Bitter Truth For Black Politicians In McKinney Defeat

The Black World Today.com ^ | 8/26/2002 | Earl Ofari Hutchinson

[dighton]

Tell me about it! I still have a scar over my left eye that was placed there by a Vice Lord when I was 15.

Not a Conservative Vice Lord, I hope.......;-)

Good article.

[mhking]

She's disgusted by massive illegal immigration, and wants more police protection yet always votes Demoncrat.

But if a conservative took the message to her in a rational, realistic way -- and I'm not talking about pandering either -- she'd have an alternative to consider; I would be willing to wager that she'd strongly consider it, too.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

Leading by example is the right thing to do. Until I came to freep I thought I was one of the extremely rare Jews that were Republican and fed up. Since coming here I have found there are tons, including now there's a Republican Jewish female running for governor(?) of Hawaii, and there's another Republican Jewish legislator (Cantor?) who is great as well.

[Gritty]

What you say makes a lot of sense.

[rdb3]

I do hope I live long enough to see an all out rebellion of blacks against the tactics of the democrats.

I'm workin' on it, sweet. I'm not "Leftist Enemy #1" for nothing.

Bear with me. I'm on it, doggone it.

[Orual]

Good article.

Agreed. New Yorkers could use a good dose of this Georgian common sense, but I fear it's just a style of furniture to most of them.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

Well...I'm working on getting her to vote for Simon :)

I bring it up and she says "he's a crook, but I hate Davis too. I don't like either one of them."

I just keep talking about immigration issues to her and I say (basically this is true) "I'm a one issue voter grams, immigration, and Simon is the right guy on this issue".

Simon=R running for gov of CA, vs. Davis=D incumbent. (For those unaware of CA politics atm).

[strela]

But blaming her defeat solely on politically malevolent outsiders skirts the bitter truth that more and more blacks are rejecting old-style narrow race based politics.

Correct. This illustrates why I believe that conservatives have reason to be optimistic in the mid-term elections and beyond. I see McKinney's lopsided defeat as a bellwether of things to come and as a wake-up call to the race baiters and Rats that they are not going to be able to depend on their racial bloc of choice for votes en masse any more. I don't believe the public rhetoric on so-called "black" issues like reparations, etc. is going to die down much in the short term because people don't like to publicly admit they were wrong. However, I think we can look forward to seeing more and more people talk out of one side of their mouth while voting with the other.

Now, if we could only exploit this phenomena in Massachusetts against the Kennedys of the world, in California against the Feinsteins of the world, and in S. Dakota against the Daschles of the world ...

[backhoe]

I understand that he "won" by 90 votes, triggering a runoff... which I believe is September 10. ( Don't take that as Gospel, I did not go back & check, but it is posted somewhere on FR... )

[YaYa123]

You ask such pertinent questions.

"I've always wondered why so many of the convenience stores and gas stations in my section of the country(Connecticut) are operated and owned by Indian or Pakistani immigrants.
Where are the black owners?
Why hasn't affirmative action worked?"

Here in Georgia, convenience stores, gas stations, jewelry stores, mall kiosks, motels, and many food franchises, are operated and owned by middle eastern immigrants, and not just Indian or Pakistani. They work like dogs, entire extended families, and they must know how to save their money to invest in these businesses, so that they eventually own them. But it would be unfair not to mention the substantial number of highly educated, professional middle eastern immigrants. They're here too.

Also unfair not to mention the successes of affirmative action. Maybe it's time has passed, but certainly in medicine, law, business, academia, politics, the black population has swelled. Without that initial leg-up, it might not have happened. (I'm sure immigrants get "legs up" too, from those who have come before.)

The American Dream = Alive and Well

[norton]

There are a bunch of conflicting ideas here, many from the same posters.

(a) "AA has worked; just not the way they would have you believe it should...AA is not perfect - but it opened many doors that were shut previously... Leveling the table doesn't mean tilting it entirely in the opposite direction..."
Versus:
(b)"Blacks don't need leaders. Treat us like you would a white person."
And:
(c)"You can't generalize! You can't lump all blacks into your convenient little pile. That's been a major failing of the GOP for more than a generation."

Well, OK:

(a) The minute the popular term went from equal opportunity to affirmative action the table was tilted. I worked in that arena in the seventies and eighties and I promise it was tilted, badly. It was also very convenient for non-achievers to claim race as the reason and for women's 'interests' to slip in and grab a large piece of the action. But you'd best believe that it was tilted away from white males regardless of merit or their own sincere belief in equality.

(b) Blacks DO need leaders and they DO need to be treated in the same manner as anyone would treat another member of their own race/ethnicity/gender/blood type or whatever. Problem is that Conservative black leaders are quite shut out of the mass media and generally shunned by the large majority of black citizens - there are perceived black leaders who have no trouble at all generating crowds and air time, getting press and funding way in excess of any potential black conservative. Until the black community can support spokespersons to counter the Jessie Jacksons and Sharptons of the world - it's "leaders" will continue to sell the masses down the river.
As to treatment "as you would a white person" that goes to

(c) The major failing(s) by the GOP have been to cede the black vote to the left (rather than invest in bringing it over) and to hope against hope that treating everyone as conservtive, striving to succeed, desiring to improve themselves and the nation (ie. our side) would bring INDIVIDUALS over to the light.

By presuming black votes are democrat votes (a safe assumption today) they failed to present a strong case to the MASSES and prayed that individual black citizens would come over - and some have. I think it is far more critical to note that many black Americans will state openly that they believe in the same things that any conservative believes in. It is also critical to note that they only translate that into action when it impacts them directly (vouchers) and that the 'black leadership' or spokespersons do NOT for a moment wish them to succeed in that action!

Until black communities are capable of performing without the safety net they perceive to exist in democrat policies, until "getting black" on someone ceases to be the last ditch arguement, until Reverend Al and his ilk are treated in the same manner as any white bigot would be treated, and until those white males who follow me are allowed to reenter the market place on equal terms (equal opportunity); we are at odds with any theory of "treat me like you'd want to be treated".

And that's a damn shame. One that in the end has to be dealt with within the black community, "we" cannot enforce it upon "them" until someone figures out that we are in this together.

[rdb3]

They've been conditioned to equate both those terms with "evil." But by addressing issues directly, the message gets through.

Yessir! Come on with it.

Does this make for an instant, large-scale change? Nope. But it makes inroads. And inroads are necessary. I make inroads every day, by living my life. I'm approachable. I'm not confrontational. I live "next door;" my kids go to the same schools; I'm in the PTA with 'em; I go to the same supermarket.

Preach, preacher! I look just like them. I get my hair braided exactly where they do. I talk like them. Only thing different is the content of my conversation.

And that I'm not the evil, foaming-at-the-mouth, hateful person that the Jesse Jackson's of the world portray us as. That I don't hate other black people. At that point, they want to know more.

Well! Sho' nuff, now!

Wait. Church is tomorrow.

Anyway. that's exactly right.

[Lancey Howard]

Wait until Mr. Hutchinson sees what the black "leaders" and politicians do to him for daring to write this article. He will forever be thrown onto the "Uncle Tom" / "handkerchief-head" scrapheap along with people like Walter Williams, Tom Sowell, Ward Connerly and many other blacks who have asked why blacks overwhelmingly support a political party which is responsible, through the replacement of fathers with welfare checks, for the near-total disintegration of the black family unit and all the social pestilence that goes along with it, from crime to drugs to babies having babies.

[wardaddy]

I hope you smacked that gang banging punkass Vice Lord back hard rdb3.

I have told many an incredulous liberal and libertarian that it was indeed a coalition of black mayors and black urban leaders who initially called for stiff crack dealing laws. Hardly anyone remembers that was a big impetus for the Federal 1987 Sentencing Act. Now of course some of those same folks think it was too harsh.

[IronJack]

This is where you're wrong.

Where? That prominent, white, conservative spokesmen have been discredited in the black community? I think you're being naive if you believe otherwise.

take a prominent conservative white person in a commercial(s) speaking about the achievement of some black inventor during the height of Jim Crow while expressing his or her belief that today's blacks can achieve the same thing.

And you'll be ignored as pandering for the black vote. You will be effectively making a public confession that you're desperate for black approval, and that will inflame the parasites and the pimps. Your positive, constructive platform will be denigrated as "lip service" and you will be called on to either legislate new entitlements or accused of talking the talk but not walking the walk. The Left has defined the discourse; any deviation can be tarred as "racist," a shopworn epithet but still one that politicians are reluctant to wear.

The message of the Right is absent in this demographic. Yes, middle-class and poor blacks sense something is wrong. If that's the case, take the message of the Right to them. It's new for them and it also shatters the "myth" that the Right doesn't care.

IF -- and I'm skeptical -- that's true, that "middle-class and poor blacks sense something is wrong," then that doubt is a seed we can cultivate. What's wrong is the total lack of morality in the Left's platform, the absence of individual accountability, and the transparent moves to keep blacks poor and dependent. And, in the long run, the Left's abysmal track record on the issues. Decades of entitlements have bred generations of hopeless dependency. Whatever the RIGHT answer is, the Left certainly doesn't have it!

To be sure, there are those on the Right who wouldn't give a wooden nickel about the black vote in general and black people in particular. In fact, they'd be pleased if folks like mhking and I were not here on the Right (message: We are not going anywhere so get used to us). [I HOPE you're not going anywhere!] But the vast majority of those on the Right do care.

You're absolutely right. Contrary to the image drummed into the ghetto, folks on the Right aren't Simon LaGree in Brooks Brothers suits. I have a great deal of respect for the courage of honorable blacks, as well as their intelligence, their creativity, and their contributions to our society. We can do without the neanderthals on the Right who reject people based on their race.

The Left paints a portrait of the Right as being mean-spirited, vile, racist, and if it could, would send blacks back into chains at best or towards Africa at worst. What's the Right's response to all of this? Not one word.

Conceded. It's almost as though we doubt the validity of our values. But they're good values; they work; they built this country. What have we to be ashamed of?

Take the advice of Horowitz here: don't blame the media.

Again, conceded. I took the easy out. We'll never win if we refuse to even fight.

I'd be interested in hearing more of your ideas. This is the kind of dialogue we need to open on a national scale.

[sweetliberty]

That's quite a profile page you got rdb. Keep up the good work. As long as there's folks like you working hard to educate the people, there is hope.

[rdb3]

Thank you, Gritty. I know sometimes I come off as a raving psycho.

But anyway, the ears are ready for this message. The time is right for us.

How many people do you know who will see a $100 bill lying on the sidewalk and go right past it? That's all I'm saying here. Pick it up. Lay aside the thinking of old and just pick it up.

[uncbob]

Stop being so obtuse. Go read the BAMPAC study -that is, unless you just want to ignore the black electorate entirely. If that's what you want, then go hide under your rock; the remainder of the Party will change around you.
I sent money to BAMPAC over the last 5 years and recently stopped
It's a lost cause
You go crawl under your rock
I didn't call you names or insult you so kiss my ass

[sweetliberty]

"Billy McKinney, a legislator for years with a large black majority district, got less than 50 percent of the vote and was forced into a runoff–a rare thing for a longtime incumbent"

That was from post #11.

[rdb3]

I hope you smacked that gang banging punkass Vice Lord back hard rdb3.

I didn't get to that day. I got cold-cocked with a lead pipe over a girl, dude. A girl. I didn't even like her (she didn't have enough backside for my taste). She liked me.

He got away that day. But I caught up with him. Later...