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"By being open, honest and forthright, and by not pandering, we will gain those votes and that support."

Sounds like a winner to me, but apparently not all people are enough into the process to even know what separates the parties. I work with a lot of blacks and when the subject comes up, they don't want to talk about it. One of these ladies I have tried inviting to one of our FR meetings. She won't go because she says she isn't interesterd in politics. Another who I have talked to at some length agrees with me on virtually everything, but she still votes democrat. Go figure.

I realize that apathy infects people of all races. One has only to look at the percentage of registered voters to the population and the percentage of actual voters of eligible voters to know that. But even among those that vote "religiously" there seems incredible ignorance and it seems to be an ignorance that is chosen. It just seems that people who vote should be responsible enough to know what it is they're voting for, but then part of the RAT strategy seems to be to prevent education at any level.

The problem is that the core message that we've been dealing with over the years from the leftists have their source (at least in the black community) in the pulpit!

The unspoken mantra over the years is that you don't dare challenge what is brought forth to you from the pulpit! And where do the real problem children of this whole message hide? In the pulpit!

Rev. Jesse Jackson; Rev. Al Sharpton; and on and on. Of course, we ask the appropriate questions, but it's a bit difficult to counter what has been historically drummed in and reenforced over the years.

Historically, the truth, the knowledge, the education was supported and reenforced by the church in general and the local preacher in particular. If your pastor says it; if your pastor says that this other preacher is saying the right things, then it must be OK. And since most preachers feel that Jackson & Sharpton are doing the "right things," then they pass that message on to their congregation.

This works in the reverse as well. There are some conservative black ministers whose message is starting to get out around the nation: KirbyJon Caldwell from Houston, Carlton Pearson from Tulsa, Fred Price in Los Angeles (whose television program, "Ever Increasing Faith," is seen nationally on TBN and on other stations) are the core of decent numbers of black preachers who are starting to see the light and who are telling their congregations the truth.

It takes time; we are still learning to crawl in that regard. But we'll get there. Everyone has to be patient, but vigilant. Be willing to work. When questions are asked, you can point to men like that; to men like Kevin Martin (Trueblackman); to men like Shannon Reeves (Party Secretary for the California GOP and president of the Oakland NAACP).

Most of all, keep the faith. We will survive and succeed.

And one thing that makes so little sense to me is that most blacks I know and have ever known are strong, Bible-reading Christians, and I fail to understand how anyone can be a Christian AND a democRAT. They seem mutually exclusive to me.

Although I agree with your sentiment, it is a faulty one. In fact, NOT all Republicans are Christian or even Pro-Life for that matter.

The greater point that I did want to get to, however, is that it will take at least two or more generations to free the stranglehold the Dims have on my (Black) people. I'll give you an example. In a phone conversation with my mother who'll turn 63 later this month, is concerned about Social Security, worried that President Bush would "spend it all". She is a part of a growing group of voters in the country-the Seasoned Citizens (Rush Limbaugh's term for the Elderly), notably those nearing retirement age and are poor, who are more concerned with what "They (the Government)Owe Me". As another poster noted in this forum, Blacks have been voting Democrat in lockstep since the 1940's, when FDR was president, although IMHO, he did next to nothing to spare Blacks from lynchings, red-lining, cross-burnings, or any of the other problems many in my parents' generation had to deal with. But then, who was it that said, "If you tell a lie loud enough and long enough, it will become truth"? It has worked wonders for the Democratic Party. Even if someone were to write a book exposing the origins of the Democratic Party (Slavery, segregation, class warfare-you name it) and it sold well over a million or so copies, many Blacks would STILL not be convinced; they'd only rationalize, as one caller did on a talk show some years ago about Sen. Robert "KKK" Bryd, that that was all in the past. In other words, I'll bet the farm-if I had one-if Byrd were to come out on the Senate floor in full Klan dress, they'd probably swear it was Sen. Frist, or any other Republican. Heck, the man just played a slave-owning Conferderate General in a movie, and not a single ripple from JET or EBONY magazine!

Although it's an uphill battle, it's not a losing one; good things come to those who wait-and little by little, the Republican Party-MY party-will garner the Black vote.

-Regards, T.