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Sowell: Republicans and Blacks
Creators Syndicate ^ | March 25, 2014 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 03/24/2014 1:17:08 PM PDT by jazusamo

Recently former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice added her voice to those who have long been urging the Republican Party to reach out to black voters. Not only is that long overdue, what is also long overdue is putting some time — and, above all, some serious thought — into how to go about doing it.

Too many Republicans seem to think that the way to "reach out" is to offer blacks and other minorities what the Democrats are offering them. Some have even suggested that the channels to use are organizations like the NAACP and black "leaders" like Jesse Jackson — that is, people tied irrevocably to the Democrats.

Voters who want what the Democrats offer can get it from the Democrats. Why should they vote for Republicans who act like make-believe Democrats?

Yet there are issues where Republicans have a big advantage over Democrats — if they will use that advantage. But an advantage that you don't use might as well not exist.

The issue on which Democrats are most vulnerable, and have the least room to maneuver, is school choice. Democrats are heavily in hock to the teachers' unions, who see public schools as places to guarantee jobs for teachers, regardless of what that means for the education of students.

There are some charter schools and private schools that have low-income minority youngsters equaling or exceeding national norms, despite the many ghetto public schools where most students are nowhere close to meeting those norms. Because teachers' unions oppose charter schools, most Democrats oppose them, including black Democrats up to and including President Barack Obama.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's recent cutback on funding for charter schools, and creating other obstacles for them, showed a calloused disregard for black youngsters, for whom a decent education...

(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2014issues; billdeblasio; blackrepublicans; blacks; blackvote; cabrinigreen; charterschools; chirlanemccray; condoleezzarice; jimcrow; kukluxklan; minimumwage; newyork; newyorkcity; outreach; partyofsecession; partyofslavery; republicans; segregation; sowell; thomassowell
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To: Some Fat Guy in L.A.

Again I have experience in this. Once a private school takes State money, it starts to become a State school. If the government schools are so bad, why are you pushing for THE SAME thing to happen in private schools?


41 posted on 03/24/2014 7:56:51 PM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: ExCTCitizen

My children are going to private schools. I don’t want that to change because someone wants to have the State pay for it. Once you let State money in, the State will dictate how the school runs.


42 posted on 03/24/2014 7:59:54 PM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: justiceseeker93
I'm all for charter schools or whatever programs can get truly aspiring students out of public schools. But that's the problem. As Robert Weissberg details in his his book "Bad Students, Not Bad Schools," many black parents don't care about their kid's scholastic chances. Neither do many of the students. Weissberg claims that black parents who want to get their kids into charter schools or other non-public schools have a number of programs ready to help them.

The sad fact is most of the inner-city parents don't give a damn. Remember the saying about leading a horse to water. Nobody wants to bring up the IQ gap having an enormous impact on the whole thing. It's almost impossible to teach low IQ children who many times are bored and violent. That's the sad situation.

43 posted on 03/24/2014 8:17:13 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: justiceseeker93

The only person I know who I know has at least one kid in charter school is black; he’s got five kids (that I know of) and making sure they got a good education was a very high priority; he didn’t get that shot when he was that age (and we’re the same age), and grew up in a POS public school system.


44 posted on 03/24/2014 8:38:39 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: jazusamo

Thank you for this thread, jazusamo.

It brings out certain people...

Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t going to resign.




45 posted on 03/24/2014 9:00:29 PM PDT by rdb3 (Get out the putter, this one's on the green.)
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To: Zenjitsuman; jazusamo; redgolum; LeonardFMason; lurk; SunkenCiv; Billthedrill; driftless2; ...

“Blacks voted for Hussein Obama because of skin color.”

I would say that “many” blacks voted for him because of his skin color. Most that voted for him would have voted for whatever Dem candidate there was anyway. The Dems have the black vote sewed up. Sowell’s point is to just pull a portion of that vote by appealing to the blacks that are willing to think for themselves, and in this case he used charter schools as an example of a route.

So he’s GOPe leaning, do we have to throw the baby out with the bath water? Or can we think for ourselves and consider a way, ANY WAY, to appeal to the black community in such a way, as Sowell suggests, to pull some of that vote over to the conservative side?

That he doesn’t like Cruz, Levin, or the Tea Party movement is what we should criticize, not his entire works.


46 posted on 03/25/2014 7:38:04 AM PDT by Blue Collar Christian (Vote Democrat. Once you're OK with killing babies the rest is easy. <BCC><)
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To: Blue Collar Christian
We can appeal to the black community by making it easier to start up small businesses and to be self employed. We can say that they are being replaced in the job market by illegals and other unnecessary foreign labor. We can sympathize with those whose neighborhoods are actually worse off because of hispanics moving in. We can support LOCAL schools with job training opportunities in high school.

You want to pander to them with "school choice" that solves nothing. Real conservatives who defend US citizens (who blacks mostly are) would promise that they were in line for jobs they are qualified for before non-citizens were even considered. They would oppose Spanish being used in work or commerce.

But this pandering with "school choice". All it's serving to do is destroy the good schools that still remain.

Sowell is not on our side. He and all of the other globalist lapdogs should get out of the way of constitutional conservatives.

47 posted on 03/25/2014 9:54:04 AM PDT by grania
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To: Blue Collar Christian
There is no honest way to appeal to black voters. The Republican Party used to be the party of black Americans. That was about one hundred years ago. Then FDR came along initiating the welfare state, and Pubbies started losing black voters in droves. I think Nixon was the last Pubbie to get a substantial share of the black vote with around 30% in 1960. Goldwater only got about 6% four years later. Of course, Goldwater's rejection of the 1964 Civil Rights bill hurt him and Republicans enormously. Ever since then, even though many Pubbies supported the bill and Goldwater changed his mind, the GOP has never been able to capture but a minuscule pct. of the black vote.

The only way they could get more black voters would be to transform themselves into Dem lites...i.e. rejecting all principle and pandering. I refuse to support any pandering pols, Dem or Republican. So I've written off the black voter. The typical black voter does not want to stand on his or her own two feet. The black voter loves Big Government and being a victim. That is my conclusion, and no amount of appealing to reason will win them over. Those are the sad facts.

48 posted on 03/25/2014 10:50:27 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: driftless2
There is no honest way to appeal to black voters

Not in the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am frantic model we have today for politically campaigning to the attention span challenged.

A more sustained public relations effort would work, I believe, if it kept hammering on the theme "Who respects you more?" It would have to keep up in season and out of season. It couldn't be a here-and-gone effort.

49 posted on 03/25/2014 10:58:27 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: redgolum
Once a private school takes State money, it starts to become a State school

Not arguing the point - however the voucher programs that I have read about generally give state money to the student, not the school, so the student and family can choose a school. If this money ends up in the hands of a private Christian school with no strings attached, that's a good thing, right? Agree that strings will lead to corruption, but does it have to be that way?

50 posted on 03/25/2014 7:14:18 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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To: Some Fat Guy in L.A.

Do you know of a single program that DOESN”T have strings attached?

If a school takes the voucher State money (and it will come from the State), in a few years the majority if that school’s income will come from voucher students. Then someone will say “You know, Christian School XYZ is _________. I say we cut funding for them until they teach _________”.

The school will then have to decide if they give up the funding, or stay true to their beliefs. After many battles over the years, I know the answer will just about always be to keep taking the money.

This is why there are very few Christian hospitals left, and almost no adoption agencies. They started taking State money, and ended up organs of the State.


51 posted on 03/26/2014 5:56:37 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: jazusamo

So if ‘race doesn’t matter’, why do we have to appeal to the black community?


52 posted on 03/26/2014 5:59:21 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
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To: Resolute Conservative
No high school should have more than 500-600 kids. The only reason to pool that big is for the building of special projects like football stadiums. Sports would be just as competitive without the mega schools.

And also things like lab facilities for chemistry class.

One thing that would help would be to allow schools to kick out misbehaving teens at 16. Better yet would be to route teens who have little interest in academics into trade schools, where they could learn carpentry, barbering, or some other skill.

53 posted on 03/26/2014 6:07:09 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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To: grania

“But this pandering with “school choice”. All it’s serving to do is destroy the good schools that still remain.”

I see this as an example, not THE solution. And choice in schools is for everyone who should want to exercise it. Don’t you believe we must do something, rather than nothing or pandering, to start winning over part of the black vote? Or maybe are we just to hope the black vote goes away?

Perhaps our country IS just a lost cause now, and we should hold out NO HOPE AT ALL of ever winning our society back to being the honorable, God loving, family embracing, freedom loving America that it could be again?

The Black community, despite the efforts of Planned Parenthood, are going to be an important part of the this country whether we acknowledge it or not. Same as the Latino community. Without trying to match the progressives offers of free stuff, and preferential treatment, but with continuous campaigns appealing to the benefits of liberty and opportunity being equal for all, we should be making a true effort to win ALL communities (you know, like whites, and Asians, etc.)over to the side of true conservatism, true constitutional republican thinking.


54 posted on 03/26/2014 6:17:13 AM PDT by Blue Collar Christian (Vote Democrat. Once you're OK with killing babies the rest is easy. <BCC><)
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To: Blue Collar Christian
I've listed a whole lot of suggestions that could improve black education within black communities. I've also articulated that invaders should be sent home and non-citizens should not even be considered for jobs that US citizens are qualified for. Go into those black communities and say "you are US citizens... non-citizen hispanics should not be taking your jobs or moving into your communities"

School choice to blacks is like stop illegals in the US to constitutional conservatives....rhetoric to get votes. I've seen it from the inside. School choice doesn't solve anything.

55 posted on 03/26/2014 6:22:06 AM PDT by grania
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To: PapaBear3625

I would think you can get a mack-daddy chem lab for 1% the cost of a multi-million dollar stadium complex and equipment.


56 posted on 03/26/2014 6:25:49 AM PDT by Resolute Conservative
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To: driftless2

“There is no honest way to appeal to black voters.”

I beg to differ. The ONLY way is the honest way. We, you and I, have to appeal to the black (and Latino, and Asian, and left thinking whites, and Jewish, etc) communities ONE VOTER AT A TIME in most cases, and rally them to be supporters of the Constitutional Republic this country was meant to be, where EVERYONE has the liberty and opportunity to pursue success, and then enjoy the fruits of their own accomplishments.

It is not going to be easy. If even 10% of the tea party type conservatives in this country would make a daily effort to influence the liberals all around us, we could truly see a shift in the polls. It helps if we understand how to present our case, after allowing the liberal to present HIS case and then showing how preserving the Republic as it was designed is better for him, point by point.

If you, and I, and the other fellow conservatives comprising this mystical 10% I describe, talk with 200 people a year, and perhaps get 3 or 4 people to think for themselves, well, miracles could happen...

I make this same appeal to all you Christians out there to be telling folks about Jesus and what he offers.


57 posted on 03/26/2014 6:37:09 AM PDT by Blue Collar Christian (Vote Democrat. Once you're OK with killing babies the rest is easy. <BCC><)
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To: grania

“School choice doesn’t solve anything.”

I believe I have indicated that I concur on that. I want to use Sowell’s statement as an example of opportunity, or necessity, to reach out to the black, and all communities, and campaign with intensity, individually, to win over the left minded to the right.

I reject Sowell’s notion of even bothering with the corrupt socialized school system, except to pointing out the Left’s rabid support of it. He also goes on about the perils of raising the minimum wage, a topic about which the two parties are opposed. These are EXAMPLES of lines of thought we ought to be pursuing in our attempt to win over people. Revamping, or even better, eliminating the public school system has to come later, after winning the country over to right thinking.

“Go into those black communities and say “you are US citizens... non-citizen hispanics should not be taking your jobs or moving into your communities””

I’m with you on that. And I also say, “Go into the Latino communities too, and tell the people who have earned citizenship to reject the notion of allowing outlaw residents to plunder their/OUR country!”

We have to be ready to get booed out of there, but we also must appeal to the individual to pony up to being a patriotic citizen rather than a parasitic critter, or to even tolerating parasitic critters.


58 posted on 03/26/2014 7:15:44 AM PDT by Blue Collar Christian (Vote Democrat. Once you're OK with killing babies the rest is easy. <BCC><)
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To: Blue Collar Christian
In my (now over) journeys through the wonders of urban education, I easily recognized a strong desire for shop classes and other job preparation. Those programs have been shut down and kids told they have to go to college and get hopelessly in debt. Then they see hispanics, many non-citizens getting the good jobs in the trades.

The problem is the RINOs don't want to address that. They want the black vote, they say, but they want the cheap illegal labor even more.

59 posted on 03/26/2014 7:22:36 AM PDT by grania
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To: Blue Collar Christian

If the GOP wants to win it needs to energize CONSERVATIVES many of whom sat out the past two elections. If the GOP proceeds with Christie and an outreach to try and win Black voters they will lose again. That is a fact.


60 posted on 03/26/2014 7:22:54 AM PDT by LeonardFMason (LanceyHoward would AGREE)
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