At present Black America has only one Black US senator (appointed) and has no guarantee and perhaps no hope of having even one Black US Senator after this fall's elections.
It doesn't have to be this way. If less than one million Black people moved across the border from New York into Vermont (whose population is less than one million) then Black people could send two US Senators to the US Senate from the state of Vermont!
According to the US Census Department's Quick Facts, Vermont, with a population of 621,760, (0.9% Black) is a state that could reliably elect two Black US Senators if 650,000 Blacks of votin age moved there and registered to vote, creating a Black voting majority. It might take even less Blacks if the influx of Blacks led to white flight, which Blacks would benefit from but would be powerless to discourage.
Inevitably, with the news that the State of Vermont would soon have a Black majority, white real estate agents would begin blockbusting tactics, convincing whites to sell their homes and farms (to Blacks) for a song, rather than remain in what was quickly becoming a Black majority Vermont.
Once Blacks announced our intention to become the majority in Vermont and proved to the public the numerical likelihood of our success, some whites would flee Vermont and Blacks could buy their houses and other properties a depressed prices in a buyers' market.
Other whites would leave Vermont while renting or leasing their property to Blacks. Whether Blacks rented, leased or bought the property in Vermont (where rents and other prices are dramatically cheaper than in the boroughs of New York City), our financial arrangements would have only indirect effects on our demographic takeover of the state of Vermont.
Many color-aroused whites would be inclined to leave Vermont and South Carolina when the Blacks in Black majority areas made African-American history a requirement in grade school and state university curricula, while making other courses more relevant to Blacks' academic, professional and occupational needs.
Here, I have to thank African American Political Pundit for pointing out, in a private exchange of e-mails and Skype calls, that taking over South Carolina demographically and politically might be more consistent with preexisting demographic and cultural patterns among Blacks. Blacks are now moving back to Southern states, after fleeing in the Jim Crow era. We have already reached a critical mass in South Carolina, such that our votes determine the winner of the Democratic state-wide elections and of the state's position in the Democratic Party's presidential primaries.
Again, according to US Census Department Quick Facts, South Carolina, with a population of 4,011,832 of which 28.5% (1,143,000 are Black), would have a majority Black voting population if two million more Black people of voting age moved there. The elderly might be the best bet as political migrants to Vermont, because elderly people vote more reliably and can count on income from Government and other retirement programs. That income makes it easier for them to move than for someone who has to find a job in a state whose population is quickly becoming saturated with a new Black influx.
To my way of thinking, this would be a much easier and more reliable and sustainable strategy to get two or four Black US Senators than the strategy of trying to convince majority white states to elect Black leaders to the US Congress. How many whites would be elected to the US Senate if they had to run in majority Black districts?
As Stu Piddy is fond of saying, 'this is not rocket science' or fanciful. It's simply a matter of whether we Blacks want to elect two or four Black US Senators enough to congregate ourselves in two states where we can form a majority, such as whites have the majority or plurality in every state of the union at this time.
White US Senators are not universally elected because they are the best relative to Black alternatives. They are elected because whites are the majority demographically and are reluctant to elect Black alternatives, no matter how effective Black candidates would be at representing these states.
It might be considerably easier than it would seem for Blacks to form the majority in the states mentioned. If Blacks moved to Vermont or South Carolina in significant numbers, then it might engender a new "white flight" from those states that would make it even easier to take over state politics and send four US senators to Washington from Vermont and South Carolina.
Where would Blacks find work in these states and how would they survive? Just as whites move to Florida to retire on their retirement income, with no need to work there, Blacks who depend on SSI and SSDI and other pension programs, and Blacks who are self-employed, (particularly in industries where their work is done over the Internet or telephone from home) are Blacks who could move to Vermont and have no dependence on the local economy. The same is true of South Carolina. Of course that many elderly or disabled and self-employed or mobile Black people moving to either of these states would create many new jobs in health care, etc.
So, there you have it! I've been thinking about it and have proposed a feasible and financially sustainable way to guarantee that Blacks have four Black US Senators within six years, even though we have never before had two elected Blacks in the US Senate simultaneously (to my knowledge). Since we are just about to have NO Blacks in the US Senate, this is really quite urgent.
Will it Blacks' lives change meaningfully to have two or four more Black US Senators? I don't know, but white people seem to think it's worth spending up to tens of millions of dollars to get into the US Senate. And Barack Obama made it a path to the presidency of the United States.
Let's not forget that, in addition to gaining four US senators, we would gain two Black governorships, a number of House seats, mayors, city councilors, state and local assessors, state representatives, police officers and appointed officials is these states. In many cases, the Blacks moving to Vermont and South Carolina would be coming from states in which Blacks had no statewide representation at all and where we had little or no effect on the nomination and election of candidates from town councilors up to the US presidential nominating process.
