Republican Self-Scrutiny(3): Blacks
ForumPolitical Conservatives
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2HectorSwell
Ishmael Reed published an op-ed piece just today related to this topic.
4Bretzky1
I think that the problem that Republicans have drawing the votes of black Americans stems from the difference in how conservatives and liberals approach the issue of racial prejudice. Liberals take a positivist approach to it. That is to say that they advocate not just for an end to racism in things like hiring and education, but they also advocate for positive inducements to help blacks in those areas. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to take a negativist approach, meaning that they stop short of taking active steps to promote the interests of black Americans in those areas.
In effect, conservatives tend to believe that if you can effectively prohibit institutions from actively discriminating against blacks, then everything will work itself out; whereas liberals tend to believe that even after accomplishing that step, blacks still need active assistance because many institutions are inherently discriminatory because they have been designed with the intention--either consciously or unconsciously--of excluding blacks. Black Americans have largely sided with liberals on this issue.
Democrats also have an advantage in that many policies that they promote that aren't necessarily about race have a disproportionate advantage for blacks because of the relatively poor socioeconomic standing of blacks in America. The one policy that Republicans tend to advocate where that is the case is school choice.
1964 is the year when the Republicans became no longer competitive with black voters. Nixon had gotten about 30% of the black vote in 1960; Goldwater's tally was less than 10%. Nixon saw his vote move up to around 15% in '68, but that was, I believe, the post-1960 high water mark for Republican presidential candidates in terms of the percentage of the black vote they have gotten relative to the overall percentage of votes cast they have garnered.
In effect, conservatives tend to believe that if you can effectively prohibit institutions from actively discriminating against blacks, then everything will work itself out; whereas liberals tend to believe that even after accomplishing that step, blacks still need active assistance because many institutions are inherently discriminatory because they have been designed with the intention--either consciously or unconsciously--of excluding blacks. Black Americans have largely sided with liberals on this issue.
Democrats also have an advantage in that many policies that they promote that aren't necessarily about race have a disproportionate advantage for blacks because of the relatively poor socioeconomic standing of blacks in America. The one policy that Republicans tend to advocate where that is the case is school choice.
1964 is the year when the Republicans became no longer competitive with black voters. Nixon had gotten about 30% of the black vote in 1960; Goldwater's tally was less than 10%. Nixon saw his vote move up to around 15% in '68, but that was, I believe, the post-1960 high water mark for Republican presidential candidates in terms of the percentage of the black vote they have gotten relative to the overall percentage of votes cast they have garnered.
7Arctic-Stranger
When I was a minister a group of (mostly white) pastors wanted to form a biracial pastoral alliance. We set up all things we thought would work, but got almost no response.
Later we learned that we did it all wrong.
A) we wanted them to come to us. We should have gone to them.
B) We discounted their experience as black pastors. Many of them worked full time at other jobs, and a weekday meeting was impossible. We assumed they had all the advantages we did.
C) We discounted how much becoming a part of a biracial group would dilute what power they did have. In a society (Durham, NC) where they were somewhat disempowered, we wanted them to join us, on our terms, and give up what they had on their own. The Black Church is a locus of Black Power (not in the Black Panther sense), and we were unaware of that, and asking them to give it up.
and finally
D) We wanted them to come to us. We should have gone to them.
That last point bears repeating.
Later we learned that we did it all wrong.
A) we wanted them to come to us. We should have gone to them.
B) We discounted their experience as black pastors. Many of them worked full time at other jobs, and a weekday meeting was impossible. We assumed they had all the advantages we did.
C) We discounted how much becoming a part of a biracial group would dilute what power they did have. In a society (Durham, NC) where they were somewhat disempowered, we wanted them to join us, on our terms, and give up what they had on their own. The Black Church is a locus of Black Power (not in the Black Panther sense), and we were unaware of that, and asking them to give it up.
and finally
D) We wanted them to come to us. We should have gone to them.
That last point bears repeating.
