5 Reasons There Are So Few Black Americans In The Republican Party

Townhall.com ^ | September 7, 2012 | John Hawkins

[Kaslin]

How is it that the party of Lincoln, a party that led the way in opposing slavery, Jim Crow laws, lynching, the KKK, poll taxes, led the way on integration and voting rights for black Americans, and percentage wise, voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act in greater numbers than Democrats is now only getting about 10% of the black vote? Democrats say racism, but any objective observer would quickly discard that explanation given the significant number of popular black Republicans. If even a large percentage of Republicans were racist, certainly Allen West, Herman Cain, Clarence Thomas, Michael Steele, Tim Scott, Mia Love, Condi Rice, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Star Parker, and Larry Elder couldn't exist, much less be popular with conservatives. Additionally, although Republicans don't support Affirmative Action, very few black Americans actually benefit from it and many are harmed as well.

So, why are Republicans doing so poorly with black Americans?

1) Economics: Black Americans are suffering economically compared to the rest of the country. "In 2009, the average net worth for white households was $113,149 and $5,700 for black households." 14.1% of black Americans are unemployed compared to 7.4 percent of whites and "black households’ median annual income fell" more than twice as much over the last two years as white Americans.

Since black Americans have been monolithically voting for the Democratic Party for 40 years, those numbers are actually a terrific argument for voting Republican. Unfortunately, as a practical matter, it doesn't work that way. People who are doing poorly economically tend to welcome any short term help they can get, even if the increased dependence on the government ultimately makes it more likely that they'll remain mired in poverty. Combine that with the fact that black Americans are dramatically over-represented amongst government workers (11.6% of the population vs. almost 20% of the government work force) and there are strong short term incentives for many black Americans to stay in the Democratic Party even if they'd ultimately benefit more from adopting a more conservative philosophy.

2) The skin color of the speakers: One of the great ironies of the race debate in America is that Republicans have internalized Martin Luther King's famous saying, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character," while most black Americans have rejected it. This creates a bit of a Catch-22 for Republicans. Black Americans are much more likely to listen and consider what black Republicans have to say, but there just aren't a lot of black Republicans to say it. This is a problem that's slowly, but surely being corrected as more and more black Americans are rising to prominence within the GOP, but we're just not there yet.

3) Racism culture: Even black Americans who are extremely prosperous and have never been significantly harmed by racism in their lives feel compelled to talk about America as if Democrats like George Wallace and Bull Connor were still running wild. There are three reasons for that.

A) It's at the core of the Democrats’ political strategy in dealing with black Americans. No matter how poorly served black Americans are by the Democrats, they won't listen to what Republicans have to say with an open mind if they're falsely convinced we hate them.

B) If you say that racism is no longer a serious problem for black Americans, then there still has to be some sort of explanation given for why black Americans aren't doing that well compared to white Americans. Many black Americans fear that other Americans might conclude that the old school Democratic racists were right and they are inferior. This is why pointing out that racism isn't a serious impediment for black Americans today can almost come across like a slap, as opposed to a plain statement of obvious fact.

C) Shouting "racism" is easy and it doesn't require you to do anything other than complain. Tackling other issues that are hurting black Americans like children being born out of wedlock and out of control crime in the inner cities is really hard.

Most Republicans do not consider racism to be a significant impediment to success anymore and that puts us up against a deeply ingrained, shared cultural belief with black Americans.

4) Outreach: That last item is the biggest factor in the GOP's mediocre, almost but not quite, non-existent outreach to black Americans. White Republicans assume what they say will be de facto ignored because of their race at best or they'll be called a racist no matter what they say at worst. Moreover, most Republicans have an almost instinctive dislike of identity politics that keeps us from creating a conservative NAACP and hiring our own Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons to push the conservative message to black Americans. So, the solution to this problem has been to do very little outreach and hope that black Americans will just drift into the Republican Party on their own. Judging by the number of black Americans voting for the GOP, this strategy isn't working and isn't likely to work in the foreseeable future.

5) Issues: The Republican Party is on the same page as most black Americans on "abortion, gay marriage, and being friendly to Christianity. Many black Americans also agree with the conservative stance on illegal immigration, school choice, being tough on crime, and supporting entrepreneurs." We have to do a better job of working with black Americans in areas where our interests coincide instead of expecting them to come to us. We also have to start using conservative principles to address issues that disproportionately impact black Americans. We need to find ways to implement enterprise zones and micro-loans to help black Americans in inner cities. It's also a disgrace that any American, in any neighborhood, has to worry about getting shot in his yard or drug dealers selling on the corner where his kids go to school. We're the law and order party. We should be effectively tackling that the way Rudy Giuliani did in New York. It's not enough for Republicans to say, "Look at the places we agree." As John Maxwell once said, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." We have to show black Americans we care, not just with words, but by rolling up our sleeves and tackling the issues the Democrat Party has been ignoring for decades.

[PeterPrinciple]

The truth is that equality is a death sentence.

---

That made me notice how the left has perverted things. Equality use to be a good thing, we were all equal before the law.

[Louis Foxwell]

I have lived in a number of black inner city ghetto communities. The majority of my neighbors were aspiring middle class people. Most of them worked to move out of the ghetto and into open housing communities, so called white communities.
Upwardly mobile blacks are a substantial portion of blacks in the US. They are not categorized as black because they do not identify with black inner city ghettos. The 90% figure is based on that increasingly narrow segment of the black demographic. I am confident from personal experience that 25% of blacks never show up in black demographics and vote Republican.

[bunkerhill7]

Watch the TOAY SHOW in the morning as the camera scans the crowd- I didn`t see one black person there except Al Roker and Lester.

[bunkerhill7]

Watch the TODAY SHOW in the morning as the camera scans the crowd- I didn`t see one black person there except Al Roker and Lester.

[stevem]

This is only anecdotal.

This year, at every Republican convention I attended, from my own BPOU to the Minnesota Fifth District to the Minnesota State Republican Party Convention, there were noticibly more black people attending than at any time in my recollection that goes back to the early 1990's.

[rmlew]

The media. If you think that the mainstream white media and entertainments in leftists, get a gander of Black TV, Radio, and internet sites. Obama is mainstream for them.

[rmlew]

MLK Jr was a Republican in the 1950s, who sold himself to the Democrat party in 1960 and 1964. He called Goldwater a fascist, and repudiated the “I have a Dream Speech” by supporting affirmative action.

[rmlew]

Grievance politics unites disparate minorities in unthinking opposition to the majority, even against rational self interest. The politics of grievance is an unthinking ersatz ethnic loyalty, wherein one defines oneself in opposition, rather than in being. It leads black leaders to support immigration, liberal social politics, and objectively failing education and social models. And this doesn’t just apply to minorities in the West. Grievance politics in the form of anti-colonialism allows the South African regime to support Mugabe’s starvation of fellow Africans in the once prosperous Zimbabwe. This minority nihilism will go on as long as the white West allows it to. We must stand up against it not only for our own survival, but also to save those afflicted with this illness. At its core, grievance politics is adolescent behavior. It is a mixture of finding virtue in being oppressed or having been oppressed, certitude in current virtue, a desire for unquestioned compensation and revenge. Prior to the 1950s, when faced with this, the West considered it sophomoric or the self-justifications of criminals. For instance few in the West fell for the Japanese claims of anti-colonialism in their push for the Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Perhaps some Communists, libertarians, and antediluvian conservatives allowed themselves to be taken in, if only because they needed to assign blame to FDR and virtue to the Japanese.

Sometime around the 1960s this died. Snotty teenagers, hippies, Black Panther, American Indian activist, MECHA, etc. were viewed as virtuous because of their anger and indignation. Accountability became a fault, and unthinking generosity and even enabling became the virtue. If the majority in America or the West does so, it will allow the rational loyal members of minorities to be heard. But first the civilization AIDS of liberalism with its control of the media must be destroyed. Imagine if the media went to Thomas Sowell instead of Jesse Jackson, or Don Feder instead of Abe Foxman.

[MplsSteve]

“...the willingness for some blacks who come into the workplace to succumb to the thinking that any failure, any setback, is not due to their own performance, but to some form of discrimination on the part of those judging their work.”

Very true.

The company I work for used to be (ethnically) very white. Over the last five years, they have made an effort to hire more blacks. I have heard, anectodally, that some of these hires were chosen over more qualieif white candidates. Whether that’s actually true or not - well, I’m not sure.

But I have noticed (in the department I work in) that when a black employee doesn’t do as well in their job review, the race card is pulled out and waved around.

It’s highly irritating. I wish it would stop. When blacks stop, look around, and tell themselves “Maybe it isn’t whitey’s fault. Maybe I’m the one to blame for where I am”, then, maybe we they can start going places.

[zerosix]

Of course, welfare but even with that ever expanding pool of teenage moms raising babies on the government dole, I believe, even with welfare, if those kids had learned how to read and write, the greatness of America's history, how, if one worked hard enough, one could be most anything one desired, with God's blessings.

While in Tampa for the convention, I needed a taxi to get from one event to another one evening and the taxi driver was not native born.

This was my third taxi driver that was not born in America (I knew this because these men were not Hispanic either as many of them who are born in the U.S. still speak with accents.)

As I did with every other driver, I asked where he came from. In this case, the driver said he was from Turkey.

I asked how long he had been in the U.S. (6 yrs),if had family here (no) and did he miss his home (at first and sometimes still.)

I then inquired how the was doing (great, working hard and seeing himself getting ahead.)

My next question was, what do think ish best thing and the most disappointing you have found about America. Again, he said that he thought the idea of being able to "make something of yourself is really good" and what he found disappointing is that so many people sit around complaining what they don't have, while refusing to get up off their backsides and work

[Senator Goldwater]

Who cares?

When Romney wins, Black America is just gonna have to put on their big boy pants and help America recover from Obama just like everyone else will.

[AmericanSamurai]

That might be true for some blacks if their “leaders” weren’t labeling those black Republicans as “Uncle Toms”, sellouts, and Oreos.

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Yeah no kidding. They don’t want to come off as the whitewashed Carlton from the tv show Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Nor do they want to be perceived as “the Black friend” of affluent White Conservatives.

[AmericanSamurai]

I hope you are right, because I see zero squeaking by with the win. Of course I hope I am wrong, because if zero gets four more years, its four more years of race baiting from this Marxist kenyan.