The Ugly Side of the GOP
By Bob Herbert
The New York Times
Tuesday 25 September 2007
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.
The G.O.P. has spent the last 40 years insulting,
disenfranchising and otherwise stomping on the interests of black
Americans. Last week, the residents of Washington, D.C., with its
majority black population, came remarkably close to realizing a goal
they have sought for decades - a voting member of Congress to
represent them.
A majority in Congress favored the move, and the House had
already approved it. But the Republican minority in the Senate - with
the enthusiastic support of President Bush - rose up on Tuesday and
said: "No way, baby."
At least 57 senators favored the bill, a solid majority. But the
Republicans prevented a key motion on the measure from receiving the
60 votes necessary to move it forward in the Senate. The bill died.
At the same time that the Republicans were killing Congressional
representation for D.C. residents, the major G.O.P. candidates for
president were offering a collective slap in the face to black voters
nationally by refusing to participate in a long-scheduled, nationally
televised debate focusing on issues important to minorities.
The radio and television personality Tavis Smiley worked for a
year to have a pair of these debates televised on PBS, one for the
Democratic candidates and the other for the Republicans. The
Democratic debate was held in June, and all the major candidates
participated.
The Republican debate is scheduled for Thursday. But Rudy
Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson have all told
Mr. Smiley: "No way, baby."
They won't be there. They can't be bothered debating issues that
might be of interest to black Americans. After all, they're
Republicans.
This is the party of the Southern strategy - the party that ran,
like panting dogs, after the votes of segregationist whites who were
repelled by the very idea of giving equal treatment to blacks. Ronald
Reagan, George H.W. (Willie Horton) Bush, George W. (Compassionate
Conservative) Bush - they all ran with that lousy pack.
Dr. Carolyn Goodman, a woman I was privileged to call a friend,
died last month at the age of 91. She was the mother of Andrew
Goodman, one of the three young civil rights activists shot to death
by rabid racists near Philadelphia, Miss., in 1964.
Dr. Goodman, one of the most decent people I have ever known,
carried the ache of that loss with her every day of her life.
In one of the vilest moves in modern presidential politics,
Ronald Reagan, the ultimate hero of this latter-day Republican Party,
went out of his way to kick off his general election campaign in 1980
in that very same Philadelphia, Miss. He was not there to send the
message that he stood solidly for the values of Andrew Goodman. He
was there to assure the bigots that he was with them.
"I believe in states' rights," said Mr. Reagan. The crowd roared.
In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan's presidency, the
late Lee Atwater gave an interview to a political science professor
at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the
Southern strategy:
"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger,' "
said Atwater. "By 1968, you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you.
Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights, and
all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking
about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are
totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get
hurt worse than whites."
In 1991, the first President Bush poked a finger in the eye of
black America by selecting the egregious Clarence Thomas for the seat
on the Supreme Court that had been held by the revered Thurgood
Marshall. The fact that there is a rigid quota on the court,
permitting one black and one black only to serve at a time, is itself
racist.
Mr. Bush seemed to be saying, "All right, you want your black on
the court? Boy, have I got one for you."
Republicans improperly threw black voters off the rolls in
Florida in the contested presidential election of 2000, and sent
Florida state troopers into the homes of black voters to intimidate
them in 2004.
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.
