Vanilla Republicans?

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Vanilla Republicans?
by James Hall, Associate Editor

July 10, 2002

"Leaning Left"

James Hall The departure of J. C. Watts from the House of Representatives means more than just the loss of the highest-ranking elected black Republican -- it means the loss of all the black Republicans there were in the Congress. Are black Republicans an endangered species? Has the party of Lincoln, which introduced newly freed slaves to politics and commanded the allegiance of African-Americans for over a century, become less inclusive in the 21st century? Is there a place for the black perspective and black sense of community within the party anymore?

Certainly the Bush administration has labored long and hard to create diversity within the party. African-Americans like Colin Powell, Condolleezza Rice, and Rod Paige occupy key positions in the administration and make significant contributions to President Bush's policies. Some of the administration's policies, like its faith-based initiative and education voucher plan are aimed directly at black voters.

But the Bush push for inclusion has not been matched by other Republicans. While House Republicans gave J. C. Watts a highly visible spokesman position as Chairman of the House Republican Conference, they froze him out of key committee chairmanships and House majority leader spot that he had aspired to, giving him great national visibility but little political power. The lack of access to decision-making was thought by some to be a factor in Watts' recent decision to leave office.

It appears that many Republicans actively shun the black vote. Here in Florida and other states where Republicans control the redistricting process, Republican legislators lumped black communities together in gerrymandered districts designed to create white-only districts to elect Republicans and heavily black and urban districts to elect Democrats. This strategy essentially gives up on blacks and creates the very politics of race that Republicans profess to be against. Creating regionally homogeneous districts would force Republicans to compete for the black vote to win, but this is apparently not what Republicans want to do.

The current situation for the party is reminiscent of the past Republican National Convention, where black choirs sang patriotic hymns on the stage and black speakers took to the podium to talk of party reform, but the floor of voting delegates remained mostly white and rich.

Some of party's standoffishness may be due to ideological differences between conservative Republicans and black Americans, who tend to have a strong sense of community, connections to their roots, and a belief in the importance of publicly funded education. For all his conservatism, for example, J. C. Watts is a strong supporter of education, trade with Africa, and for the economic development of impoverished communities. Colin Powell has pointedly crticized the party for fighting hard against affirmative action for poor blacks while favoring "affirmative action for corporations."

There's also a strong impression among African Americans---articulated in the current 2002 NCAAP convention -- that the Bush administration appoints judges who are hostile to civil rights and has paid little attention to the voting rights abuses that occurred in the 2000 election. Some 11,000 federal complaints made to the Bush Justice Department about voting rights violations were reduced to five lawsuits which dealt mostly with hiring more bilingual precinct workers. Little was done to address the concerns of black voters who were ten times as likely to have their votes voided than were white voters in 2000.

The loss of a prominent charismatic politician like J. C. Watts ought to serve as a warning to the Republicans. In striving for ideological purity they threaten to exclude whole segments of the American population. As the last presidential election has shown, Republicans can't afford to serve only vanilla when so many flavors are out there. ***

Photo of the author courtesy of staff files