Opinion
The GOP’s Whites-Only Gambit
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
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The Skanner Newspaper, established
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tion, published each Wednesday by
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T
he Republican Party, which
has lost the last two presi-
dential elections by appeal-
ing to the worst racial attitudes of
White conservative voters, has
come up with what it declares is a
winning strategy for 2016: Appeal
to the worst racial attitudes of
White conservative and White
Democratic-leaning voters.
The conservative echo chamber
of political operatives and pundits
has even produced a, to coin a
phrase, white paper explaining
how doubling down on its failed
national strategy of 2008 and 2012
will work in 2016. More about that
later.
One might consider that notion a
modern version of the 1956 South-
ern Manifesto, the Congressional
segregationists’ call for “massive
resistance” by White Southerners
to the 1954 Supreme Court Brown
school desegregation decision. Or
an updating of GOP standard-
bearer Richard Nixon’s adoption
in the late 1960s of a “Southern
Strategy” of appealing to Whites
made anxious by Blacks’ civil
rights victories.
Or, one could say it’s just a con-
tinuation of the stance against
Democratic presidents the GOP
adopted during the Clinton presi-
dency in the 1990s – in the words
of former Republican congress-
man, Vin Weber: a maximum ide-
ological polarization.
That
attitude is a far distance from the
claims GOP leaders made in the
weeks between President Obama’s
re-election victory last November
and his re-inauguration in January.
Then, they promised they had
learned the benefits of “outreach”
L AST
C HANCE
Lee A.
Daniels
to the groups that made up the
winning Democratic coalition –
particularly women, Blacks, Lati-
nos and gays and lesbians. Why,
the Republican National Commit-
tee (RNC) even produced in
March a much ballyhooed report
that called for the party to leave its
“ideological cul-de-sac,” confess-
continues to be driven by a callous
ideology that has prompted
Republican legislators to double
down on all the things which con-
tributed to the failure of the
Republican ticket in 2012: to enact
more
legislation
restricting
women’s right to an abortion; to
pass more so-called voter identifi-
cation measures to suppress the
Black vote; and to bellow their
opposition to efforts to enact sen-
sible immigration-reform meas-
ures.
Nothing exemplifies the GOP
posture more dramatically and
more crudely that Steve King, the
Iowa Republican Congressman.
King, whose specialty is making
A winning strategy for 2016: Appeal
to the worst racial attitudes of White
conservative and White Democratic-
leaning voters
ing that the party had “lost the
ability to be persuasive with, or
welcoming to, those who do not
agree with us on every issue.”
And how was that critique
received by the GOP party faith-
ful? Well, Rush Limbaugh, the
conservative talk-show maven
whose tail still wags the Republi-
can dog, immediately announced
it showed the RNC had been
“totally bamboozled,” and GOP
Congressional leaders comments’
about it were tepid at best.
In fact, the GOP’s actions and
words beyond the RNC exercise
underscored again that the party
vicious jibes about women and
people of color, last month deni-
grated the DREAM Act legislation
that would establish an arduous,
long path to citizenship for the
children of undocumented immi-
grants. “Some of them are valedic-
torians – and their parents brought
them in. It wasn’t their fault,”
King said, then added, “… But for
every one who’s a valedictorian,
there’s another 100 out there who
weigh 130 pounds – and they’ve
got calves the size of cantaloupes
because they’ve been hauling 75
pounds of marijuana across the
desert.”
Realizing they had a public rela-
tions disaster in the making, the
GOP leadership disavowed King’s
comment. But the fact is King’s
anti-immigration stance and that
of the GTOP itself are one and the
same: Both are designed to appeal
to Whites anxious by the growing
population and electoral clout of
Black Americans and Hispanic
Americans.
The solution essentially pro-
posed by Sean Trende, a conserva-
tive pundit, and seconded by
several of his fellow conserva-
tives, is to minimize trying to
broaden the party’s appeal to
Blacks and Hispanics and concen-
trate on building the White conser-
vative voter turnout.
Trende’s argument, laid out in
four lengthy articles from June 21
to July 6 on the blog, realclearpol-
itics.com, is well worth reading
because it clearly reflects the polit-
ical decisions the GOP leadership
has already made to continue its
past practice of just pretending to
be interested in “outreach.”
Black Americans would do well
to pay special attention to Trende’s
June 25 article, which predicts a
decline in both Black voter turnout
and the actual number of Black
votes going Democratic. The piece
contains many assumptions about
how Blacks will vote when Barack
Obama is no longer at the head of
the ticket that are wishful thinking
– but that nevertheless, progres-
sive Blacks and Whites need to
consider.
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Dropping the Leadership Baton for Youth
R
esearch shows that this
generation of young peo-
ple, no matter of their race,
are likely to do less well than their
parents did. Shackled by a trillion
dollars worth of student loans and
a flat labor market, the New York-
based Demos organization says
the student loan burden prevents
young people from buying homes
and amassing wealth. While there
are some racial gaps, many young
people enter the labor market
already behind the space their par-
ents occupied.
As I spend time with young peo-
ple, especially young African
Americans, I understand their
frustration. They want to know
what the civil rights generation has
done to pass the baton of activism
and improvement to them. They
want to know how they should
move forward. While they are
willing to participate in marches
and civic action, they want to
know what’s next. And they want
to know why their voices are not
heard in Black leadership.
Those who are seasoned offer
their history of activism as proof
that they should lead. They forged
the Student Nonviolent Coordinat-
ing Committee and didn’t ask their
elders for permission. They
pushed elders to move to a more
active position and when elders
would not meet them, they pushed
themselves. There was no shame
in their game. Whether militant or
moderate, they embraced parts of
Page 4 The Portland Skanner August 14, 2013
B ENNETT
C OLLEGE
Julianne
Malveaux
the Black Panther Party political
program, which begins with these
words, “We want freedom, we
want the power to determine our
stunned by events that focus on
youth, but have only a few (and
often no) young people present.
Imagine if young people had the
opportunity to have meaningful
exchanges with their elders. Too
often young people are segregated
into a “youth” program when
interaction with adults would be
both motivating and stimulating to
them. If we kick young people to
the curb, we drop the baton that
was handed to us. We baby
boomers have a responsibility to
They want to know why their voices are
not heard in Black leadership
destiny.” Too many of us, African
Americans, young people, pro-
gressives, do not determine our
destiny now. We flow with the
wind.
Too many have dropped the
baton, but continue to act as if they
are clasping it. Too many mouth
their interest in young leaders, but
fail to bring them to the table. Too
many who are 40 and 50 describe
themselves as young, but if you
tell the truth and shame the devil,
these folks are solidly middle
aged. So where are their pro-
tégées, those who will take, not
snatch, the torch from them.
As I move around the country to
speak, organize, motivate, I am
both Generation X and Generation
Y. We have shirked that responsi-
bility.
I do not know how to describe
Rev. Cecelia Bryant. I could call
her mentor, role model, or friend.
Or I could say that she is a great
inspiration and, in a simple sen-
tence, she has encapsulated the
work that we must all to do move
our community forward. You
have to replicate yourself seven
times, she said, and you have to
ask those you replicated to repli-
cate themselves seven times. In
other words, there has to be an
embrace, and a responsibility to
embrace the next generation not
only politically but also personal-
ly.
Who are the people who will
come behind you? Who will
incorporate your work into their
own? Who will understand that
you put your hand on them
because somebody put their hand
on you, and who will feel obligat-
ed to put their hand on others?
The civil rights generation made
massive progress, but in many
ways they dropped the ball. While
they made it clear that there was
work to be done, too many of them
did not choose those who would
do it. Too much energy and focus
has been placed on one or two
people, and we need cohorts of the
next generation to work together.
My Baby Boom generation has
dropped the ball as well. We have
been beneficiaries of the Civil
Rights Movement, but we have
not passed our largess or our les-
sons on. The Baby Boom genera-
tion has been, in many ways, one
of the most economically privi-
leged generations of African
American progress. So why do so
many of us, who enjoy the legacy
of this progress, fail to recognize
the people and organizations that
have brought us to this place.
Rev. Willie Barrow says that we
are not as much divided as discon-
nected. When the baton has been
dropped, what can we expect but a
generational disconnection?
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