Prejudice (Black Republicans should be able to live without fear)

Wall Street Journal ^ | January 2, 2006 | TED HAYES

[RWR8189]

American blacks who are affiliated with the Republican Party are vigorously vilified by Democrats, especially black Democrats. Uncle Tom, sell-out, Oreo--the list of slurs is long.

But it is not only insults. I am the founder and director of a unique, progressive homeless facility in downtown Los Angeles, known as the Dome Village. Yet the 35 men, women and children and their pets who call the Dome Village home are being "evicted" from privately owned property after 12 1/2 years--apparently on account of my political beliefs and activities. You see, though I am a leading homeless activist, I am also a conservative Republican and a strong supporter of President Bush.

Here's how the situation played out. Recently, I was invited to address a local Republican Women's Club; my landlord read an article in the local paper reporting on the event. Soon after, I received a notice raising the Dome Village rent from $2,500 a month to $18,330. Shocked, I inquired as to the seriousness of the change, and the property owner blurted out that the cause of our "eviction" was "because you are Republican." He said that as a Democrat, he was tired of helping me and the Dome Village. In other words, let the homeless be damned.

And people think the Democrats are the party of compassion and tolerance.

Private property should be protected, of course, and I have no intention of causing any trouble for this property owner as we part ways. Whatever he does with his valuable land--it is only a few blocks from the Staples Center--is no concern of mine, and I will not go to court.

Still, I cannot help but be saddened by the whole business. When I founded the Dome Village 12 years ago, we had an understanding that he could

[Choose Ye This Day]

Amazing. The party of tolerance and love.

[Just Lori]

I used to be a Democrat. Now I'm an American.

[Sthitch]

One day the majority of black Americans will wakeup and see that they are best served if they are not married to one party. The poverty pimps and hucksters can sell their snake oil for only so long. If incidents like this do not resonate with them, I am not sure what will. It saddens me to admit that I doubt I will see it in my lifetime.

[Brimack34]

I saw him on Hannity & Colmes. He took apart Colmes big time.

[lunarbicep]

ping

[luvbach1]

And people think the Democrats are the party of compassion and tolerance.

Who other than the Demonrats themselves think that? And I'm not sure it's unamimous among them!

[luvbach1]

It saddens me to admit that I doubt I will see it in my lifetime.[black American realization that their interests are not best served if they are wedded to one party]

I doubt that succeeding generations will ever see it.

[Rocky]

Twenty years ago, a column like this would not have been written. Or if it had been, it would not have been published.

The world is changing. I think people are becoming tired of being pigeonholed by race or silenced by political correctness, or sidelined by whatever other divisive cause the liberals can invent. Let freedom of speech return, and may the best ideas win.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Democrats are really brutal to blacks who stray from the party. Basically they know if minorities change their opinions and move to the GOP in any significant percentages, they are in serious trouble and for the traditional black leadership it is even worse.

The problem with the tactic is that it is likely to backfire. No one likes to be told what is a permissable belief.

[tkathy]

Republicans should start to attack the history of the democrat past, the KKK, the Jim Crow laws......

[SueRae]

These acts of reprisal for merely being a conservative Republican are EXACTLY the kind of thing the civil rights movement was all about...or was it?

I find this latest action appalling but not nearly as bad as the continued 'pass' these get from the liberal community and I am stunned by the seeming lack of reaction from the blak community.

[wolfcreek]

Go ahead Dims, keep showing everyone what your really all about! Maybe it's about time the Jews wake up too!

[Cacique]

ping

[RoadTest]

Yes! Amen. The Demonrats are the party of slavery, segregation and ghettoism, respectively and historically!

[Noumenon]

Democrats are the party of murder, treason and socialism.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Par for the course.

I'm an old Southern Republican, and I know the Democrats have always been a totalitarian party who think they own entire population segments.

[Lurker]

"the party of murder, treason and socialism."

But you repeat yourself...

L

[cbkaty]

Hold your breath until a democrat steps forward to mediate and correct this travesty......

[Zionist Conspirator]

Republicans should start to attack the history of the democrat past, the KKK, the Jim Crow laws......

Unfortunately, this isn't likely to happen--not only because they don't want to alienate the Goldwater Dixiecrats who converted en masse after 1964, but because the Republican party is the heir of the Federalist/Anti-Masonic/National Republican/Whig political tradition, and according to current conservative "dogma" (you know, as in people being told what to think) "conservatism" applies only to the Jeffersonian/strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution that was originally the ideology of the Democratic party!

I'm an old Southern Republican, and I wish the party were prouder of its history than it is. Unfortunately it accepts without a peep of protest its characterization as the party of '30's isolationism and 60's racism.