[RangerM]

I thought this an excellent column worth reading.

[Heartland Mom]

We can win with minorities if we become more techno savvy. We have to have ads that tie us to MLK and the fight for civil rights. We have to have minority success stories enlightening the masses that Republicans encourage self-worth and look to the individual. We have to bring up the fact that the War on Poverty did nothing other than bring disadvantages classes down. They are much worse off now than then. In short, we must be willing to speak the truth and get the word out.

[jveritas]

Every election the Republicans won was without winning the minorities vote. In fact they won these elections despite the vast majority of the minorities voting against them.

[Paladin2]

Why the GOP can't win with conservatives:

Extended period of pure Pandering that can't be overcome without several election cycles of appropriate behavior on the national level.

[familyop]

"And, given the fact that blacks and Hispanics often poll more conservatively than whites on most social issues, shouldn't there be an easy simpatico between these minorities and political conservatism?"

That's right. Now get some testosterone and a few braincells. ...Million Mom March, NEA, VAWA, divorcing/cohabiting mothers, welfare, romanticism,...wake up.

[wolfcreek]

Repubs are bigoted racist so any minorities who are Repubs are Uncle Toms.

Wolfcreek Out!

[nathanbedford]

I have enormous respect for Shelby Steele ever since I read his insightful piece which explained much about the election of Obama which was otherwise inexplicable to a white male middle-class conservative. He also appeared on C-SPAN and delivered a talk in which he outlined the reasons for Obama's appeal. Reading this piece today, one comes away even more impressed when one considers his personal odyssey in arriving at conservatism.

Shelby Steele identified the psychology which led to Obama's election. Essentially, Obama personified expiation for centuries of slavery and segregation. He struck an implicit deal with white America. He would not rub white America's nose in its original sin of slavery and segregation and white America would accept the proffered expiation simply by voting for him. The deal carried through the election because Obama persisted in being what conservatives complain of: an empty suit. So long as Obama kept his part of the deal and did nothing flamboyant (think of Reverend Al Sharpton), white America kept its part of the deal and Obama was elected. White America's part of the deal was the reciprocal of Obama's forbearance from behaving "black" by acting the empty suit. White America would never suggest that the emperor had no clothes and, of course, would vote its myopia.

Shelby Steele, I believe, brilliantly captured the psychology of the election. Now he tells us the psychology of black America. Like the election, the mindset of black America today is not a matter of the intellect but of the emotion. To unlock the hold the of the Democrat party on the African American race, Republicans must find an emotional key.

[Joe Boucher]

When Jeb Bush was re-elected Governor of Florida some news jerk asked what he planned to do specifically for blacks.
He said, “not much”.
And he didn’t either. NOr did he pander to any other group.
He worked for the folks of Florida and gave no group special status.

[Servant of the Cross]

Maybe it's not EITHER/OR but BOTH/AND.

Who wouldn't want Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Star Parker, etc. as a conservative spokesperson. Or ...........

Ken Blackwell

[aberaussie]

bttt

[Sergeant Tim]

"Captain Roger Hill is facing an Other Than Honorable discharge from the Army ... We hope to enlist your help in joining our letter writing campaign to the Secretary of the Army. The Human Resource Command (HRC) will review Roger's discharge packet and make a recommendation as to the characterization of his service to the Secretary of the Army Pete Geren."

Read the story of Dog Company, visit the More than Brothers web site, and support our troops!

[donna]

Conservatives only have the truth. If we give that away then who cares who anyone votes for?

Perhaps it’s time to act like the truth is beautiful instead of a sinful behavior.

[sickoflibs]

Of course this is true.

However democrats are great at stroking grievances but republicans are not. How about the school voucher program in DC being terminated? You hear Steele talking about that? No he is busy talking about Rush Limbaugh, Steele on defense on some liberal show. Idiots!

[kellynla]

blah, blah, blah, blah...

the Democrat party put the idea in minorities(read Blacks) collective heads in the ‘60s that they were “entitled” to food, shelter & clothing because they were the oppressed because their ancestors were slaves and they and now Hispanics(particularly illegals) are living off the American tit. And just as any drug dealer gives his first customers a "taste" in order to get them "hooked", those people who are "hooked" on government assistance, continue to vote for their "dealer."

It is not a matter of minorities, it is a matter of AMERICANS going out and earning a living without government assistance. Unfortunately, HALF of Americans today depend on the government for their livelihood.

So until those Americans, who are on government assistance, wise up and do as some governors did last week and say “no thanks” to government assistance, the situation is not going to improve.

[cookcounty]

The Republican Mayor of Colorado Springs is Hispanic. So is the GOP county chairman. Obama barely got 39% of the vote in El Paso County. The county is only 14% Hispanic, but the vote about 50% Republican.

[Le Chien Rouge]

Why the GOP Can’t Win With Minorities:

Answer is simple: Education

Conservative gameplan:
1) Battle like hell for a school voucher program
2) Remove NEA from education.Period.
3) Base scholarships on academic achievement rather than a quota system
4) Promote people like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams as roll models rather than 50 cent and the NBA
5) Begin mentoring program where minorties teens can have hands on experience in the real world business environment.
6) marginalize the likes of Black Liberation Theology to the dust bin of history

[mad_as_he$$]

The one party system is a failure.

[Brad from Tennessee]

[So, paradoxically, a certain chauvinism develops around one's sense of grievance. Today the feeling of being aggrieved by American bigotry is far more a matter of identity than of actual aggrievement.]

This “sense of grievance” is taught to children by parents or other elders in the community and is reinforced by public education and the mass media. The narrow, defeatist mindset this indoctrination creates is a major impediment to personal advancement.

[2harddrive]

If one must abandon one’s principle to “win”, maybe “winning” is not worth it!

Broadcast the new acronym:

O ne

B ig

A ss

M istake

A merica!

[justsaynomore]

Good article. Thanks for posting it. I agree with others that telling the truth should be enough to win people, as long as the truth is told in love. Too often it is obscured by the hateful overtones and bigotry of the person telling it.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I always secretly loved Malcolm X more than Martin Luther King Jr. because Malcolm wanted a fuller human dignity for blacks -- one independent of white moral wrestling. In a liberalism that wants to redeem the nation of its past, minorities can only be ciphers in white struggles of conscience.

Liberalism's glamour follows from its promise of a new American innocence. But the appeal of conservatism is relief from this supercilious idea. Innocence is not possible for America. This nation did what it did. And conservatism's appeal is that it does not bank on the recovery of lost innocence. It seeks the discipline of ordinary people rather than the virtuousness of extraordinary people. The challenge for conservatives today is simply self-acceptance, and even a little pride in the way we flail away at problems with an invisible hand.

Yes, this nation did what it did, and you nor I were there when "it" - say rather, individual people in a particular cultural and economic context - did "it." But what was the "it" that they did? On the one hand, (Democratic) slave owners followed the traditions of their fathers even though they could certainly see that they were being brutal. But after all, they were born holding a tiger by the tail, and they knew it. How, exactly, did one let go if one wanted to? And on the other hand there were the Republicans, who were not Abolitionists either - abolition was considered an extreme position because everyone knew that the white southerners had a tiger by the tail. And Republicans were as, or nearly as, racist as the Democrats were because the cultural differences between blacks and whites were extreme - and when culture and race are closely correlated, it is human nature to conflate them. So the Republicans thought in terms of "back" to Africa for blacks (who were native-born in America).

The real racism today is held by those who are self righteous enough to think themselves incapable of the sort of "moral failure" endemic to whites in the antebellum South. I put "moral failure" in scare quotes because although slavery was a "peculiar institution" in America, slavery was in fact an ancient and pervasively accepted - at least by nonslaves - institution globally and throughout history. That only changed after the Nineteenth Century decision of white European Christians, particularly Protestants and most especially English Protestants, to reject the institution of slavery and to oppose it on a global scale. Slavery was only delegitimated - to the extent that indeed it actually has been, which is not absolutely universal - by the successful opposition to the practice of the British Empire with its global reach.