One reason that returns on black political investment have been so meager is that black politicians often act in ways that benefit themselves but don’t represent the concerns of most blacks. So in addition to being overly reliant on politicians, blacks typically have poor political representation. “Pollsters have long known of the remarkable gap between the leaders and the led in black America,” wrote Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. A 1985 survey found that most blacks favored the death penalty and prayer in public schools while most black leaders opposed these things. Most blacks
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