This presidential election is one that should be marked in our history books as the time where America embarrassed her racist, capitalistic, poverty-stricken, ignorant personality once again. There are currently 2 presidential nominees who have both toyed with the American Imagination in a way that has exposed some of our fellow Americans most far-fetched of fantasies.

Hillary Clinton dreams of this white, first wave feminist paradise that cherishes the achievements of white women (whatever they have achieved) while denouncing the black women of BLM movement, attempting to “address” the mass incarceration of hundreds of thousands of racial minorities that her husband put in jail due to the 1994 Clinton Crime or the “War on Crime”, insulting the very fabric of black culture by casually singing negro spirituals at her "African Americans for Hillary" Rallies, and using black trigger words like “institutional racism” and “woke” and “systematic oppression” to invoke some type a revolutionary ethos appeal to make older African Americans feel as though their vote is a contribution to ending racism. Hillary has expressed interest in the issues of black people but, it has not really meant much outside of her campaign.

Donald Trump on the other hand has concerned himself with making sure the America reverts back to a Jim Crow, Racially Segregated (which is not really a bad idea btw), and fearful society to “Make America Great Again”. Not to mention the fact that this reality star from Celebrity Apprentice is tragically underqualified to serve as anyone Kindergarten Line Leader much less President, there is an overwhelming large group of his supporters whom have been identified as the republican fault line in “The Hamilton Project” . These people have no business trying to get a man like Trump elected into office and take care of American people. Most trump supporters, according to the recent Atlantic article, may be identified by asking two questions “Are you a middle-aged white man who hasn’t graduated from college ?” and “Do you feel voiceless ?” This 86% of Trump supporters who feel voiceless have certainly become the current Confederate Flag waving, Trump Sign Holding, Trump supporters we have come to love and know.

So what does this mean for black folks? Both candidates have been forced to recognize and identify the “black vote”, seeing how important it was in the Obama-Biden election win. This vote is one that both candidates have very little understanding of outside of numbers and percentages and quite frankly, the black vote is something that is not very difficult to get in this election. It seems that all a candidate has to do to start winning over black voters is to open up their rhetorical speech with " Yes, Black Lives DO Matter" and just like choir does to the pastor of the church, black people become satisfied with that candidate. If black lives really mattered, we need to see the receipts. Hillary and Bernie have made such statement and of course, our friend Donald has neglected to do so.

The black vote for a long time has been seen as democratic and the political party catered to meet the needs of black people. With this in mind, the black vote has been given to the Democratic Party on the premise that they are the ones who will deal with black issues, even if not directly, they are the ones who have let us down in the past on this promise. Black people in our current generation have convinced themselves that the democratic party will take care of us and our community until there is another Malcolm X or Martin Luther King. Black people have not been able to combat the oppressive forces of racism since the Kerner Report and since that point, after the Reagan Administration, these strides have been erased, reduced, and recycled.

Being a black college age student, here is the issue, this rhetoric has been recycled over and over to attract our young idealistic eyes but, we not here for it. America seems to just be waiting for Hillary Clinton to Dab her way to the presidency so that we can choose the lesser of the two evils and hope that our situation doesn't deteriorate any more than it already has in this country. These "liberal college students" who also happen to also be black people, aren't accepting the lesser of the two evils anymore and with student debt rising, police brutality constantly being exposed, and mass incarceration being the center point of life for our family and friends back home; the black vote is no longer guaranteed. I would hope that these things have been taken into account when these candidates attempt to fish for the black vote.