I would like to offer words of commendation to Governor Bob Ehrlich and Lieutenant Governor Michael S. Steele. On Monday, August 30th, Governor Ehrlich asserted that he saw a message coming out of the Democratic convention. The message is that “if you happen to have black skin, you have to believe one way.” Otherwise, “you are a traitor to your race.” Lt. Gov. Steele, who delivered an outstandingly auspicious speech at the Republican National Convention, can relate to the governor’s words of wisdom. Have we forgotten that supporters of former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend threw Oreo cookies at Steele during a gubernatorial debate in 2002? It was people on the Left who did this malicious, racial act.
Steele recently did a national talk show on an African-American station and the first question presented to him was “How can you be a Republican?” He cleverly responded by asking the caller, “How can you be a Democrat?” To suggest that Steele is traitorous to his race because he is a registered Republican is the most invidious, baseless accusation. Why should Steele be targeted as one who abandoned his race because of his political identity? Is the evidence that the Democratic Party best represents black Americans?
During the period from the 1940s to the 1960s, there were some leaders in the Democratic Party who advocated civil rights protections, most notably Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson. According to a black history issue of The WallBuilder Report, Truman “introduced an aggressive civil rights legislative package that included an anti-lynching law, an anti-poll tax law, desegregation of the military, etc.,” however, he fought strong opposition from his own party. Truman was able to include civil rights language in the platform for the National Democratic Convention, but a “walkout of southern delegates resulted.”
In 1964, President Johnson, a Democrat, was unable to garner support from his own party to pass the Civil Rights Bill and the Democrats controlled two-thirds of the seats in Congress. It was necessary for Republicans to work with Johnson to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Bill and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As a result, millions of African-Americans were able to register to vote in southern, Democratic-controlled states where literacy testing was abolished and the federal government intervened to oversee voter registration.
The WallBuilder Report further indicates that in “Democratic-controlled States, rarely are African-Americans elected statewide (with the exception of US Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (IL, 1992-1998) and African-American Democratic Representatives to Congress usually are elected only from minority districts (districts with a majority of minority voters).” However, members of minority groups running as Republicans are “elected statewide in Republican States, or in congressional districts with large white majorities.”
Furthermore, in 2000, US Rep. JC Watts (OK) became the “third African-American to chair a National Republican Convention (the first was US Rep. John Roy Lynch (MS) in 1884 and then US Sen. Edward Brooke (MA) in 1968.” Why is it that there has never been an African-American to chair or even co-chair a Democratic National Convention?
President Bush has an administration that is more racially diverse than that of any other in US History! Why aren’t the multiculturalists celebrating with elation? This is because they despise a Republican President who appoints minorities to high positions in government but who do not adhere to radically liberal ideologies. Any minority member who serves in the Cabinet under a President who is a conservative Republican is viewed as disingenuous and disloyal to his race by people on the political Left. I find such tactics to be utterly reprehensible and blatantly racist.
Bush campaign spokesman, Terry Holt, articulated the facts well when he said that “all families should ask whether or not the party they’ve supported is best for them.” (Newszap.com) Holt contends that Republicans generally appeal to African-American voters on issues such as values while “Democrats have tended to take a different approach.”
Copyright 2004 by Matthew Pasalic
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