The forgotten Americans

During Wednesday night's final presidential debate, both candidates fought in a last-ditch effort to win over the many undecided voters in America. But in an effort to win the undecided voters, they, like every other presidential candidate in past years, failed to reach out and touch another key group in America. I am not referring to the soccer moms or the NASCAR dads, but I am referring to the welfare moms and the dads who have to flip hamburgers.\nThese are the people who suffer through the presidential campaign season every four years wondering if just one of the candidates will ever truly pay attention to what's going on in many of the inner cities of America. When I say pay attention, I don't mean they send a few people from their ground crew over to talk in front of the largest church in the community as a sign they're "down wit us." Nor do I mean saying stupid stuff like, "I want to be the second black president," as an effort to connect with the African-American community. Nor do I mean creating some empty bill with a good name in hopes it will make you out to be concerned with the inner-city schools. When I say pay attention, I mean go to these inner cities that so many of them fear so much. Go to the south side of Chicago, come home with me to Gary where we have three of the five high schools on academic probation, and where we've been named the murder capitol for the something like nine of the past 12 years. Go door to door in my neighborhood and ask some of the parents there who are struggling to make it daily with two jobs and ask them why they don't vote. Go up to one of the guys who's selling drugs not because he thinks it's cool but because he has no other choice. Then, because of this, he's missing out on what was once his dream of becoming a doctor -- ask him why he doesn't vote.\nI can give you one suggestion. The reason many of them don't vote is because it's to a point where voting doesn't matter. Think about it. If every promise that all the candidates have put out were fulfilled, if every concern was met, if every issue that faces the inner city had at least a little attention paid to it, I guarantee there wouldn't be more black men in America's prisons than in America's universities. \nImagine it like a huge mountain with flourishing plants and wildlife at the top and sick animals and disease-riddled plants at the bottom. Every time it rains the water always seems to rest and stay at the top of the mountain, making most of the mountain look beautiful while the bottom always looks terrible. That's what people in the inner cities of America feel like every four years. That's what urban America feels like every time some huge promise is fulfilled but somehow that promise still manages to leave them out. Local politicians show their faces every four years proclaiming to be the savior of urban America. Most of the time, national politicians don't bother to show up. Businesses still refuse to come to these areas, school children continue to be left behind and crime continues, yet politicians try to convince us things are getting better here, so let's focus on Saddam and Osama, right? \nIt would be nice, with all this attention that's being paid to the undecided voters in this year's election, if the candidates tried to pay some attention to the non-voters. It would be nice if they tried to figure out why they don't vote. After all, they too are Americans.