Photo Credit: Urban Cure
By Rosslyn Smith. In the last few months we have seen the rise to national prominence of the conservative Dr. Ben Carson of Maryland, the surprise emergence of Bishop E.W. Jackson as the Republican candidate for Lt. Governor in Virginia, and now Louisiana State Senator Elbert Guillory has switched parties with a video that has gone viral. During this period Republican Congressman Tim Scott also became the junior US Senator from South Carolina. Note, too, that about a year ago former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis switched parties.
The media loves to talk about tokenism when it addresses the issue of black Republicans but there is a tipping point at which this becomes a trend that can’t be dismissed, even if the likes of Chris Matthews insist there are currently no blacks in the US Senate.
Two factors may be happening here. Black men — other than educated elites such as Obama — have tended to have been treated pretty shabbily by the politically correct elite establishment, especially when they insist on speaking their own minds. Note also that since the 1960s most social spending has been concentrated on programs for women and children. Black women with college degrees now far outnumber black men with college degrees. Unemployment remains a huge problem for black men as does the continuing decline of stable, intact families. One does not have to read very deeply in publication aimed at black audiences to see that the culture wide war on men can be waged with particular nastiness in parts of the black community, due in large part to the disparity in education and career prospects between men and women. While they constantly bemoan the lack of well educated, employed and thus “marriageable” black men, the black women in these publications seldom, if ever, consider reforming a system that has bestowed them with both credentials and highly paid, secure jobs, often on the government payroll.
I noted with some interest that in last year’s election the one portion of the black demographic where Obama lost support in percentage terms from 2008 was among black men. This could be significant not just because black men haven’t done well under Obama. It’s been my experience that men in general are often more willing than women to buck the conventional wisdom.
In the 1940s and 50s, largely young black males in the civil rights movement would ask their elders what has 80 years of loyal support for the party of Lincoln actually gotten our people? The answer too often was a lot of patronizing lip service and not much else ever since a war weary North abandoned Southern Reconstruction and allowed the establishment of Jim Crow. (Yes, Republicans have traditionally supported civil rights but the significant changes only happened when a critical mass of liberal Democrats joined with them after WWII.) Read more from this story HERE.
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Traditional values will attract more blacks to GOP
By Star Parker. Anyone who doubts that the Republican Party can attract black voters need only look south to Louisiana.
During @Large — a conference in Baton Rouge in May aimed at attracting black conservatives — a black Democrat in the Louisiana Legislature, Elbert Guillory, announced that he was switching political parties and becoming a Republican.
Less than two weeks later, just up the road in Central City, La., a black Democrat city councilman made the same announcement. Ralph Washington, who’d also attended @Large conference, said he’s turned Republican.
The mystery is why this is not happening more often.
I’m asked all the time why — when it is so clear that blacks are damaged by the left-wing political agenda — black voters so uniformly and consistently support Democratic candidates who advance this agenda.
My answer is that Republicans need to start acting more like the businesspeople they claim to be. Read more from this story HERE.
