consistently one way or the other that they are regarded as actually being Republican or Democratic states - or red or blue states. 

But there are seven states that could swing either way - Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nebraska, North Carolina and Michigan, and Pennsylvania. They're called swing states, and out of those seven swing states, Pennsylvania has the most Electoral College votes.

For weeks, the polls have said that the presidential race is 50-50, is neck-and-neck, is in a dead heat. That means that the election is likely to be won or lost in the swing states.

Trump and Harris both visited Pittsburgh yesterday because they that the swing state of Pennsylvania, with its 19 Electoral College votes, could tip the scales for the entire country.

Your vote, Pittsburgh Black man - your vote, Allegheny County Black woman - is more important than almost any other vote in the entire country just because you live in Pennsylvania.

But there's another piece to this. Remember how we said that the winner of the popular vote in a state gets all of that state's Electoral College vote? Well, that's true even if they win by just one vote. The margin of victory doesn't matter.

In that sense, you could say that the tighter a race is, the more important each individual vote is. 

In the six presidential races since the year 2000, the margin of victory has ranged from a high of 10.46% to a low of .75% - not 7.5, .75. That's less than one percent, people! That was in 2016, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes, got all of Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes, and won the presidency.

In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes, got all of Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes, and won the presidency.

TODAY, not only could Pennsylvania could tip the scales for the entire nation, but Pittsburgh and Allegheny County could tip the scales for Pennsylvania.

AND BLACK VOTERS COULD TIP THE SCALES FOR PITTSBURGH AND ALLEGHENY COUNTY.

Do you know how many Black people there are of voting age in Allegheny County, including Pittsburgh? If I've crunched my numbers from the Census Bureau correctly, about 130,000. That's 50,000 more than Biden's margin of victory in 2020, and 85,000 more than Trump's margin of victory in 2016.

WE ARE DEAD CENTER OF THIS THING. I feel safe in saying that WE have never had more power; that OUR vote has never been more important.

Heck, with 130,000 of us of voting age in Allegheny County, we don't even all have to vote for the same person to help that person win the presidency.

But I think it would be pretty cool if we did, this time around - or at least, if 90 to 95 percent of us did. So I'll share just two reasons (of many) for asking you to join me in voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

Reason 1:  To save your wallet.

Donald Trump has promised to impose tariffs of 60% or more on every product imported into the United States. If he does, American companies will have to pay those tariffs to the U.S. government when they import those products. Then they pass along that added expense to consumers in the form of higher prices. The result? Today's $500 TV could be an $800 TV six months from now.

Who do you think will be more strongly affected by those price increases for every type of product you can name - Shadyside, or Homewood? Squirrel Hill, or the Hill District?

Reason 2: To prank America's founders.

When the Constitution was drafted, delegates from Southern states opposed the "one person, one vote" concept for electing members of the House of Representatives. Why? Because, although the North and the South had roughly the same number of people, about half a million of those people in the South were enslaved, so the South had a lot fewer voters than the North. To allay their concerns, the framers added a provision, in Article I, Section 2, that gave slaveholders three-fifths of a vote for each slave that they owned. 

The Three Fifths Compromise, as it was called, was then applied to the Electoral College, giving slaveholders an advantage over non-slaveholders in deciding who the electors from their state would vote for for president. The Electoral College allowed slaveholders to exploit Black bodies, not only economically, but politically, while denying Black people the vote that would give them a voice.

Now, maybe I'm a bad person for thinking this way, but I think that if Black people in Pittsburgh came together just enough to use the franchise that at the Nation's founding excluded Black people, and excluded women - if we use that franchise to leverage the same Electoral College that was designed to help institutionalize our oppression - if we use that franchise to elect a Black/South Asian woman, who is also the daughter of immigrants, as the President of these here United States - that that would just be SWEET. The election of Kamala would be Karma showing off!

That's my view, what's yours? Drop a note in the comments below, agree, disagree, call me stupid, whatever, but whatever you do, citizens - VOTE!!

Polls are open until 8 pm. If you don't know where to vote, check here!

 

In Honor of John Amos - the video

I wrote my last post, "In Honor of John Amos,", as the script for a video that  I intended to do for my podcast, "Mic Drops with Elwin Green."

I outlined the video, with the script and supporting materials. Then I let myself get distracted. Then I let myself get discouraged about having gotten distracted.

Today, I finally posted the video as Episode 008 of "Mic Drops." 

So much has happened over the past few weeks that most people have probably forgotten about Mr. Amos's passing.

He still deserves a tribute, though. So here it is:

In Honor Of John Amos

 

When "Sanford & Son" premiered in 1972, it became the front end of a wave of black sitcoms on network television, largely fueled by the uniquely productive genius of Norman Lear.

In 1974, "That's My Mama" premiered. 1975 gave us "The Jeffersons," another Lear production, and in 1976, "What's Happening" came on air.

I can't say that I ever became a fan of any of those shows. That was largely because I was in my early 20s during that period, just coming into manhood, and was somewhat sensitive about the ways in which Black men were portrayed on TV.

In "Sanford & Son," the title characters were a father and son who spent more time mocking each other than expressing respect or love. George Jefferson was little better than Archie Bunker in blackface. "What's Happening" was about kids, and I don't even remember "That's My Mama."

None of these shows showed a Black man that I would hold in high esteem, a Black man that I would want to be like.

But in 1974, one show appeared that did that - "Good Times."

John Amos already had a occasional gig as Gordy the weatherman on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" when Norman Lear drafted him to play James Evans, the patriarch of the Evans family. The show premiered on Feb. 8, 1974, and for two years John Amos showed us - showed me - a Black man worth emulating.

James Evans was not well-educated, but he was nobody's fool; he was not well-off, but he and his wife Florida took care of their own; he was hard-working, and honest. He always made his love for his wife and family plain as day - and heaven help you if you messed with any of them - he was not aggressive, but he wasn't scared. In fact, James Evans gave off the vibe that you messed with his family, he'd kill you without hesitation. And without regret.

James Evans was my favorite Black man of 1970s television, and I will always be grateful for the gift that John Amos gave us in his portrayal. And I will never forgive Norman Lear and anyone else involved in the decision to elevate the cartoonish character of J.J. to a level that pushed John Amos off the show.

Amos's discontent with "Good Times" was well known. What I've never heard anyone explain was the view from the other side of the table, the explanation for why James Evans was killed off. In the absence of an explanation, I have imagined that a bunch of Americans simply found James Evans too scary - so scary that not only did they kill him off, but after he was gone someone felt the need to make the next Black male lead of a sitcom...really small. 

And the one after that, too.

In any case - immediately after Good Times, Amos went on to play the adult Kunta Kinte in "Roots"... 

From there he went through a smorgasbord of supporting roles, including as the entrepreneur who was ripped off by McDonalds in "Coming To America'...

..until he settled in for five seasons on "The West Wing" as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace.

But I will always remember him most as James Evans. Now, John Amos is gone, having passed away in August at the age of 84, and all I can think of to say is, God rest you, sir. Thank you for all that you gave us.