The Gloves Come Off re: the GOP

Either Bob Herbert of the New York Times and Roland Martin of CNN coordinate their stories the way that teenage girls coordinate their outfits or there was a critical mass of "Enough is Enough" dust floating in the air yesterday.  Because BOTH journalists -- one an icon of the print media, the other an icon of cable news -- have penned barnburner pieces chewing the Grand Old Party (aka Republican Party) a new you-know-what for how it treats Black voters.

Roland's piece has the more provocative title:  "Why is the GOP Afraid of Black People?" and definitely gets in Republican faces early with its prose.  It is a tightly written, effective piece.  But it eschews the bottom line, ulltimately ending with the entreaty that the GOP could indeed make inroads with Black folks if only it focused on immigration, education and health care (!). 

In it, what is perhaps most notable is that for the first time in a long time, Martin let's his "Black side" come out just a little bit, CNN or no CNN:

The GOP as a whole is completely scared of black voters, and the actions by the front-runners for the party's 2008 nomination show they are continuing the same silly political games the party has played for years.

Oh, don't bother tossing out the appointments of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state by Bush. Yes, they are African-American. But I'm speaking of the party.

In contrast, Herbert's piece entitled "The Ugly Side of the GOP" starts out far more politely but ultimately calls a spade a spade more directly when he just breaks it down so there's no mistake what he is saying:

I applaud the thousands of people, many of them poor, who traveled from around the country to protest in Jena, La., last week. But what I'd really like to see is a million angry protesters marching on the headquarters of the National Republican Party in Washington.

Enough is enough. Last week the Republicans showed once again just how anti-black their party really is.

Reading them, it is clear that one piece is a lament, the other a call to action.  But both pieces are sharply reflective prisms on at least two aspects of Black American political thought right now, as we enter an election cycle in which Democrats are fiercely competing with other Democrats for our votes (Hallelujah!) yet only the sickly racist Tom Tancredo from the GOP respects our collective voice and power enough to actually bother to show up to talk to us.

While both pieces take direct aim at Republican candidates' recent decision to pretty much boycott Tavis Smiley's twin PBS debate to match June's Democratic debate at Howard (with the Republican candidates all telling the usual "scheduling conflicts" lie), each also highlights different -- yet still evocatively similar -- events as evidence that the G.O.P. has not only made its living since the 1960's catering to white folks who resent (if not outright hate) Black folks, it shows no signs that it is willing to let that ongoing strategy go.  Both writers cite compelling anecdotes about events most of us overlooked in making their joint case -- even without talking to each other -- that while they come from different political perspectives, they end up in the same place:  the GOP is not doing its J.O.B.

Which is why I was particularly glad to see these pieces at the same time this morning. 

Definitely check both of these pieces out in their entirety.  They'll make your day.  Particularly since you get to carry with you all day these pull-no-punches yet completely accurate statements by each:

<center>Blacks have been remarkably quiet about this sustained mistreatment by the Republican Party, which says a great deal about the quality of black leadership in the U.S. It's time for that passive, masochistic posture to end.</center>

<center>...[I]it's dumb, dumb, and dumber for the leading GOP candidates to skip Thursday's debate. . .Will speaking at one debate turn around decades of black support for the Democrats? Nope. But not speaking will just mean business as usual, and the GOP needs less of that.</center>

•  Herbert's title is misleading.

  There is no "Ugly Side" to the GOP. All the sides are ugly.

  It looks like Herbert was saving his best stuff until after the firewall came down.

  by Dartagnan on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 06:55:57 AM PDT

  •  I Hadn't Thought of the Firewall

    Coming down with the end of that ridiculous greedy experiment called "Times Select", but you may be right!

    by shanikka on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 06:56:56 AM PDT

    •  That whole shoddy episode really annoyed me.

      And I have a (weekend) subscription.  What annoyed me was that Krugman's and Herbert's columns couldn't be circulated on the web as much; hence they didn't get as much play among the general public, during a time in our country's history when their opinions were most needed.

      by Dartagnan on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 06:59:55 AM PDT

•  Good For Them, Good For Them

  I tried to put together a post yesterday about race, but was not happy with the end result. What I wanted to say, and again my words were lacking, is that if you think there isn't racism in the US then you live in a cave some place.

  That the Republicans won't engage African American groups is telling. And IMHO they might lose elections for a generation or two if they can't speak to people of color.

  by webranding on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 06:57:17 AM PDT

  •  The ones who are most vocal about claiming

    there is no racism are very similar to the very vocal anti-gay Republicans.

    Something I noticed.

    by Yoshimi on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:01:00 AM PDT

  •  They're making the same mistake w/Hispanics

    It's amazing how stupid the GOP can be.

    by Dartagnan on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:02:45 AM PDT

    •  I Think They Know They're Screwed

      And knowing they can't win, why go through the (for them) unpleasant experience of talking to people who aren't white, "Christian," and purportedly heterosexual?

      by thirdnostril on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 08:01:13 AM PDT

•  I disagree, the GOP IS doing their JOB.

  They are the party of class war and bigotry.
  They are pandering to their base, as always.

  by manwithnoname on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:00:37 AM PDT

  •  The bind it puts the Republican leadership in

    is that their white male base is shrinking.

    by Yoshimi on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:01:58 AM PDT

    •  This is the feeling I get, too.

      As the middle-class white male base (which is probably the Repubs' largest, most reliable base of voters) erodes, they may try to do more to hold on to us.  I wouldn't be surprised to see the appeals to white hegemony become more and more blatant.  There is an existing, but dying, group who will applaud the GOP front-runners for not giving in to those who want "special privileges," which is how some will frame it.  (Namely, those who complain that we have a Black History Month but not a White History Month, a larger group than most people here believe it to be, I think.)

      by I on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:08:30 AM PDT

•  Great diary Shanikka

  I loved the Herbert piece.

  I've got a diary up below on Tavis Smiley's efforts to draw attention to the Repug snub of the Morgan State debate.  It's reassuring that they're finally getting called on this stuff.

  by zenbowl on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:03:03 AM PDT

•  Evidence 1A of most recent GOP Racism:

  The DC Voting rights legislation.

  How can you justify not giving DC House representation other than without using racism?

  Utah would have gotten a seat also, therefore it was not to the Democrats advantage to get the seat.

  The fact is that the GOP saw this as a way to further disenfranchise about 600,000 African American voters.

  Racism. It's ugly and the GOP is not even trying to hide it any more.

  by Skulnick on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:04:05 AM PDT

  •  The fact that they would deny

    DC representation to their own disadvantage (not getting the Utah seat) speaks to how mean-spirited this act was.

    by gizmo59 on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:11:30 AM PDT

•  Great Diary

  Excellent comparative analysis.  Damn!  There ar ea lot of good writers on this website, no?

  You know, I've been wondering. . . just what is on all these Republican candidates' schedules that is more "impotent" than the chance to court a huge demographic of American voters?  They look like so many scared white urban males, crossing the street to avoid meeting the on-coming black dude.

  by Limelite on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:23:02 AM PDT

  •  Ayup

    That's exactly right:  saying that there is a "scheduling conflict" really means "I have decided that being somewhere else is a higher priority than talking to you."  Everybody knows it, including the ignoramuses who are actually making this assertion as a purported excuse.  

    They are scared, no doubt.  But the ironic thing is that Martin is right:  were GOP candidates to even bother to make an effort as they used to before 1965, they'd find a respectful audience at least about a variety of subjects, and probably agreement on some others, even though their feet would be held to the fire about the devilish details, since many Black folks tend to balance being socially conservative with the hardest of hard left commitment when it comes to "justice and equality" issues.  (He's right about the war being a no-go from the get-go, though - even conservative Black folks don't have too much good to say about Bush's fiasco in Iraq; I have yet to find one that doesn't refer to it as "invading someone else's country").

    by shanikka on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:37:42 AM PDT

•  I think they are scared of black politics for two

  reasons.  First, the obvious one - engaging minority groups will cost them support among their base. Second - because this base thinks all black people are either rappers, drug dealers, or nappy-headed-hos, they will do absolutely nothing that might broaden the dialogue.

  I am in the metro Atlanta area and there used to be a local morning radio show that discussed current events/politics, etc. All the contributors were black. As a new southerner (Texas, as I have discovered is not the south) I found the conversations to be fabulous and were a strong influence in my left-turn politically.  My apologies for the generalizations, but I came away from listening to the show with the appreciation that this is a voice and point of view that neatly and logically combines progressive goals with religious/spiritual values. Given a wider audience, such a perspective would be very appealing to much of the "family values" conservatives that truly have nothing to do with the part of Donald Trump and Donald Rumsfield. So I think the GOP has a strong vested interest in perpetuating the stereotypes of the black community as that of rappers and hos because they are terrified of losing a large block of their base to a better message.

  by TexasLiz on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:39:41 AM PDT

  •  I'll Add the Third

    And the most likely:  Most Black folks are very strong supporters of things that the power in the GOP eschews: income fairness, wage fairness, decent housing, no prison-industrial complex, anti-war, little things like that.  We want to see pragmatic solutions although are also big believers in personal responsibility.  We also, however, happen not to believe the hype (with very good reason) about it being OK for some folks to get paid, and paid handsomely, making misery at the expense of other people, here and abroad.  African-American voters have been collectively the most cohesive political voice for those types of perspectives for at least 50 years, in addition to the largest cohesive voting bloc in the country.

    The ironic thing is that, as you point out, on many many issues collectively huge numbers of Black voters are conservative, particularly when it comes to religious beliefs.  Some of that we should be collectively ashamed of and it is inconsistent with what has heretofore been our own moral outlook, as best as such a thing can be expressed collectively at least.  Other issues that's not the case, since they arise simply from differences of opinion that other folks don't like because they tend to be more libertarian and individualist in their thinking.  

    It's been the GOP's loss and the Democratic Party's gain, even though the latter has not shown it actually deserved that gain until this year, when for the first time in my life Democrats are actually competing for my vote the same as they compete for other people's votes.  It's about time.

    by shanikka on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:49:12 AM PDT

•  Who the Hell Cares about the GOP?

  The GOP does nothing for any minority. They don't do anything for poor white people. So, to hell with them.

  by ivcrdavid on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 08:12:48 AM PDT

•  Krugman & Balto Sun are on the same page.

  See here.

  All I can say is the GOP must have some major plans for voter suppression next year.

  by Halcyon on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 08:19:57 AM PDT