WELCOME TO TAMPA: Some 200 protesters braved inclement weather from Tropical Storm Isaac today to rally against the presence of the GOP convention in Tampa, Florida. Protesters cried out against Republican policies on immigration, health care, and the economy. (Photo: Mladen Antonov/Newscom)
News that a Republican candidate is getting a low percentage of the black vote typically draws a yawn.
But prominent black Republicans, such as Romney-Ryan adviser Tara Wall, likely gasped at the new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll that suggests the ticket is currently getting zero percent of the black vote. How do you get zero percent with all those #BlackConservativeForMittRomney tags on Twitter?
Truthfully, the poll’s results aren’t literal, being within the 3.1 percent margin of error. But there’s a link between the poll and Romney’s actions that should cause black Republicans like Wall to do some soul-searching.
Since May, Wall has been Romney’s senior communications adviser emphasizing African American outreach (UrbanFaith news editor Christine Scheller spoke to her back in June). Wall held a similar role with President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign where he gained 11 percent of the black vote. She’s among a group of black advisers who have been schooling (apparently not well) Romney on what black voters need to hear from him. They don’t expect to outpoint the nation’s first African American president, but want Romney to at least hold on to the 4 percent of the black vote that McCain received in his 2008 loss to Obama.
I interviewed Wall last week on my radio show and her comments about the poll were predictable: You can make numbers say anything you want. Obviously, black Republicans weren’t among those polled. Excitement for President Obama has dipped as people continue to struggle economically. Efforts to appeal to black voters are gearing up (at this writing there was no section on Romney’s website under the “communities” geared specifically towards black or Hispanic voters).
However, I was struck by Wall’s response concerning the GOP’s elephant in the room — its race-baiting tactics.
It’s often said that blacks, particularly black Christians, are as socially conservative (pro-life, pro traditional marriage) as the Republican platform claims to be. So why aren’t black voters aligned with Republicans over Democrats? The GOP’s racist bent is what keeps black voters at bay. Wall objected passionately.
“That’s false. I reject that notion,” she said. “… Racism comes in many forms. I think that is a discussion in a broader context that we as a community have to have on an ongoing basis. But to simply blanketly [sic] say that Republicans don’t speak out and are racist, I think that’s patently false. There are racist elements in society everywhere and in every party and in every place.”
TOUGH TASK AHEAD: Tara Wall is charged with shaping the Romney campaign’s communication strategy — including its message to the black community, which is presently showing no love for Mitt.
That last sentence is certainly true. Democrats play race games as well and President Obama has been tepid on addressing racism. However, it’s well documented that much of today’s Republican base is of the Dixiecrat tradition — anti-big government, pro-state’s rights, segregationists. In response to Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson signing civil rights legislation in the 1960s (Northern moderate Republicans urged him to), Southern conservative democrats began fleeing to the GOP. They were lured by the GOP’s “Southern strategy” during the Goldwater and Nixon years. To compete with Democratic gains, the GOP saw white southerners as fertile ground for new voters. Understanding the buttons to push, they stirred fears of big government and black people to win them over. No deep ideological motive, just money + votes = power.
Blue states turned red. The party of Abraham Lincoln took on the spirit of Andrew Johnson. Blacks fled the GOP. The legacy continues today.
Wall and other black Republicans know this history well. She has been among those critical of the GOP’s alienating minorities, especially in light of America’s “browning” as Hispanic populations grow. She has even produced a documentary about this titled, Souled Out that has apparently been tucked away for the moment.
As an independent who votes his interests, I admire black conservatives who are truly sincere in their beliefs to diversify the GOP. Think about it. If Romney beats Obama, who would be at the table of influence in the West Wing fighting for black issues? We need advocates in both political parties. Besides, there are sellouts on both sides who dine and grow fat as the masses of black people suffer from high unemployment, health disparities, incarceration rates, and wealth gaps.
The gentleman in me held my tongue from lashing out at Wall about the race baiting. I didn’t have to. The following day her boss, during a campaign stump in Michigan where he and his wife, Ann, were born, pulled a line from the Southern strategy playbook. Before an overwhelmingly white audience, Romney quipped: “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate; they know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”
It was an obvious wink to the birthers who believe Obama is un-American, unqualified, and should go back to Africa.
Sound familiar?
Yawn.
Racism and stupidity crosses both parties. For a nice summary of Obama’s support of racism against whites, see https://transaxt.com/Donate/JX8QSU/FightBigotrycom/
I am so tired of us (Black Americans) seeing everything through the lens of race. We are blinded by it and in bondage to it. I’m not commenting here to try to defend Republicans. We all know their past with the Dixiecrat party and the Southern strategy. What is really getting to me is that we are making it impossible for a rich, white conservative male to ever appeal to Black folks even if his ideas can truly help us. Everything he says is racist. To appeal to Blacks, he has to basically become a Democrat. If he mentions untouchable subjects such as welfare, race, or self-reliance then he’s got to be a racist. Look at the tone of much of the news coverage of the Republican convention. Here are some headlines:
Republican National Convention puts a brown face on a white party
Todd: GOP Putting Minorities In Front At Convention To Appear Diverse (Chuck Todd from MSNBC)
Villaraigosa: Republicans ‘can’t just trot out a brown face’ (NBC News)
Samuel L. Jackson asks why GOP ‘spared’ by tropical storm
Ellen Barkin Hopes Hurricane Kills ‘Every Pro-Life, Xenophobic, Gay-Bashing SOB’ At The RNC
The first three headlines deal with the RNC’s attempt to appeal to minorities. All three stories imply that their appeal isn’t working because they’re still a “white party”. It is not right to put someone(or group) in an unwinnable position and then mock and criticize them for the position they take. If the GOP didn’t have minority speakers, then that would be used against to accuse them of not trying to appeal to minorities. Now that they try, they’re mocked for attempting and the public is being told not to pay attention because it’s not real. When Mitt Romney went to a predominately Black, Democratic neighborhood to speak, he was villified. They can’t win!
Then you have Samuel L. Jackson and Ellen Barkin making hateful statements like those in these articles. Can you imagine the outcry if a famous white conservative male had said some of these things about the upcoming DNC convention?
Our real problem isn’t the failing attempts of the GOP to appeal to the Black community. Our real problem isn’t the stranglehold the Democratic party has on the Black community. Our real problem is our failure to see that much of the hopelessness, poverty, and suffering that we face is of our own making and our looking to a political party to help us out of it. The Democrats do a much better job of administering salve to our pain, so we’re sold out to them. The only cure for fatherlessness and single moms is for folks to stop fornicating and to be men and raise the babies they make and support the moms who take care of them. The only cure for our drug problem is for us to stop selling and using them. The only cure for a poor education is hard work, holding administrators and teachers accountable, and most importantly, parents being accountable as well. If we, as a community, focused our attention on these things, we’d stop looking to our government for solutions. To be honest, that’s not the job of government. It’s why they’ve proven to be so bad at it. As believers, we should especially know this. In a free society such as we live in, the blessing of God will freely flow to those who trust Him, work hard, and are faithful to His principles. This doesn’t mean the road will be smooth. It doesn’t mean it won’t be hard. It doesn’t mean that racism is gone. But considering what our forefathers had to overcome, what we face is a piece of cake!
Please stop being manipulated by accusations of racism. Most of the time it’s not racism. It’s the fact that you have two candidates who genuinely disagree about how to solve a problem. It is about ideas and it is about truth!
.
Edward, you make some excellent points about the heart of the issue and what’s really at stake. I still hear a subtext of Republican/conservative condescension and impunity in your tone, but that’s alright, I’m sure you’ll pick up a Democratic/progressive tone in mine.
I’m tracking with you for the most part. However, I don’t quite feel that the “double standard” that people invoke all the time about the media’s bias against Republicans and conservatives holds up. In fact, I think the media has equal opportunity bias reserved against either conservatives or liberals depending on what makes the best story at any given moment. Don’t you think it’s ironic that conservatives, who regularly preach responsibility and self-reliance are always so quick to play the victim card when it comes to the media?
Even your statement about Samuel Jackson’s and Ellen Barkin’s hateful language and how a conservative wouldn’t be able to get away with it is not quite right. In fact, conservative celebrities get away with saying hateful and outrageous stuff all the time — just look at Limbaugh and Coulter (who have made a careers out of it), or perhaps more analogous to your example, look at the inflammatory and crazy stuff spouted by Ted Nugent or Jon Voight or Patricia Heaton. They’ve all leveled outrageous statements against liberals and no one has taken their celebrity cards away.