The GOP’s Multi-Racial Convention Stage
IN LIVING COLOR: Republican congressional candidate and Saratoga Spring, Utah, mayor Mia Love addressed the second session of the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night in Tampa, Florida. She was among several leaders of color to take the stage. (Photo: Mike Segar/Newscom)
The stage of the Republican National Convention that concluded in Tampa last night was a lot more colorful than the floor, at least when it came to skin color (and Clint Eastwood’s odd performance). With speeches by African Americans, Indian Americans, and Hispanic Americans, one might have thought the GOP was the party of color. But, Baratunde Thurston, author of How to Be Black, was in Tampa reporting for WNYC and Yahoo News, and decided to count how many black people were actually in attendance. He curated his count under the Twitter hastag #negrospotting. (That apparently got conservative fire-brand Michelle Malkin fired up.) His last count, reported this morning, was 238 African Americans among the 5,000+ attendees.
Condoleezza Rice
The high point among speakers of color, at least according to an unscientific survey of my journalist-heavy Twitter feed, was former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who gave a hard-hitting foreign policy speech Wednesday night. Even those who didn’t care for the substance of Rice’s speech conceded that her delivery was impressive, perhaps even presidential. “When the world looks to America, they look to us because we are the most successful political and economic experiment in human history. That is the true basis of ‘American Exceptionalism,'” said Rice. “The essence of America — that which really unites us — is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion — it is an idea — and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things.”
Artur Davis
Former Democratic Representative from Alabama Artur Davis said we should have known better than to have been seduced by the hype surrounding Barack Obama back in 2008. “Do you know why so many of us believed?” said the former Obama supporter. “We led with our hearts and our dreams that we could be more inclusive than America had ever been, and no candidate had ever spoken so beautifully. But dreams meet daybreak: the jobless know what I mean, so do the families who wonder how this Administration could wreck a recovery for three years and counting. So many of those high-flown words have faded.”
Jeb Bush
Jeb Bush, the one-time Florida Governor whose wife is Mexican American, defended his brother George W. Bush’s record and talked passionately about educating children of color. “We need to set high standards for students and teachers and provide students and their parents the choices they deserve. The first step is a simple one. We must stop pre-judging children based on their race, ethnicity or household income,” said Bush. He then highlighted what he said are Florida’s achievements in improving academic performance, particularly for students of color. “Here in Florida in 1999, we were at the bottom of the nation in education. For the last decade, this state has been on a path of reform,” he said. Among African-American students, Florida is ranked fourth in the nation for academic improvement, among low-income students, the state is third, among students with disabilities, it is first, and, among Latino students, “the gains were so big, they required a new metric,” Bush said.
Susana Martinez
New Mexico Governor and former Democrat Susana Martinez delivered a rousing speech noting her own ethnic “first.” “As the first Hispanic female governor in history, little girls often come up to me in the grocery store or the mall. They look and point, and when they get the courage, they ask ‘Are you Susana?’ and they run up and give me a hug,” said Martinez. “It’s in moments like these when I’m reminded that we each pave a path. And for me, it’s about paving a path for those little girls to follow. No more barriers.”
Mia Love
Up-and-coming U.S. Congressional candidate and mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, Mia Love called President Obama’s version of America “a divided one — pitting us against each other based on our income level, gender, and social status.” She said the story of the American Dream is one “of human struggle” that has “been told for over 200 years with small steps and giant leaps; from a woman on a bus to a man with a dream; and the bravery of the greatest generation, to the entrepreneurs of today.” Love, like Mitt Romney, is also a Mormon.
Nikki Haley
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley defended her state’s controversial immigration law, calling it “innovative.” Said Haley, “We said in South Carolina that if you have to show a picture ID to buy Sudafed and you have to show a picture ID to set foot on an airplane, then you should have to show a picture ID to protect one of the most valuable, most central, most sacred rights we are blessed with in America — the right to vote. And what happened? President Obama stopped us.”
Throwing Peanuts and Racial Slurs
On the convention floor, meanwhile, a couple delegates made headlines for throwing peanuts at a black CNN camerawoman and saying, “This is what we feed animals.” Patricia Carroll, the camerawoman, was reticent about the incident, telling Journal-isms it could have happened anywhere, including the Democratic convention, but she was not surprised it happened in Tampa. “This is Florida, and I’m from the Deep South,” she said. “You come to places like this, you can count the black people on your hand. They see us doing things they don’t think I should do.”
BeBe Winans’s “Bipartisan” Gospel Moment
Even PBS’s news anchors seemed to enjoy gospel singer BeBe Winans’s stirring rendition of “America, America.” Winans, who performed on the final night, told Essence magazine that he saw his reportedly unpaid participation in the convention as a display of bipartisanship. He was not unaware of how controversial it would be for him to sing there, he said. “The RNC realized this was something that could work to their advantage and I realized there is a master plan here,” remarked Winans. “And so my message to them and to the world is that we are all Americans before we are a part of any political party. It’s so simple and yet we make it so difficult.”
True. But, of course, by definition political conventions are neither the time nor place for bipartisanship. Rather, they are an occasion for creating a narrative for what each party believes America should truly be. And this party clearly wanted to be perceived as embracing a multi-racial future. The questions is: were voters convinced?
The Nominees
Oh, and in case you were wondering, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney accepted the Republican nomination for president and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan agreed to be his VP, if the people so choose.
Update 9/2: Baratunde Thurston clarified his post: “The final final count is in, and I spotted 238 Negroes during the RNC, 239 if I count seeing my own reflection in various mirrors and windows. I estimated no more than 60 of those to be authenticated GOP delegates or party members. It turns out the actual number of black delegates was 46.”
What do you think?
What were the high and low points of the GOP Convention?