Garth Rattray | The updated ‘black and blue’

Originally, the phrase ‘black and blue’ related to the discolouration of the skin, indicating that someone was badly bruised from a physical injury, fall, or beating. Figuratively, it was also related to the emotional pain experienced during or after an ordeal.

Obviously, the discolouration is far more evident in people with a lighter skin tone. Ironically, though, during the days of slavery, it was the folks with the darker hue who were being beaten black and blue. And, even though they were of a darker complexion, the discolouration was severe enough that it could be easily seen.

Black people also suffered emotionally from the abuse and beating. However, although the physical ‘black-and-blue’ discolouration faded fairly quickly, the emotional ‘black and blue’ is generational and still exists even today. The emotional ‘black and blue’ persists because, generally, black folks are often treated as if they are inferior to white folks.

Consequently, being black made a lot of folks feel ‘blue’. In that sense, ‘blue’ came from the Old English expression ‘Blue Devils’, which, in the 17th to 19th centuries, referred to the ‘severe, terrifying visual hallucinations and depression brought on by alcohol withdrawal (delirium tremens)’. Eventually, the phrase was shortened to simply ‘the blues’. It was used to describe a state of low spirits, profound sadness, or melancholy.

There was a time when being black automatically made you blue. It was out of this deep and enduring sadness that a genre of music called ‘the blues’ arose. Around the 1860s and 1890s, a collection of African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States used music to express their severe emotional pain, heartbreak, hardship, and resilience during their post-emancipation life and the Jim Crow era.

The 2026 midterm elections in the United States brought out several interesting observations. Demographic analysis showed that, if only blacks (African-Americans) voted in those midterms, the entire US would be blue (controlled by the Democratic Party). The other possible way that the entire map would be blue is if only people under 30 years of age voted.

Obviously, Black Americans largely support the blue Democratic Party. Although it was the Republicans that spearheaded freedom from slavery for black people, and the Democratic Party of the day opposed the move, the platforms and orientations of both parties shifted markedly around the mid-20th century.

Today’s Democratic Party projects civil rights, economic safety-net programmes, collective group solidarity, and tolerates democratic socialist ideations and candidates. On the other end of the spectrum, the Republican president vehemently dismissed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) - the institutionalised system that promotes fair treatment, access, and representation for everyone, especially groups that have historically been disenfranchised or marginalised.

Uplift black families

Interestingly, although DEI provides opportunities that help uplift black families, the largest group of beneficiaries remains white females.

A summary outlining the history of the US Democratic Party’s platform shift during the 20th century states that “In the 1940s and 1960s, the Democratic Party – led by figures like President Harry S. Truman (who desegregated the military in 1948) and President Lyndon B. Johnson – embraced federal civil rights legislation. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 cemented the Democratic Party as the primary vehicle for civil rights protection, while many conservative Southern Democrats eventually shifted to the Republican Party.”

Certain programmes and legislation promoted by Democrats attract black voters. These include the Affordable Care Act, the American Rescue Plan Act, and the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act (a landmark United States federal law signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 29, 2022, which explicitly establishes lynching as a federal hate crime for the first time in American history).

Whenever there are black voters, there are bound to be black candidates. And these midterm elections were not short of black candidates seeking political office. The current political atmosphere created the perfect storm for the much-vaunted blue tsunami. The Democratic Party inundated the political arena, and black representatives were awash with pride for their achievements.

In Georgia alone, eight black women won statewide offices. They were Keisha Lance Bottoms (governor of Georgia), Penny Brown Reynolds (secretary of state), Tanya Miller (attorney general), Katherine Juhan-Arnold (commissioner of agriculture), Nikki Porcher (commissioner of labor), Keisha Sean Waites (commissioner of insurance), Lydia Powell (state superintendent of schools), and Shelia Edwards (public service commissioner, District 5).

The unprecedented black political victories in Georgia took me back to around the mid-1990s. I was attending a cardiology conference in downtown Atlanta and was on a MARTA bus on my way to the venue one morning.

MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) is the principal public transportation agency serving the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area. MARTA operates a network of heavy rail rapid transit lines, a streetcar, bus routes, and paratransit services.

I was appropriately dressed for the meeting and sitting among the middle seats of a large bus. A small group of Caucasian teenagers, probably between 18 and 19 years old, boarded and sat directly in front of me. One girl turned to the rest of the group and asked if any of them knew what MARTA meant. No one knew. She went on to say that it meant Moving African-Americans Rapidly Towards Atlanta.

Her racial jab was obvious; it hit the mark and it stung. However, I did not react. I wonder if any of them is still alive to witness this band blue extravaganza.

Garth Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice and author of ‘The Long and Short of Thick and Thin’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com.