Posted on 12/27/2005 8:33:38 PM PST by presidio9
For Georgia's black Republicans, 2005 was a breakthrough year.
Melvin Everson and Willie Talton became the first African-American Republicans since Reconstruction to take office in the Georgia House of Representatives.
Georgia's GOP Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed an African-American, Harold Melton, to the Georgia Supreme Court.
And the national Republican Party sought to project a more inclusive image. That included national GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman's July apology to NAACP conventioneers for the party's history of running racially polarizing campaigns.
But for those Republicans preaching racial parity for the GOP, it's still a long way to the promised land.
Reports of such progress are mixed, at best. Between 2000 and the 2004 elections, President Bush's share of the black vote rose from 9 percent to 11 percent. And polls show the historically monolithic African-American support for the Democratic Party has softened.
But the GOP successes in electing black candidates have come with caveats. Neither Talton nor Everson, for example, appear to have brought flocks of black voters with them. Both ran in heavily white districts.
Talton won his Houston County seat in 2004 without opposition. Everson, a former Snellville city councilman who was supported by top Georgia GOP leaders, eked out a win in a nonpartisan contest last fall against two white men.
Katrina hurts efforts
The GOP's bid to win over black voters has also suffered significant setbacks. The most damaging, perhaps, was the wave of African-American outrage at the Bush administration for failing to respond faster to Hurricane Katrina victims.
Some view the incident as confirmation that the GOP is insensitive to African-American concerns – even racist.
Then there's Georgia's new law, now the subject of a lawsuit, that requires voters to carry photo identification to the polls. Many African-Americans view it as an attempt to disenfranchise black voters.
"If you look at the recent history [of GOP black voter recruitment], there's always one step forward and two steps backward," said David Bositis, a senior associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, a nonprofit public policy institution that seeks to provide training for newly elected black officials.
Not only that, but Bositis and other political experts say African-Americans and the GOP are on opposite sides on most issues.
Republicans have long contended that African-Americans belong in their party because they tend to be social conservatives and, like the GOP, oppose abortion and gay marriage. But some political experts say that may be all they have in common.
"The Republicans at times think their hot-button issues are also the hot-button issues of African-Americans," said Bositis. "Their hot-button issues are criminal justice, employment, affirmative action, housing and health care.
"They're not going to vote for Tom DeLay because he supports vouchers," Bositis added.
Some local black leaders believe the GOP has simply failed at marketing itself to African-Americans. "Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have every right to get on TV and market their message, but where's the competition?" said Eric Johnson, a co-founder of the Cobb and Gwinnett County Black Republican Councils. The closest competitor, said Johnson, was conservative radio commentator and former GOP presidential candidate Alan Keyes.
"But Keyes stopped marketing himself to the African-American community and started marketing himself to the right wing of the Republican Party," Johnson said.
'Racism still exists'
John Stewart, a pastor who heads the Gwinnett County chapter of the NAACP, says the GOP has to do more than showcase the party's anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage stances to large evangelical black churchgoers.
"The Republican Party has a hard time realizing racism still exists for African-Americans," said Stewart, who says he's a political independent. "Social issues are important but dealing with racism and discrimination on a day-to-day basis is very important to African-Americans.
"The Democratic Party has been more sensitive and more pro-active in dealing with those issues. ... But I think they [Republicans] are making progress," said Stewart, pointing to a generational change in attitudes he sees taking place among young African-Americans.
Young blacks tilt right
A recent study released by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies appears to confirm Stewart's view.
The survey showed that while African-Americans over 50 vote solidly Democratic, 17 percent of younger black people either identified themselves as Republicans or leaned toward the GOP. And solid majorities of them supported school vouchers and the partial privatization of Social Security, causes advanced by the GOP.
But political experts say race continues to be the big hurdle for the GOP.
"The leadership of the Republican Party is dominated by conservative white Southerners, who as a group are politicians African-American voters like least," Bositis said.
And therein lies the dilemma for the GOP: how to court black voters without alienating the white Southern conservatives who've flooded the party in the past four decades.
Bositis suggested the GOP doesn't have to become a completely different party to attract black voters. But the party could succeed by promoting a few issues important to African-Americans.
One of them, Bositis said, was affirmative action, which he argued might be important to right-wing idealogues but not rank and file Republicans.
"They don't have to advocate for all African-American issues," said Bositis. "But they do have to advocate for some."
Groupthink is enforced under the socialist education system imposed on the American Black. Variety will not be tolerated. (see also Bill Cosby or the Bush Administration)
All the GOP needs is 25% of the black vote to permanently keep the Rats out of power.
Personally, I think that's doable.
I think that the Democrats are taking them for granted; what have they done lately to help out the black community? It's clear that they are more focused on their ultra-liberal base, which is more of a socially liberal group...
what has the black community done lately to help out the black community?
Yes, and the grass is thick and deep green over the septic tank.
Blacks just can't drop the Dems. and the entitlement society ----"stuck on stupid".
Churches, churches, churches
Some how the party needs to crack the code and convince them to not only join the conservative movement, but join the ranks of leadership in the party.
IMO the gay agenda intentionally uses blacks to play on our guilt while they pass more and more civil rights legislation that only gays take advantage of.
Reggie White found out where blacks rank on the PC ladder.
At the top? Not much.
Within the individual blacks? They are making progress, contrary to what the MSM wants to show us...more blacks are working for higher wages...
There were Democrats in charge of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana, and what did they do to help solidify the levees???
Not that I am letting the federal government off the hook, but there is a clear double standard here!!!!
I can't disagree but the masses and the leadership will never let on that individuals can ever overcome the "racism" of the American society.
As long as a single American remains seduced by the left. we shall keep trying to reach them. You never know who is hearing the message, or what kind of person they may become. Someone may rise and find the ear of those who would not listen before.
"There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the
troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public.
Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because
they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of
race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well." --Booker T.
Washington, 1911
Does not matter to the black voting group. One rumor is spread through the black communities and it is fact. T-shirts that say New Orleans black genocide 2005 are selling like hotcakes
"They don't have to advocate for all African-American issues," said Bositis. "But they do have to advocate for some."
Sound like a racial spoils system for blacks to just switch plantations. Count me out.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
It's ok to stop apologizing for the Federal response to Katrina. The biggest mistakes by far were made at the state and local levels. This was not a federal disaster. Time to stop treating it as such. All response could have been handled at state levles, with later federal financial assistance.
They'll be lucky to recruit enough new supporters to replace half the conservatives who are wandering away in disgust with Big Stupid Government Republicans.
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