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News :: Right Wing |
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Republicans Invent "Black Republican" Org With Almost No African-Americans |
Current rating: 0 |
by Gene Weingarten
(No verified email address) |
04 Feb 2003
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"For a black voting for the Republican ticket is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."
J. C. Watts Sr, Father of Republican Rep. J. C. Watts Jr. Jan 4, 1999
LA Times, Metro |
"The African American Republican Leadership Council," I said, "does not appear to feature African Americans."
From The Washington Post, 2/2/03:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58238-2003Jan29.html
Below the Beltway
By Gene Weingarten
Sunday, February 2, 2003; Page W05
I feel sorry for African American Republicans.
They've never had it real good, but it seems worse for them now than ever, given the retirement of J.C. Watts, their last remaining member of Congress.
So I was heartened when I happened on a Web site last month run by a group called the African American Republican Leadership Council.
This impressive site makes the eloquent argument that African American Republicans are alive and well, thank you, with leadership and agendas, eager to break the "liberal democratic stranglehold over Black America."
The site wants to dispel the myth -- sadly resurrected during the Trent Lott affair -- that the Republican Party has lost touch with black people.
Still, it left me with a question.
So I phoned the man identified as the group's political spokesman, Kevin L. Martin.
Kevin had been quoted in the media a great deal in December, offering the opinion that Lott was railroaded and should be forgiven.
I told him that I enjoyed the site, but found myself puzzled by only one thing.
"What's that?" he asked.
"The African American Republican Leadership Council," I said, "does not appear to feature African Americans."
When I entered the Web site I found myself looking at a photograph of Ronald Reagan, who is, to my memory, white.
Then the photo began to fade, and I thought:
Aha! Here come the African Americans!
ut no, the Reagan image morphed into an image of . . . George W. Bush.
Then back to Reagan again.
Now, I will acknowledge that there are probably people on the planet less black than George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, but a poll of my colleagues came up with only two clear candidates:
Katie Couric and John George Vanderbilt Henry Spencer-Churchill, the current Duke of Marlborough.
Anyway, after you look at Reagan, and Bush, you can find the Advisory Panel to the African American Republican Leadership Council.
The honorary chairman of the panel is listed as former U.S. senator Edward W. Brooke III, a Republican from Massachusetts.
So I called up Brooke, who confirmed the important fact that he is black.
Alas, he is not in any way associated with the group.
He said he'd never heard of it and had no idea why his name was on the site.
However, he was only "honorary."
Beneath his name were the names of the group's official 15-person Advisory Panel.
It includes noted conservatives Paul Weyrich, Sean Hannity, Grover Norquist and Gary Bauer, all of whom are as white as a mashed potato and marshmallow sandwich on Wonder Bread.
In fact, all but two of the 15 members of the Advisory Panel of the African American Republican Leadership Council are white.
I did, however, have one of the council's few African Americans on the line.
So, Kevin: Where are the black people?
"I'd like there to be more, but let's be honest, right now the Republican Party and African Americans have a large rift."
But how can you work toward getting more black leaders if the public face of your group seems to consist largely of white people?
Is this any way to get black Republicans in Congress?
"What do we need black Republicans in Congress for?"
I did not expect that answer.
"That doesn't mean that agendas beneficial to African Americans are not going to get passed. I have a nice working relationship with Sen. Lott and the speaker."
Much of the funding for his group, Kevin said, comes from "little old white ladies in Nebraska."
Kevin said the AARLC was happy with the results of the November elections, and the Web site confirmed it:
"AARLC Candidates Sweep in November Elections," it said.
So I checked the victorious AARLC candidates for Congress and governorships:
They are all white.
I admit that I was thinking pretty cynically at this point.
But I am here to tell you that I was wrong.
A mere week after I called Kevin and expressed my concerns that this Web site seemed, y'know, a little Uncle Tomish, suddenly the site was changed.
Now, in addition to Bush and Reagan, there are also pictures of Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell.
And there is an announcement that the AARLC salutes its new national director, a black Republican named Sherman Parker.
I reached Parker, 31, in Jefferson City, Mo., where he had just been sworn in as a first-term member of the Missouri House.
He was a little surprised to find out that he was the new national director of the AARLC, because, he said, he hadn't agreed to take the job yet, and, in fact -- though he had spoken to the group about representing it -- he was still unfamiliar with its goals and had never seen the Web site.
Details, details.
The point is, the AARLC is moving forward.
Kevin was right.
It is possible for a white person to help black Republicans help themselves.
Look what I did for them, with just one phone call.
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