OpEdNews » Republican Debate: It's Not That They Are Writing Off Coloreds...They're Just A Little Scared

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Tag(s): Republican Racism
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September 28, 2007 at 13:54:11

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Republican Debate: It's Not That They Are Writing Off Coloreds...They're Just A Little Scared

by steve young Page 1 of 1 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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Tell me you wouldn't cross over to the side of the street if you saw Tavis Smiley walking toward you at night.

Sure, a lot of Republican presidential candidates missed last night's Republican minority issue debate. But saying that it was some sort of putdown of people of color would be like saying that Bill O'Reilly being surprised that a black restaurant, um, didn't "market to their clientele" the way he thought they would, was somehow racist.

I, for one, think of neither as racist.

Ignorant, yes. Racist, no.

Racist would be like hauling Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on to your show to demonstrate how unracist you are then go on to tell them what the problem is with Blacks in America. To Bill O'Reilly, next to "more fathers in the house," the African-American fix would be for Jackson to join Bill in castigating MediaMatters.

Perhaps, Bill was right and those who chose not to appear at the debate - New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Sen. Fred Thompson, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney - are just afraid of blacks. But while host Tavis Smiley could have been packing, he really does appear to be one of those nice Blacks, not to mention, pretty articulate too.

You begin to wonder why any African-American, other than Alan Keyes (who for some reason materialized on the candidates' stage), or Latino, would vote for those who "had a scheduling conflict."

If I were cynical, I might say that the reason those Republican candidates didn't appear at the debate was because the primary process is where a candidate plays to his base to get nominated...and their base would rather their favorite not kowtow to them there coloreds.

And that is even more scary than dinner at Sylvia's.

<em>Disclaimer: Steve Young is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (www.greatfailure.com)and his "All The News That's Fit To Spoof" appears in L.A. Daily News opeds every Sunday (www.dailynews.com/steveyoung), right next to Bill's...really</em>

www.greatfailure.com

A talk show host, author, columnist,award-winning television writer and filmmaker, his inspiring book, "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (Tallfellow Press) has been published internationally and has become required reading in the Wharton School of Business Masters Program. His "All The News That's Fit To Spoof " column appears every Sunday on the L.A. Daily News Oped Page. Steve has appeared all over national TV and radio with his unique brand of satirical punditry and social observations appearing in national periodicals from the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, to his own weekly Internet column "The Lords Of Loud," at AlbionMonitor.net and The Huffington Post.

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3 comments

I am a libertarian activist and writer. I believe in a free market, complete civil liberties and a non-interventionist foreign policy. We do not have anything like this at this time. I am a firece opponent of the Bush administration. Please see my web page.
Alice LillieI am a libertarian activist and writer. I believe in a free market, complete civil liberties and a non-interventionist foreign policy. We do not have anything like this at this time. I am a firece opponent of the Bush administration. Please see my web page.

You Didn't Mention Ron Paul Who Was There

Ron Paul debated and got good applause.

Why am I not surprised?

Paul is a libertarian, different from Republicans, although he is a Republican. Different because he supports the little guy and doesn't care whether this little guy is white, black yellow or brown.

Keep an eye on Ron Paul.

See my own blog at http://www.alicelillieandher.blogspot.com

by Alice Lillie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 58 comments) on Saturday, September 29, 2007 at 10:25:25 AM

Don'pigeon hole me or sterotype me
pratliff94Don'pigeon hole me or sterotype me

Steve Young

They were trying to be smarter than Ahmajinedad.

You are right. They wrote off the black vote long ago. Black and Brown people are smart enough to know the Republicans stand against every issue that has helped them for the past seventy- five years.

Ron Paul stands against those same programs such as a graduated income tax, social security, a national free health system, public schools without free vouchers to Catholic, Muslims, Baptist, Evangelicals and Mormons; in other words, a government that helps and just not stands silently on the side lines hoping wealthy people will help poor people and those earning less than six figures a year out the great goodness of their wealthy, greedy hearts.

Phil Ratliff

by pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 969 comments) on Saturday, September 29, 2007 at 12:38:20 PM

Retired Foreign Service Officer and past Manager of Political and Military Affairs at the US Department of State. For a brief time an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Denver and the University of Washington at Seattle. A graduate of the National War College and a Phd from the University of Southern California.
Herbert CalhounRetired Foreign Service Officer and past Manager of Political and Military Affairs at the US Department of State. For a brief time an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Denver and the University of Washington at Seattle. A graduate of the National War College and a Phd from the University of Southern California.

If it Walks Like a Duck, etc., etc. You get my drift?

Steve,

By now you must know that we have all been trained to know that when anyone says "it is not about race;" it very definitely IS about race.

Unless we are living on different sides of the universe, I would argue that everything the GOP does IS about race. Certainly we have learned to read symbolic gestures that only the GOP still sends out -- such as refusing to show up at a black arranged political debate as -- "a coded racist message."

Did you forget that we are still deep into Nixon's Southern strategy? Or that Ronald Reagan kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi, where three of the most famous of Civil Rights workers were brutally murdered? Or that GW Bush and John McCain made pilgrimages to Bob Jones U., the bastion of anti-race mixing? Or that GH Bush beat Dukakis solely on the Willie Horton ad?

If you don't believe me then here it is directly from the horse's mouth: Lee Atwater, the mentor of Karl Rove, in an interview before he died of cancer said: "You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' " "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."

Steve, if it walks like a duck, etc., etc. You get my drift?

by Herbert Calhoun (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 37 comments) on Saturday, September 29, 2007 at 5:20:42 PM