Herman Cain made news this week when he claimed that Blacks don't vote for the Republican Party, because they are Brainwashed, and Closed-minded! His comments echo his fellow black republican, Allen West, who pronounced himself a "modern day Harriet Tubman", leading blacks off of "the modern day plantation" of the Democratic Party. The two were attempting to explain the nearly unanimous rejection of the republican party by African Americans. The comments sparked a predictable outrage in the black community and throughout the country but they also present an interesting challenge to explain why blacks have not been open to the Republican Party.
The question itself actually begins with a presumption. When we claim that the black community has rejected the Republican Party, we are presuming that the Republican Party has made meaningful overtures to the black community. The question also belies a fundamental ignorance about how the black community arrived at its current political configuration. Black Republicans, and Republicans in general are often very fond of pointing out that at one time, most blacks in the country were Republicans. They buttress that historical fact with somewhat specious claims that Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King considered themselves to be Republicans. What they often hesitate to acknowledge is that african americans did not leave the republican party, the republican party left the black community. The GOP embraced a southern strategy, in which it consciously chose to abandon black voters. The next few decades were then filled with controversial stances and statements.
That history is reflected in the modern day party in the personage of men like Rand Paul, who continues to echo his party's past discomfort with the 1965 civil rights bill. Rand Paul stated that he was opposed to the government forcing businesses to serve all patrons equally. He stated that businesses that wished to ban blacks, should have that choice. Rand Paul is not necessarily a racist. He simply believes in a free market approach to social change. And he is not alone. It is not uncommon to hear African American Republicans, like the famous Larry Elders, similarly state a discomfort with desegregation laws. Most blacks find such positions inexcusable and they find the party that promotes them, unpalatable. They find the future that the success of those ideas would portend, to be horrifying. To be fair, most republicans don't hold on to this standard-less perspective of civil liberties but it seems that before Mr. Cain, Mr. West, and even Mr. Steele continue to cast "2/3" of African Americans as "closed minded" plantation dwellers, perhaps they should consider that many in the GOP have simply taken positions that most blacks find, distasteful.
Republicans promote economic policies that may be well founded but most african americans (rightly or wrongly) don't see those policies as benefiting their communities. For instance, the GOP obsession with tax cuts for the wealthy and their recent embrace of the idea that the poor aren't paying their fair share in taxes, may be well founded in economic theory ( giving the GOP the benefit of the doubt) but it sounds insane to most african americans. Black families that are struggling more than any other group in the country are not going to sanction an economic policy that offers as a solution, raising their own taxes, for the sake of millionaires and billionaires. Most blacks don't work for fortune 500 companies and won't see their fate as tied to tax relief for the wealthy. Republicans may think that this line of thought is wrong, but it cannot be called irrational. The black community is an unusually blue collar community, with an uncommonly uniform economic profile. Perhaps Mr. Cain, Mr. West and Mr. Steele should look to this common economic experience as an explanation for the shared political perspective and uniform voting pattern of most blacks, as opposed to casting "2/3" of blacks as brainwashed.
The black community has never been averse to the conservative perspective. Black Republicans often note that black americans are an overwhelmingly conservative lot but they have been at a loss to explain why our collective conservative perspective hasn't materialized into votes for the GOP. Explaining this, should always have been a simple matter. After the GOP abandoned black voters and after the decades in between the GOP has been largely inactive in the black community. Michael Steele has said that "the southern strategy" ended in 1992, when "Bubba" returned to the democratic party. He defines the end of the southern strategy as ending with the election of Bill Clinton and a growing success of the democratic party in the south. The question Mr. Cain, Mr. West and Mr. Steele should be asked is; what the GOP has done since 1992 to woo black voters? And quite frankly, how quickly did the GOP feel it could re-establish it's relationship with the black community? 1992 was not that long ago.
If the southern strategy ended, as Mr. Steele says, in 1992 why would the GOP believe that life long democrats would suddenly abandon their democratic party for a Republican party that only recently abandoned it's southern bias? And most importantly, what did the GOP do to facilitate this rapid change. The reality of voters in america is that most people never change their party affiliation and blacks are no different. When the Republican Party chose to leave the black community, they made a decision with multi-generational implications. Massive demographic political realignments only happen rarely among any group. Republicans after 1992, or any date prior should have realized this and understood the magnitude of the challenge ahead of them. They should have developed outreach efforts that reflected the enormity of the task. The Republican Party has not had any major outreach efforts. In fact, when Mr. Steele became chairman of the RNC, he was ridiculed by his own party for going to Harlem and continuing his own personal (and commendable) outreach efforts.
The reality is that most African Americans have never had a republican campaigning in their neighborhood. The GOP has never, in any meaningful way persued African American support. Mr. Steele has noted himself, that aside from a few "photo-ops" the RNC's efforts have been lacking. How then, can Mr. Steele, Mr. West, or Mr. Cain then blame black voters for not responding to nonexistent outreach. The Republican Party, does not campaign in black neighborhoods, nationwide. They don't typically advertise on websites, television programs, and periodicals that blacks habitually consume. And they have far too few community based efforts. If the GOP wants the black vote, perhaps they should start by making a real difference in the black community. Herman Cain, and Michael Steele have personally made meaningful contributions to black communities, but the party they represent has not. Asking black voters to ignore the inattentiveness of the GOP, is naive.
Herman Cain's own comments are the single best explanation of the black community's perspective on the Republican Party. In declaring "2/3" of black voters to be "closed-minded" and "brainwashed" Cain revealed that he places himself (and presumably all black republicans) in an elite, enlightened class of open minded, free thinkers-unlike the rest of the black community. In most communities, black or white, this would be called a superiority complex. On a more fundamental level, it can be argued that you cannot win the votes of people you don't respect. If Cain, who I think speaks for a sizable perspective in his party honestly believes that most blacks are "brainwashed", he cannot claim to respect them or their perspective. It is the lack of respect that I believe creates the greatest distance between the black community and the Republican Party.
The explanation Mr. Cain gave is standard fair in the GOP. His comments are so common and representative of the way in which the GOP has explained its failure in the black community, that I was honestly surprised it made news. In embracing the notion that blacks are simply brainwashed, and irrationally closed minded, the GOP has denied itself the opportunity to deal with the real concerns black americans have about GOP policies. They haven't formed cogent arguments that allay the concerns of blacks because they don't feel blacks have any legitimate concerns. The explanations they do have for their policies and their benefits are rarely communicated, directly-because REPUBLICANS DON'T CAMPAIGN IN BLACK COMMUNITIES! But even more disastrous for the GOP has been the tone, of it's rhetoric toward the black community.
Consider Cain's own remarks that cast he and his fellow black republicans as a superior class of clear thinkers in contrast to the rest of the "plantation" dwellers or modern day, intellectual slaves (ala. Allen West). Incendiary comments and songs like "Barack The Magic Negro" have certainly added to the distance. The treatment of President Obama by a GOP whose primary objections have seemed to revolve around his race have also harmed the individual efforts of republicans. But the most damaging rhetoric has come from black republicans themselves. Mr. Cain, and Mr. West cannot call their fellow african americans brainwashed slaves and then fein shock at our hesitance to follow them. Those of us that vote for democrats actually have fairly good reasons for our support. Mr. Cain and Mr. West (especially) should understand that you cannot win-over an enemy that you don't respect or that you don't take the time to understand. And both have given black americans legitimate cause to question whether or not either actually respects the rest of the black ("brainwashed") community.
Ultimately, Mr. West and Mr. Cain represent a pattern of outrageous rhetoric, supplied primarily by African American Republicans (even more than the rhetoric of traditional Republicans) and it's this rhetoric that continues to destroy any hope the GOP has of winning african american support. Recent books from authors like Larry Elders sport titles like "STUPID BLACK MEN"; and then there is "Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It" by Star Parker. These books are a mere sampling of the types of titles that have become popular writing and reading for black conservatives. They are more offensive to black voters then any policy to GOP promotes. In looking for an explanation of black voters and their feelings toward the GOP, Herman Cain had to look no further than his own comments and the rhetoric and books of his own fellow black republicans. In fairness to Mr. Cain and West, this rhetoric didnt start with black Republicans. There has been a long history of condemning black republicans as Uncle Tom's, but this trend has long since subsided. Black Republicans gain nothing by returning the Uncle Tom, slur with their own innovation of calling liberal blacks, the equivalent of modern slaves. The ugliness of the rhetoric on both sides has outlived its usefulness. Most black Americans would welcome legitimate political options and the black community desperately needs political diversity. The issues our communities face would be solved more efficiently if we could tap develop solutions that take advantage of both conservative and liberal ideas. If the Republican Party actually wants black votes it needs to get off of the side lines, knock on some doors and change it's tone. Mr. Cain, and other African American Republicans would do well to ditch the slave idioms, and pronouncements of their own superiority and stick to confronting the issues.
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