GOP, confront your racism problem


CNN) -- When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he reportedly said Democrats would lose the South for a generation. At the time, 115 of the 128 senators and representatives from the 11 former Confederate states were white Democrats.

Today, all Democratic congressmen from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia are black, except for John Barrow of Georgia; and all Republican congressmen from these states are white, except for Tim Scott of South Carolina.

Part of that has to do with policy. And a lot of that has to do with the white backlash Johnson correctly predicted.

So if Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, and his cohorts are really serious about bringing minorities into their big tent, they need to do more than massage the party's message. They need to do more than rethink its policies. They have to be honest about who is in their tent already.

I applaud the effort of the RNC's 98-page Growth and Opportunity Project report. But it's hard to characterize it as an honest assessment of the party when it doesn't include the words "racism," "racists" or "racist" in it. How can this so-called "autopsy" be accurate when it doesn't include the cause of death?

I'm not saying the Republican Party is full of bigots.

I'm saying history teaches us that the Republican Party is where white racists in the South turned for shelter in response to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the remnants of that migration is still impacting its image today.

To characterize the Republican Party's difficulties to grasp the country's new demographics as "they're too old and white" oversimplifies a conversation that is much more nuanced than that. The reason why some minorities -- particularly blacks -- have a distaste for the Republican Party is because any policy that negatively impacts minorities disproportionately is being viewed through the electoral dynamic that was created in 1964.

If Priebus and company can't see and admit that, their new plan is not going to solve much of anything.


I agree with Eric Cantor, Chris Christie and Jon Huntsman on a lot of issues. As an independent, it really pains me to know much of their messages get tainted nationally because their party has this lingering image problem.

As the glaring omissions in the Growth and Opportunity Project report suggests, this wound is self-inflicted. For as long as GOP leaders refuse to acknowledge and confront racism in their party, they will continue to have a hard time convincing minorities they have their best interests in mind.

Now, I'm sure spending $10 million to pay people to hang out with minorities and talk about how great the Republican Party is seems like a good idea.

But when there is footage of a black man being beaten and run over by a group of white teenagers who reportedly wanted to "go fuck with some niggers" nearly 50 years after Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, trust me, minorities are not looking for rent-a-friend to come talk to us about the Grand Old Party.

We're looking for advocates who will listen.

Who can see the South is not the South of bus boycotts and burning crosses -- but it is still the South.

Who will see that Barry Goldwater, who opposed the Civil Rights Act, won 87.1% of Mississippi's votes in the 1964 general election and that lawmakers in Mississippi just got around to ratifying the 13th Amendment in 2013.

Ruby Burdette, whose son was found dead along a rural Mississippi road in 2009, didn't receive her first visit from the Sheriff's Office until CNN reporters called asking about the progress of the investigation this year.

"He came in and said he was the investigator," Burdette said. "He told me he apologized for no one coming out before now. And he told me that the first investigators they had didn't do anything."

More than three years had gone by, and the authorities didn't bother to look for who had killed her son. If Republican leaders really want to appeal to minorities --put that in the report. And do it not as a way to pander for votes, but to acknowledge the problem.

There is definitely a fair share of bigots in the Democrat Party, and liberals can be quick to attribute problems impacting minorities to racism. But far too often, the GOP is quick to dismiss racism as a factor in anything, which draws attention to the party's lack of self-awareness.

The Republican Party as a whole is saddled with the perception of having a diversity problem, and its recent political history justifies that perception. From what I know of Priebus, he is smart enough to know all of this.

The fact this issue is not addressed in the report suggests he still isn't sure what to do about it.


MORE PLUS VIDEO

GOP, confront your racism problem
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/granderson-gop-racism/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/granderson-gop-racism/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

thanks for posting

It was the Democratic party that opposed civil rights.

You REALLY want to be honest, the breakdown of party race today has to do with fiscal policy and who believes the government will give them more stuff vs. those who will do for themselves and want to be allowed to keep the fruits of their labor.

It's not rocket science. If you had bothered to really do some research here, you would see that the eventual transition of the south has to do with the fact that it is a conservative part of the country. To try to simply push it off as a race issue is just wrong on so many fronts.

People vote their pocket books...

Like I said, nicely written, but your post goes in the Fiction Section of the library.

Of course it was "nicely written" it was written by a professional journalist, not by that idiot TrannyBoy.

As for the content, well you already read the article, I don't really need to comment further Notice I said article, not post. TrannyBoy NEVER, ok maybe I should say almost never, writes his own posts, because when he does they look like they are written in crayon by a retarded third grader.

regardless of the party. Then the South was run by Democrats, now it's run by Republicans. Draw your own conclusions.


By party and region

Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.

The original House version:

Southern Democrats: 7–87   (7–93%)
Southern Republicans: 0–10   (0–100%)
Northern Democrats: 145–9   (94–6%)
Northern Republicans: 138–24   (85–15%)

The Senate version:

Southern Democrats: 1–20   (5–95%)
Southern Republicans: 0–1   (0–100%)
Northern Democrats: 45–1   (98–2%)
Northern Republicans: 27–5   (84–16%)

CPAC Event On Racial Tolerance Turns To Chaos As ‘Disenfranchised’ Whites Arrive

A CPAC session sponsored by Tea Party Patriots and billed as a primer on teaching activists how to court black voters devolved into a shouting match as some attendees demanded justice for white voters and others shouted down a black woman who reacted in horror.

The session, entitled “Trump The Race Card: Are You Sick And Tired Of Being Called A Racist When You Know You’re Not One?” was led by K. Carl Smith, a black conservative who mostly urged attendees to deflect racism charges by calling themselves “Frederick Douglass Republicans.”

Disruptions began when he started accusing Democrats of still being the party of the Confederacy — a common talking point on the right.

“I don’t care how much the KKK improved,” he said. “I’m not going to join the KKK. The Democratic Party founded the KKK.”

Lines like that drew shouts of praise from some attendees and murmurs of disapproval from one non-conservative black attendee, Kim Brown, a radio host and producer with Voice of Russia, a broadcasting service of the Russian government.

But then questions and answers began. And things went off the rails.


Scott Terry of North Carolina, accompanied by a Confederate-flag-clad attendee, Matthew Heimbach, rose to say he took offense to the event’s take on slavery. (Heimbach founded the White Students Union at Towson University and is described as a “white nationalist” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.)

“It seems to be that you’re reaching out to voters at the expense of young white Southern males,” Terry said, adding he “came to love my people and culture” who were “being systematically disenfranchised.”

Smith responded that Douglass forgave his slavemaster.

“For giving him shelter? And food?” Terry said.

At this point the event devolved into a mess of shouting. Organizers calmed things down by asking everyone to “take the debate outside after the presentation.”

Brown, who took offense at the suggestion modern Democrats were descendants of the KKK, tried to ask a question later once things finally calmed down. She was booed and screamed at by audience members.

more here.....
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/tea-party-event-on-racial-tolerance-turns-to-chaos-as-white-supremacists-arrive.php

GAYBUMBLER i MEAN GAYGAMBLER IS BACK to cause mischief

According to the article it was
the black woman who started
to intentionally be disruptive....
And the title is misleading....

but the article refers to present day GOP even thought they said the racist membERS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS REPUBLICAN.

I see the error in the authors history recall.

Why Martin Luther King Was Republican  It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S’s: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism.   It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s.   During the civil rights era of the 1960s, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. Much is made of Democrat President Harry Truman’s issuing an Executive Order in 1948 to desegregate the military. Not mentioned is the fact that it was Eisenhower who actually took action to effectively end segregation in the military.  

Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while he was a senator, as did Democrat Sen. Al Gore Sr. And after he became President, Kennedy was opposed to the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph, who was a black Republican. President Kennedy, through his brother Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King. In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King’s leaving Memphis, Tenn., after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a “trouble-maker” who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.  Given the circumstances of that era, it is understandable why Dr. King was a Republican. It was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans passed the civil rights laws of the 1860s, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 that was designed to establish a new government system in the Democrat-controlled South, one that was fair to blacks. Republicans also started the NAACP and affirmative action with Republican President Richard Nixon’s 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher) that set the nation’s fist goals and timetables. Although affirmative action now has been turned by the Democrats into an unfair quota system, affirmative action was begun by Nixon to counter the harm caused to blacks when Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 kicked all of the blacks out of federal government jobs. Few black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Unknown also is the fact that Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans.  Critics of Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, who ran for President against Johnson in 1964, ignore the fact that Goldwater wanted to force the Democrats in the South to stop passing discriminatory laws and thus end the need to continuously enact federal civil rights legislation.  Those who wrongly criticize Goldwater also ignore the fact that Johnson, in his 4,500 State of the Union Address delivered on Jan. 4, 1965, mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only 35 words were devoted to civil rights. He did not mention one word about voting rights. Then in 1967, showing his anger with Dr. King’s protest against the Vietnam War, Johnson referred to Dr. King as “that Nigger preacher.” Contrary to the false assertions by Democrats, the racist “Dixiecrats” did not all migrate to the Republican Party. “Dixiecrats” declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than vote for a Republican because the Republican Party was know as the party for blacks. Today, some of those “Dixiecrats” continue their political careers as Democrats, including Robert Byrd, who is well known for having been a “Keagle” in the Ku Klux Klan.  Another former “Dixiecrat” is former Democrat Sen. Ernest Hollings, who put up the Confederate flag over the state Capitol when he was the governor of South Carolina. There was no public outcry when Democrat Sen. Christopher Dodd praised Byrd as someone who would have been “a great senator for any moment,” including the Civil War. Yet Democrats denounced then-Senate GOP leader Trent Lott for his remarks about Sen. Strom Thurmond (R.-S.C.). Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan and defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats. If Byrd and Thurmond were alive during the Civil War, and Byrd had his way, Thurmond would have been lynched.  The 30-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party began in the 1970s with President Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” which was an effort on the part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were still discriminating against their fellow Christians who happened to be black. Georgia did not switch until 2002, and some Southern states, including Louisiana, are still controlled by Democrats.  Today, Democrats, in pursuit of their socialist agenda, are fighting to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for Democrats. Examples of how egregiously Democrats act to keep blacks in poverty are numerous.  After wrongly convincing black Americans that a minimum wage increase was a good thing, the Democrats on August 3 kept their promise and killed the minimum wage bill passed by House Republicans on July 29. The blockage of the minimum wage bill was the second time in as many years that Democrats stuck a legislative finger in the eye of black Americans. Senate Democrats on April 1, 2004, blocked passage of a bill to renew the 1996 welfare reform law that was pushed by Republicans and vetoed twice by President Clinton before he finally signed it. Since the welfare reform law expired in September 2002, Congress had passed six extensions, and the latest expired on June 30, 2004. Opposed by the Democrats are school choice opportunity scholarships that would help black children get out of failing schools and Social Security reform, even though blacks on average lose $10,000 in the current system because of a shorter life expectancy than whites (72.2 years for blacks vs. 77.5 years for whites). Democrats have been running our inner-cities for the past 30 to 40 years, and blacks are still complaining about the same problems. More than $7 trillion dollars have been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty with little, if any, impact on poverty. Diabolically, every election cycle, Democrats blame Republicans for the deplorable conditions in the inner-cities, then incite blacks to cast a protest vote against Republicans.  In order to break the Democrats’ stranglehold on the black vote and free black Americans from the Democrat Party’s economic plantation, we must shed the light of truth on the Democrats. We must demonstrate that the Democrat Party policies of socialism and dependency on government handouts offer the pathway to poverty, while Republican Party principles of hard work, personal responsibility, getting a good education and ownership of homes and small businesses offer the pathway to prosperity.