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Monday, January 16, 2012 at 11:00 AM EDT
African-Americans And The GOP

Bob Oakes in for Tom Ashbrook

African-Americans and the GOP. It’s still a struggle. We’ll ask why.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, center right, answers a question as former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (L-R) during a Republican presidential candidate debate at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, N.H., Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP)

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, center right, answers a question as former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (L-R) during a Republican presidential candidate debate at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, N.H., Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. (AP)

President Obama was buoyed into office with the help of 95 percent of black voters.  For the GOP, attracting black voters has been a struggle.   And the Republican candidates can’t seem to get on message. Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have all had to make the case that their words, their actions, were not racist.

And their message of conservative values and small government doesn’t seem to be gaining any traction among African Americans.

This hour, On Point: why the GOP isn’t winning over African Americans.

-Bob Oakes

Guests

Charlton McIlwain, professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. He is co-author of Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in U.S. Political Campaigns.

Ron Christie, GOP strategist and president of Christie Strategies. He’s the author of Acting White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur.

C Segment – Isabel Wilkerson “The First Black American to…”

Isabel Wilkerson, professor of Journalism at Boston University’s College of Communication and author of “The Warmth of Other Suns.”

From The Reading List

The New York Times “On Sunday, Rick ”The Rooster” Santorum, campaigning in Iowa, said what sounded like ”I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.” At first, he offered a nondenial that suggested that the comment might have been out of context. Now he’s saying that he didn’t say ”black people” at all but that he ”started to say a word” and then ”sort of mumbled it and changed my thought.””

The Nation “In the British original of The Office the main protagonist, David Brent (US reincarnation: Michael Scott), wistfully recalls a tender moment during his favorite war film, The Dam Busters, involving the hero pilot, Wing Commander Guy Gibson. “Before he goes into battle, he’s playin’ with his dog,” says Brent.”

Christian Science Monitor “After Herman Cain, the GOP has a credibility crisis with black voters;  Even before Herman Cain suspended his presidential campaign, Republicans faced a crisis withblack voters. The GOP has never been able to garner more than 12 percent of the black vote – not with black appointees; not with black candidates. The party needs to become more progressive.”

Essay: The First Black American To…

By: Isabel Wilkerson

A single thread appears and reappears in the final words written by the families of more than 300 people who died this past year. In each of these obituaries, was a phrase that read something like this: “the first black American to…” or “the first African-American X.”

Eugene King was the first African-American milk delivery man in Gary, Indiana area. Eddie Koger was the first black bus driver in the state of South Carolina. Camillus Wilson was the first African American meter reader for the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. Nancy Hodge-Snyder was said to have “had the distinction of being the first black registered nurse in Kalamazoo, Michigan.”

I scan the list of names and I can’t stop reading. How mundane the positions are. How modest the dreams have been. But added together, they somehow bear witness to how far the country has come and how it got to where it is. They speak to how many individual decisions had to be made, how many chances taken, the anxiety and second-guessing at the precise instant that each of these people got hired to whatever humble or lofty position they sought.

Walter Tharp Jr. was the first black window dresser at Wolf & Dessauer’s Department Store in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Walter Lee was the first black postal clerk in Winter Park, Florida. Bernice Ellis Riley was the first black teller at First Federal Bank in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Thomas Reid Sr. was the first African-American mold maker at Wheaton Glass in Millville, New Jersey.

When they were hired, most appeared to have known when they were making history. The family of Alvin Taylor of Palmetto, Florida described him simply as “the first African-American in every appointment he attained.” A woman named Dorothy Allen had never known of a black probation officer in her county, but in 1974, she applied anyway because she had a sociology degree, heard of an opening and needed the job. “Everybody knew who had which jobs,” her husband Dempsey, told me. “There was some judge’s nephew that wanted that job. We were shut out time and time again. But she went in there and she got it.” They celebrated in Detroit that weekend, and decades later he wrote the line I read in her obituary, “first black probation officer in Saginaw, County, Michigan.”

There are influential people on the list. James Bowman was the first black resident at St. Luke’s Hospital in Chicago and the father of White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett. Annette Samuels was the first black White House spokeswoman. Matthew Perry was the first black United States District Court Judge in South Carolina.

But it’s the lesser known positions combine that make history with a little “h.” The more ordinary the “first” the more petty the years of exclusion seem to be in a world filled with black tellers and postal clerks. Each position was both a happy triumph and a sad reminder of what it took to get there.

Jimmie Nolcox was the first black reserve sheriff deputy hired in Gibson County, Indiana. Donald Dickerson was the first African-American fire fighter in Statesboro, Georgia. Pressie Frentress was the first black mail carrier for the Grey Iron Plant in Saginaw, Michigan. Eva McElroy was the first African American voter precinct inspector in San Jose, California. Marjorie Grevious was the first African American female licensed funeral director and embalmer in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Sometime in the future, the phrase will be invoked in the obituary for the biggest first of all, the first African American elected to the Oval Office. It’s a designation that surely, the first milk delivery man and the first electrician and the first African American business agent for Union Local 663 had more than a little something to do with.

 
  • original famous Cory

    I think Republicans should celebrate getting 12% of the African-American vote.  It really only makes sense for wealthy African-Americans to vote Republican, and since I’m confident that fewer than 12% of them are wealthy I’d have to consider it a demographic success.

    Who should vote Republican?

    1.  The wealthy.
    2.  Hard core war-mongers and imperialists.
    3.  Evangelical Christians.
    4.  Single issue voters on social issues (Gays and Abortion).
    5.  Fools who have been convinced to vote against their own self interest.

    Question is, what percentage of the US population does this account for?  What percentage of the African American population does this account for?
     

    • guest

      The reason why the GOP has so much power as it has is because most people eligible to vote actually do NOT vote. To their and our own peril.

  • Gemli

    You’ve got to ask why black voters don’t flock to the GOP?  The question I’d ask is why on earth 12 percent DO.  You could also ask why gay people should vote Republican, or why single mothers or non-believers or people who value science or education or unemployed people or people dependent on Medicare or Social Security should vote Republican.  Ask every group that the Republicans disparage and demean and who are not part of the utopian fantasy world that Republicans want to create.

    • Tina

      I’d like to add:  people with pre-existing condition, and people who might have a pre-existing condition by the time they apply for health insurance

  • Gregg

    I look forward to the show, Ron Christie is very good.

  • Yar

    On this MLK day, I feel it is important to put the power of the Church in proper political perspective.  In the Civil Rights Movement, the Church served the people, the ideology of the church was power to the people.  Today the ‘conservative movement’ from within the church is vesting its power in individual politicians and their ideology.  The Church is aligning itself with hot button issues in an attempt to remain relevant.  Historically, at times like this is when the Church gets reformed into a new voice for the people.  Democracy grows when the institutional ideology gets too divergent in practice from the collective goals of its members. Faith is an important aspect of our national conscience, the institutional Church along with political parties have morphed from a model of service to self serving organizations.  This has brought us to the brink of what I believe is a civil war, a generational war that can turn violent very quickly.
    Reformation is a messy time for institutions. For every action their is an equal and opposite reaction.
    Sunday Morning is the most segregated hour of the week.  I would love to hear from some black Mormons on today’s show.  What is the Mormon Church’s position on interracial relationships?

    • Gregg

      “Sunday Morning is the most segregated hour of the week.”

      That’s profoundly true. I remember during the 2008 campaign people excusing Rev. Wright by saying whites don’t understand “black churches”. What’s a black church? What does faith have to do with race?

      • Yar

        Sunday Morning segregation is more than just by race, economic and educational status also segregate our worship services.  Attend a black church for a couple of months and you will begin to understand the role of faith in building community.   The church has a historical place in our democracy, our very form of representation was lifted whole cloth from the Presbyterian book of order.  Humans are a herd species, faith is part of how we connect to the herd.  It extends family beyond closely shared genetics.  This seems to serve a purpose in our evolutionary development as a species. 

        • Ellen Dibble

          “Lifted whole cloth from the Presbyterian book of order.”  Wow.  I think I believe that, although I think the founders were mainly Congregational.  
              But extending the family beyond closely shared genetics then also explains why churches are cohesive and either “feel right,” or not, with all these variables that differentiate us figuring in, totally beyond the particular creeds or articles of faith.  

  • Still Here

    It is no surprise that Democrats, being the party of freeloaders, has captured the votes of those who put little thought into their decision-making at the polls.  Democrats have orchestrated a perfect marriage between those who wish to cultivate low expectations in others and those who would prefer to be coddled by a nanny state.  

    In contrast, Republicans are the party of self-reliance and freedom to succeed and so it attracts people with similar mindsets.  

    Race doesn’t even enter into the equation.

    • Anonymous

      Ahh. The good old bootstrap theory of life. It’s always puzzled me how so many Republicans, also known as the “God” party so frequently denounce every tenet of decency put forth by Jesus Christ, concerning the poor, the meek, and the less fortunate. Care and concern for the least among us was of utmost importance to Jesus, yet these holier than thou, God fearin’ hypocrites, while loudly pronouncing their Christian bona fides, despise most of the principles he espoused. If these predominantly Christian folks find Christs principles so abhorrent, why don’t they try something else? Zen Buddhism sounds nice.

      • Still Here

        Not all Republicans are that religious, though all Democrats seem to be Satan worshippers.  

        • Anonymous

          The Republican Party allowed itself to be hijacked by the Holy Roller Hypocrites years ago. There’s nothing more important to a Republican candidate for public office than wearing his religion prominently on his sleeve. If they’re not really that religious, then they too are hypocrites. You’re second sentence gets you the  ” Bonehead of the Day” award.

          • Gina M

            I think that second sentence was meant to be ironic, referring to the portrayal of Democrats by the rabid X-tian right. (I hope I’m right about  that.)

          • Anonymous

            Pretty to think so, but I think you’re wrong.

  • Gregg

    It seems to me many blacks these days want to be judged by the color of their skin over the content of their character and many whites, especially ruling class liberals, are happy to comply. How else to explain affirmative action? The phrase “African-American” illustrates it as well. I personally don’t refer to my ethnicity when I say I’m American. Why would anyone? Why do we require race be listed on any government document? What possible difference can it make? Why is relentless, disgusting racism tolerated when directed at black Conservatives like Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, Herman Cain, Ward Connerly and others? The NAACP won’t even comment on racist remarks directed at Thomas, they are clearly political how can the stay tax exempt?

    http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/07/naacp-won%E2%80%99t-directly-address-racism-leveled-against-clarence-thomas-at-progressive-protest/

    We’re all mutts, who cares what color we are?

    • mary elizabeth

      Human variation is all it is .  We will all be “one color” someday world as  grows smaller and the population intermarries.

    • Hidan

      oh please, your views are so messed up it’s not even funny. Now remember this is the guy who saw nothing wrong with obama’s picture as a child and his parent depicted as chimps, claimed the tea party wasn’t racist. As for Cain he made bigoted comments about blacks while folks like Gregg Cheered and defended, Thomas is a uncle tom and through his wife’s actions has shown such, Rice get’s criticism for lying to Americans. I try searching the site for racism from the republicans or recent cases of racism by the tea party amazing all cases with the exception of Paul was explained away take for example Newt’s.

      Orange County Republican Party Member Circulates Racist Email Targeted At President Obama

      http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/04/15/orange-county-republican-party-member-circulates-racist-e-mail-targeted-at-president-obama/

      http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/08/gingrich-explains-re-frames-paychecks-not-food-stamps-rhetoric/

      Krauthammer,

      http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/24/krauthammer-eric-holder-one-of-the-most-incompetent-attorneys-general-in-us-history/

      Know who else attacked the NAACP? Mark Williams of course writing a racism letter to Lincoln.

      Relentless disgusting racism never crossed gregg mind.

      P.S. the daily caller is a rightwing sites and if you wanna see racism read some of the daily callers attacks on Eric Holder. Don’t forget the birthers and folks on the onpoint thread that promoted such.

      • Gregg

        I condemn anyone being depicted as a monkey it’s just that I don’t make a racist link as a racist would.

        http://drivelocity.com/images/misc/bush_job_chimp.jpg

        http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Uploads/Graphics/149/01/149-0112210745-bush_chimp_address.jpg

        http://www.vote29.com/newmyblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/bush_monkey.jpg

        Newt is right about paychecks instead of welfare checks although I don’t know why he directed it at the NAACP as more whites are on food stamps than blacks. Maybe because they are a disgusting example for young blacks. They are just as racist as the National Association for the Advancement of White People (KKK).

        Only a racist could label criticizing Holder as racist. The incompetant boob is a national disgrace.

        • Terry Tree Tree

          WHY haven’t the rich, that got TAX-CUTS, to CREATE JOBS, created jobs with that money?  They came up with MORE excuses, but no more jobs!  They DIDN’T give the money back, either, and admit their failure!

        • TFRX

          Newt is right about paychecks instead of welfare checks although I don’t
          know why he directed it at the NAACP as more whites are on food stamps
          than blacks.

          Newt said “paychecks, not food stamps”. I’m not surprised that he doesn’t know, and you don’t care, that when one has a crap job one can get both a paycheck and still qualify for food stamps.

          And you’re so cute when you say “I don’t know why the firebrand petulant Gingrich dogwhistled that statement that’s not very racist so as to get the dogwhistle out there”.

          Either you’re a fool on this or a knave. No matter which, let’s you (self-titled reasonable Republican) and them (GOP base) fight.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      For HUNDREDS of years, that was the truth about whites!  down to 1/64 th of your blood, or ANY trace, that could be accounted for, made you ‘OTHER’ than white.
          Unfortunately, societal issues don’t, and probably cannot swing quickly from one extreme to center, and stop to stay there!
          I was an adult, before the 1/16 Cherokee of me was not to be hidden!

  • http://www.dogoodgauge.org The Do Good Gauge

    Though timely, On Point provides little opportunity this Martin Luther King Day for the following essay to be On Topic.  Forgive me for trying to squeeze it in.

    I Had the Dream

    Lastnight I was awakened by a dream planted by the words of Stephen Breyer’s book named Making a Democracy and Martin Luther King’s famous speech.

    I had the dream that one day this nation rose up and
    lived out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be
    self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

    I had the dream of the river banks of Alton, where the
    sons of unemployed factory workers sat down together at the table of
    brotherhood.

    I had the dream where even the people of Missouri, the individuals
    drowning in the waves of obscurity, drowning in the depths of
    oppression, were rescued by the shoreline of freedom, justice, and
    opportunity.

    I had the dream!

    In this dream there was a vision of Elijah
    Lovejoy’s printing press emerging from the receding water of the
    Mississippi River. Within the remaining typeset, the prophecy was
    stated, “Freedom is in the words of the common man“.

    I had the dream!

    I had the dream where political posturing was replaced with
    individuals who put their best effort into developing civil answers
    within their community. I had the dream of a country where majority
    participation overcame the injustice of a privilege few. A dream where
    Americans saw the solutions to social dilemma within their hands and
    not at the feet of the ruling class.

    I had the dream where each citizen understood their role in society.
    A role not assuming one’s perspective was best or that attention
    could be commanded. In this dream the farmer, fisherman, and
    bricklayer were supported by fellow citizens in expressing a solution to
    the benefit of all. Failure was not an end in this dream, it was a
    beginning, it was an opportunity to refine thought for a second, third,
    or umteen chance to reach consensus for a civil solution.

    I had the dream!

    A dream where technology replaced turpitude with justice, honesty,
    and good moral character. In this technology democracy trumped the
    bias of a controlling media. In this dream the merits of an
    argument decides who, where, and when the thought was viewed, not the
    CEO, not the publisher, and not the authority of the powers that be.

    I had the dream lastnight!

    And when this dream almost became reality, when we almost allowed
    freedom to ring, when it almost rang from every village and every
    hamlet, from every state and every city, the day almost came where all
    of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,
    Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and Hindus and Buddhist, Democrat and
    Republican, Liberal and Conservative nearly joined hands to sing the
    words of the old Negro spiritual:

    Free at last! Free at last!

    Thank GodAlmighty, we are free at last!

    • Modavations

      I didn’t read it the first time!!!!

  • http://www.dogoodgauge.org The Do Good Gauge

    Though timely, On Point provides little opportunity this Martin Luther King Day for the following essay to be On Topic.  Forgive me for trying to squeeze it in.

    I Had the Dream

    Lastnight I was awakened by a dream planted by the words of Stephen Breyer’s book named Making a Democracy and Martin Luther King’s famous speech.

    I had the dream that one day this nation rose up and lived out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

    I had the dream of the river banks of Alton, where the sons of unemployed factory workers sat down together at the table of brotherhood.

    I had the dream where even the people of Missouri, the individuals drowning in the waves of obscurity, drowning in the depths of oppression, were rescued by the shoreline of freedom, justice, and opportunity.

    I had the dream!

    In this dream there was a vision of Elijah
    Lovejoy’s printing press emerging from the receding water of the Mississippi River. Within the remaining typeset, the prophecy was
    stated, “Freedom is in the words of the common man“.

    I had the dream!

    I had the dream where political posturing was replaced with individuals who put their best effort into developing civil answers within their community. I had the dream of a country where majority participation overcame the injustice of a privilege few. A dream where
    Americans saw the solutions to social dilemma within their hands and not at the feet of the ruling class.

    I had the dream where each citizen understood their role in society. A role not assuming one’s perspective was best or that attention
    could be commanded. In this dream the farmer, fisherman, and bricklayer were supported by fellow citizens in expressing a solution to the benefit of all. Failure was not an end in this dream, it was a beginning, it was an opportunity to refine thought for a second, third,or umteen chance to reach consensus for a civil solution.

    I had the dream!

    A dream where technology replaced turpitude with justice, honesty, and good moral character. In this technology democracy trumped the bias of a controlling media. In this dream the merits of an argument decides who, where, and when the thought was viewed, not the CEO, not the publisher, and not the authority of the powers that be.

    I had the dream lastnight!

    And when this dream almost became reality, when we almost allowed freedom to ring, when it almost rang from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, the day almost came where all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,
    Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and Hindus and Buddhist, Democrat and Republican, Liberal and Conservative nearly joined hands to sing the
    words of the old Negro spiritual:

    Free at last! Free at last! Thank GodAlmighty, we are free at last!

  • Brett

    The new neocon angle (for the last few years now) is to somehow make the civil rights movement a wrong-headed approach that created racism and economic oppression for Blacks. I wonder how many of those neocons actually are old enough to remember times back before the ’60′s? I also wonder how they think those times should have been different, in what way could we have solved the problem of discrimination? Did we even have a problem with racial discrimination?   

  • Anonymous

    The GOP has run on 40 years of the Southern Strategy and yet they are shocked, shocked that African Americans won’t vote for them. Ask the far more pertinent question why 90% of white southerners vote republican and you will get your answer why African Americans vote democrat.

  • Modavations

    Why do Blacks hang with Dems.that’s easy.To quote Herr Shaw, “Those who pick the pocket of Paul to pay Peter,can always depend on Peter.The Dependence Party’s business model is “Keeping poor people poor”.And all for a vote.Why is the Dependence Party so against School Vouchers.That’s easier.As soon as the poor make money and pay taxes,they become Republicans

    • Brett

      School vouchers are a way to help those save money who already send their kids to private schools (the affluent). I remember, in one of my comments to you about vouchers, I used the amount of $10-15G annually for a private education; you replied with an amount of $13G, so let’s go with that number. Will the GoP (or any other political party other than Dems) see to it that the government pays ALL of that amount? 75%? Half? If a poor family gets a voucher for $5G, will they kick in the other $8G from their own pockets? 

      Also, if the GoP had handled civil rights issues back in the ’60′s the way you think they should have (and the Dems. hadn’t pushed for the legislation they did) what would have happened with respect to racial discrimination? 

      • Modavations

        If you afforded Vouchers so many schools would pop up,your head would spin.The tuitions,due to competition, would plummet(many paraochial schools cost under 8,000.00 per annum).half of Boston’s schools are Charters(screw that, I want vouchers)and the Teachers Unions fought against every one.

        • Terry Tree Tree

          MANY of those voucher schools have been exposed as frauds!  Either they utilize the facilities of a public school, avoiding that cost, DO NOT graduate well-educated students, or the organization that sells the voucher schools, are WAY over-paid, and bankurpt the school!
             Some of them are fine schools, but I want an HONEST, IMPARTIAL investigation, and evaluation of them, along with the same for public schools.
              Better methods and practices of education exist, than the majority of ALL types of school provide!

    • Hidan

      Fact free views but wait.

      Why do blacks do worst in Republican states than states run by democrats? if what you say is true than stats would show states run by republicans would have better results than states run by democrats.

      Also the % of blacks becoming wealthy has increased over the years yet still 95% vote democrat.

       Simple answer is that the republicans  base are inherently racist. Also if I substituted blacks with Gays who tend to be well off your reasoning doesn’t pan out.  And the reason why gays vote for democrats over republicans is the republican base is inherently homophobic.

      “.The Dependence Party’s” are the republicans who claim they can cut everyone taxes, keeps us safe from everything, increase government and defense and start wars without paying to get votes.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      I came from poverty, have been paying taxes for decades, and have egressed the lies and mis-direction of the GOP, to be more of a Democrat, even as I remain an Independent!  MANY others I know have done similiar!

    • Anonymous

      Where is the “dislike” button? I’d like one to respond to your comment, “Modavations”. 

  • Hidan

    The reason isn’t that hard to see,

    -The bass of the republican party are inherently racist

    -GOP leaders play on this inherent racist to drum up votes

    - The GOP because racism is frown on now use Code Words to get such racism across.

    See Reagan Welfare Queens, See people blaming the Financial collapses on
    poor blacks buying Mcmansions,See Santorum recent comments, See Newt
    past comments, see fox news, see the GOP attempts at Still trying to
    block minorities from voting

  • Worried for the country(MA)

    Don’t forget Herman Cain and Allan West were called racist too.

    Unfounded racism charges are thrown around way too easily these days.  It hurts the fight against real racism.

  • Modavations

    Pres.Lincoln,father of the Republican Party fought the Democrats to free their slaves.Jim Crow and the KKK were inventions of the Dixiecrat(Southern democrats).Pres.Eisenhower(Rep)liberated Little Rock.20% more Reps.then Dems.voted for the Civil Rights Laws.The always exalted, Robert Byrd(Dem)was Grand Dragon(or Kleegal?)of the KKK.The Dependency Party runs every American Ghetto and has made a racket of Poverty.Jesus walked by the Dem.Section 8 and Food Stamp purveyors to address  the assembled masses.This is what he said.This is what Martin King said(before he was seduced by the Dark Side)……..Let me teach you to fish

    • Modavations

      Whats the hardest american City to drive in???/Wheeling W.Virginia because every friggin road and high school is named after exalted Dem.leader,Robert Byrd

      • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

        I thought that it was Atlanta, thanks to all the peachy names.

    • Hidan

      Little history problem?

      Those democrats started working with and embracing blacks and  the racist democrats  aka Dixiecrat switched to the Republican party after blacks started fighting for civil rights and against Jim Crow laws. Hench the switch from blacks from being republicans to democrats.

      “The Dependency Party”

      Dependence party uses race to take the south

      http://www.salon.com/2011/02/03/reagan_southern_strategy/

      http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/09/red_states_feed.html

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Republicans ‘convienently forget’ these facts! 

    • Hidan

      P.S. didn’t Haily B get in trouble with KKK ties?

      • Terry Tree Tree

        As I recall.

  • Band

    Please note, that the Democrat party was the only party to have a former KKK member in government and the only party to have a member vote against the major civil rights legislation to get reelected well into the 2000′s.

    • guest

      Now Ron Paul is having photo ops with the Aryan Nation (neo-nazi) and a former KKK head.

      • Joe

        Total BS.  You have to stoop to low levels to smear the good doctor.  The fact is, he for equal rights for all and is not a racist like you imply.

        He has done more for minorities with his message than Obama or anyone else in politics at the moment.

        Get your facts rights.

  • TFRX

    For the GOP, attracting black voters has been a struggle.

    At least they have a backup plan: Their KOTV schemes are going full steam ahead.

  • Andy Pond0

    Then question is (and I’m not being flip), the question is really “why would any black person consider voting for a Republican?”. The policies, attitudes and history of racially divisive campaigns (remember Willie Horton) means that absent some radical change on the part of Republicans will give them a shot at more than 5% of the black vote.

    • Joe

      Because Ron Paul is running and he will protect rights for everyone. 

      Why would they vote for Obama?  What has he done for them. 

  • TFRX

    Wake me when Christie runs out of tired talking points and has to actually converse.

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    If political parties want to tailor their messages to races to gain support, whites are currently in the majority, and the next largest group is Hispanics.  I don’t see racial politics as a good idea or even an idea that fits with American values, but for those who do, blacks aren’t the first group to go after.

  • Ellen Dibble

    Dear Candidates of All Stripes:   Try not to insult those whose votes you hope to deserve.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Concise and ACCURATE!

  • Yar

    I get frustrated when I hear how the rich pay most of the taxes, the rich are simply tax collectors from the rest of us.  It is our labor that made them rich in the first place.  I would be happy for the middle income earners to have more so they could directly pay more in taxes.  That indicates they got a raise.

  • Jeffery from Vermont

    Please…the GOP and Black America? This idea of rugged individualism being touted, while leaving out any sort of political and legislative help via our systems inbuilt racism is an insult. The reasons most Black people in America don’t vote for Republicans is easy…those Republicans simply don’t represent their interests nor do they represent the interests of the poor and the middle class of any race in this country…espousing individual empowerment while leaving out the obvious facts is not only an insult but also the reason why Republican’s will not pick up any of those votes…

    • Ellen Dibble

      But “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” so some African Americans might want to try that route.
          It seems to me that black America definitely does NOT want to be taken for granted by the Democrats (which also are more or less owned by Big Money).
          And by the way, we will be majority non-white very soon.

      • Jeffery from Vermont

        but of course and number wise that will be as it should be..the dems are just as big money as repubs…they too have lost the plot…but to me, as a white person…I just can’t imagine being black and voting for the repubs…anymore than I can imagine as a member of the poor tribe voting for that ilk…I am voting for neither this election…

  • Anonymous

    Problems with African-Americans? They have problems with any non-white races. Case in point is their systematic war on voting rights as they try to disenfranchines non-whites. Why anyone is a member of the GOP is beyond me…

    What the GOP doesn’t get is that the interests of the wealthy and corporations are not the interests of the middle class.
    The GOP is at war with prolicies and programs which have fostered decreases in poverty and a healthy middle class. The Reagan revoluaiton and its war on the New Deal has only helped increase poverty and shrink the middle class, and destroy the American dream while the wealthy have grown richer. 

    • Joe

      Why anyone is affiliated with either party is beyond me.  They are two sides of the same coin.

  • Yar

    Last hour your guests spoke how the white south is very old testament. This has implications for the party to grow beyond its southern roots.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      You think that people that claim to be ‘Christians’ may eventually read the New Testament, and someday start trying to live up to it?

  • B-theace

    Re: the GOP

    As an African American man, I strongly agree with some of the principles of the Republican party (Self help, etc.) and know for certain that many of my family and friends do also. The Republicans problem is that they consistently approach the African American community from a condescending stereotypical position. If they really believe in the capitalist system – as most black folk do, tell them to set up a GOP Small Business Development entity WITHIN the black community. Put your money where your mouth is GOP.

    • guest

      The problem however is that the GOP is fully owned and controlled by the largest of multinational corporations that loot the country and are now backed by congress AND the supreme court (citizens united). They are the enemy of people families and small businesses alike.

      • Joe

        The democrats are every bit as controlled and owned by large corporations.

        • Modavations

          Wall St.donates 2 to 1 dem.to rep.Democrats are the party of the Crony Capitalist.Corzine,Solyndra.Hitler used that model.Under fascism,the economy stays in private hands and the govt.owns the owners.

          • Joe

            agree

      • JahFyah

        Completely spot on.  It’s not just the GOP that suffers from this phenomenom however, the Dems are equally as corrupted.  No longer a democracy, the correct word would be Corporatocracy (more historically referred to as fascism).

  • Jeffery from Vermont

    Speaking about helping getting blacks off of welfare is merely speaking to the white, racist base of the republican party…

    • Mia

      Exactly! 

  • Eli

    Why doesn’t the Republican message appeal to me?  Because I simply don’t relate to it.  It is so interesting that black people=food stamps & poor work ethic in their minds, as evidenced again and again whenever they speak about black people.  What are these terrible comments like Barack Obama is a “food stamp president”.  What if someone said Joseph Leiberman is part of a global, banking conspiracy?  Would there be any doubt as to where this person’s mind is?

    I can’t even listen to someone that just assumes that I am on welfare because of the ethnic group to which I belong.  Yuck.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Those, and ‘W’, are the reasons I rejected the GOP!

    • Anonymous

      And the truth is that percentage-wise, many more Caucasians receive food stamps and other types of “welfare” than do people of color in the U.S. Also, who is running all those meth labs? Caucasians again. But the stereotypes are what the Republicans use to appeal to their “base” voters. 

  • D And A Finley

    The GOP constantly divides Americans into classes:
    1) The Straight class that is afforded Constitutional rights, and
    2) The Gay class, to whom the Constitutional rights don’t apply.

    Why no one ever asks the GOP what are international gay married couples to do if American citizens cannot sponsor their legally married spouses? What is an American citizenship good for if it is not good enough to keep families together? The GOP is dividing American families

    • Joe

      Not a republican but I don’t blame them.  It is the media…putting us all into a category instead of, like you say, American citizens.  Color, race and sexual preference should be non-issues.  We are all citizens and should be equal. 

      I think our incarceration levels are destroying more families than anything else.  Our jails are full of non-violent drug offenders.  If we end prohibition of drugs, the incentive to sell them would disappear…tax them and offer treatment to those who are addicted.

      Also, our wars are destroying families as well.  End all wars now.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        I agree with most of your comment.
           I do ask you to tell how you would deal with addicts that rob, murder, steal, etc…, to get drugs?
           This, or these questions NEED to be answered, BEFORE legalizing drugs can be discussed!

  • L armond

    Apologizing for ‘insensitive’ remarks, and ‘mistatements’, is strategy of the South, well known, then you ask for forgiveness, “you,too, do wrong when you are tired, and weak’  Only those who send out the ‘insensitive remare, ‘sending the code’ and etc., etc., plus added news coverage is all a ‘plus’  because they must have 100 percent of the rightwing chritians, and graduates from Bob Jones University, Regent, etc.  It is all part of the song and dance, vaudville.

  • Hidan

    Ron Christie full of it. Nice Onpoint allowed him on to spin.

    Kudos to Charlton McIlwain for pointing it out.

    • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

      If you disagree with something, it’s spin, I take it.

      • Hidan

        You take alot and seem to be wrong even more.

        Ron C. supposed points were all GOP talking points and spin. All repeated or stated by talk radio and spun.

        • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

          You’re asserting that anything said by the Republican party is wrong by definition?

          • Modavations

            Absolfrigginlutely

          • Hidan

            NO you assert that I believe anything said by the republican party is wrong by definition.

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            Clarify your comment, please.

  • Jim Papadopoulos

    Guest just said Democrats offer nothing to victims of racism in hiring, housing, education. That’s manifestly untrue. And, it’s REPUBLICANS who are actively trying to suppress the minority vote with caging, voter ID, and other tactics.  Jim P.

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    What is a black, as opposed to a white, agenda?  Excellent question.  Race is not the single question through which all others must be considered.

  • Judy

    Perhaps it is less about the Republicans, or Democrats for that matter, TELLING blacks, immigrants, or any other underclass in our society what they are going to do for them, but first listening, asking, trying to learn and understand the needs of the disenfranchised.  I don’t think that any Republican candidates for President has a clue of the reality that most Americans are living in.  The ship is sinking.  We are not an entitled country.  Our economy is weaker.  Our schools are of lower quality than many in the world.  If the Republicans want this country to be as strong as they claim, they must look beyond their inner circle.

  • Sa

    Ron Christie’s sighting of The president’s opinion of the police action on his friend in Cambridge as an example of a lack of even handedness in the light of racial issues, and to consider that as one of three ‘significant’ examples to bring to the national stage to be contrasted with the institutionalized imbalances that permeate our society at large is in short, sad

  • Eli

    You should have cut off that Angela lady as soon as she started gay-bashing. 

  • Maryspoc

    I’m am older white woman living in Spokane ,Washington who wholeheartedly supports President Obama.  there is no question in my mind that many of my neighbor’s “interest” in the Republican party is tinged with racism. They are embarassed to admit it, but they often decry things that they supported when Bush did them. The Republicans shamelessly set out to cripple this administration before he started his first day in office.

  • Tina

    Prof. McIlwain just nailed it!!!  The “agenda” that the other guest referred to only ended — legally — against African-Americans in 1965, so it is infuriating when some White Americans call any mention of race issues after that as “playing the race card”, or, in this case, the “agenda”, when the effects of centuries of discrimination are still at play in so much of the African-American community where those effects are known as systemic racism:  a very clear term which too many Republicans seem unable to think about addressing.  

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Excellent example!

  • Anonymous

    When one fails to directly address the injustice and abuse caused by racism, one will not solve those problems. The fear mongering, hate inspring and serial hypocrisy of GOP rhetoric clearly indicates that the GOP is clueless, unprepared and incapable of addressing and solving the problems of the African-Americans, Hispanics and other non-whites.

    • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

      How about a policy that creates opportunity for everyone, without regard to skin color?

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

        That’s the Dem platform.

        • Joe

          Dead wrong.  You are clueless Scott.

    • Modavations

      Mexico has been run by the Republicans since 2000.So has Canada.Every country in Europe is run by the Republicans except Greece.Sweden is Rep.and Norway and Finland are right-left coalitions.

      • Ray in VT

        Yeah, but in Europe the more conservative of the major parties support things like national health care.  Our Repulicans make mainstream European conservatives look like moderates at the very least.

        • Modavations

          Excuses,excuses

          • Ray in Johnson

            Excuses or facts?  Huntsman was the only GOP Presidential candidate to say that he believed in evolution.  The Republican party in America is much further to the right than mainstream European conservatives, unless you’re Geert Wilders.

          • Joe

            Evolution is a theory!!

          • Ray in VT

            It is.  However, I think that it’s got more observable backing than the religious belief that the world was created by God 6,000ish years ago.

          • TFRX

            Do you know what a “theory” is?

            Ask a scientist and they’ll say: Something that can be tested, and is discarded when found wrong.

            Funny how nobody on the Intelligent Design Creationism side has an actual theory on things.

            Or is this more false equivalence?

          • Ray in VT

            My theory is that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created all!

          • Joe

            i guess its possible :)

          • Ray in VT

            It could be, and my comments are not meant as an attack on religion of faith.

          • Joe

            mine either.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Proof of your hypothesis?

          • Joe

            Evolution is a theory.  I am not an intelligent design guy but the theory of evolution has many unexplained “holes” when applying it to humans.

          • Ray in VT

            And maybe some day those “holes” will be filled in, and maybe they won’t be.  There’s been a 150 of looking at the theory since Darwin first published the Origin.  It’s been changed, amended and updated to fit new discoveries, and it’s the best scientific approach currently out there.  Intelligent Design and Creationism are both founded upon a religions notion that requires faith and the supernatural.  They cannot even be called theories in the scientific sense of the word.

          • Joe

            Agree.. All I was saying is that it is a theory.  We don’t know what we don’t know.  Where are all the in-between monkeys that we are supposedly from??  

          • Ray in VT

            Buried somewhere.  Australopithecus and the dinosaurs were too at one point.

          • Joe

            you imply that you know the answer…..but you don’t!!

          • TFRX

            The moment intelligent design (sic) becomes an actual theory, it will become a disgraced, discredited theory.

            Even the name is a cover just to get someone else’s Creationism religion into my publically-funded schools.s

          • Modavations

            Excuses seem to be your modus operendi

          • Ray in VT

            I don’t see how my point is an excuse.  If I have two balls of different sizes, it is valid to say that they are similar or related, but not exactly the same.

    • Yar

      Likewise, we should acknowledge the affirmative action for whites that stems from belonging to the big church downtown,  the Rotary Club and an being Alumni member of the State college.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      The GOP is unprepared, clueless, and incapable of addressing, much less solving the problems of the less-affluent 80% of the U.S. Citizens, native american white, black, hispanic, or other!
         Favoring a polluting, job-outsourcing, union-busting, employee-abusing corporation, over those so mis-used, proves their failures!

  • Modavations

    Graduate High School,marry,don’t have kids till your 21

    • Yar

      And chose not to be born into poverty.

      • Modavations

        Silly me,I had no this condition is an option

  • Letsgetreal

    Oh please.  This was all sorted out in the ’60s, when LBJ spearheaded passage of the Civil Rights Act and alienated the racist whites who had been part of the Democratic coalition since Reconstruction.  The Republicans swooped in and grabbed that vote for their new conservative coalition and they’ve held it ever since.

    When you hear Republicans say, “We need to reduce taxes,” you can be sure that the message their “base” hears is, “We need to reduce the amount that hard working white people have to pay to support lazy black people who think the world owes them a living.”  When you hear Republicans say, “We’re for small government,” what they mean is, “We’re for reductions in government programs that help minorities,” — never “We’re for reductions in programs that protect the privileged.” 

    Republican candidates haven’t “misspoken” in their comments about race during the current campaign.  They’ve spoken clearly.  And their “base” has heard them loud and clear.     

  • Modavations

    Jesus walked by the Poverty Pimps and said “let me teach you to fish”

    • Hidan

      Verse please? esp with the mentioning of Pimps.

  • Joe

    Ron Paul is for equal rights for all.  He states the war on drugs, which he has been fighting for decades, is a racist policy.  Minorities are disproportionally incarcerated.  They don’t use more drugs.  Crack offenses were punished much harsher than cocaine offenses.  Crack being the cheaper of the same substance and more readily available in poorer areas. 

    I think the media does a good job of dividing everybody into groups.  I am not a republican.  I think people are people and we all deserve the same treatment under the aw. 

    Gay marriage is not a pressing issue yet it gets so much airtime.  Just give everybody the same benefits and call gay marriage a civil union.  Why is it so hard to do the right thing?

    • Josh

      Gay marriage is a pressing issue for those of us who are gay and who lack equal rights under the law. For any group in a democratic nation to be denied equality under the law is the most pressing of issues. Call straight marriage “marriage” and call gay marriage “civil union,” is your solution? Separate but equal, huh? We’ve been down this path before. It was called segregation. 

      • Joe

        Josh, call it whatever you want.  I am all for equal rights for all and fully support your lifestyle.  Loving unions are beautiful regardless of the situation.  It just seems like a no brainer to me.  Give everybody the equal rights.

        I am not religious, but for the millions that are, they are the ones who have a problem with the term marriage.  So instead of dragging out this easily fixed problem, call it a gay marriage, or a civil union….just put it into law.  We will be waiting a lot longer if you try to convince all the evangelicals. 

        • Terry Tree Tree

          If they make it a government recognized marriage, the churches can still have their marriages consecrated by the church, like Newt’s two with mistresses!  How much more ‘Christian’ can you get, than that?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

      Because I guess black=drug user to you.

      • Joe

        NO.  Don’t put words in mouth Scott.  Minorities are incarcerated at a much higher rate than whites and the current laws are racist as I stated above.

        You either cant read or are an idiot trying to start something here.

        Get real.

  • Jeffery from Vermont

    again, the old idea of cutting taxes for the rich will help most americans is trotted out…talk about old, dead ideas that have been proven wrong again and again…

    • Modavations

      Why did Obama extend the Bush tax cuts????

      • Anonymous

        Because, unfortunately, he’s a politician first, and a man of principle second. Just like most of them, Democrats as well as Republicans. Anyone who says this is not the case is either intellectually dishonest or not paying attention.

  • Roscoe McClain

    Please inform your guest that since Ronald Reagan proposed it in the 1980′s, the trickle down theory has been discredited.  Any tax breaks given to the wealthiest in our society stays with them.  They do not create a single damn job. 

    • Modavations

      read JFK’s economic speeches and tell us why he reduced taxes

  • Samuraent

    Tom, please stop acting like the republican Party is a legitimate option for people that identify themselves as black. 

    Blacks vote for Republicans?!! The Republican party is anit-black, and they make it very clear through their rhetoric and policies that they are the anti-black or anti-minority party. It is no wonder why right wing racists are such strong supporters of the Republican Party. Mass incarceration (which affects blacks disproportionally), human rights, economy issues, job policy,…GOP is always on the wrong side. 

    The Republicans are seen as close minded, not welcoming, and hostile. That is not creating an America where Black people feel safe or happy.  Blacks have historically had to rely on the power of the Federal Govt. to protect them from conservatives and right wingers. GOP wants to handcuff the feds and allow them to have their way with Americas citizens.

    • Consultant

      Spoken like a true black racist!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

      What’s strange in that the Jewish community is cast as being split, despite being as reliably democratic as the black community.

      • TFRX

        It’s a narrative our mainstream media loves to print every election cycle.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Why would those of Jewish descent, NOT vote for the party claiming ‘compassionate’, ;conservative’, ‘Christian’, ‘Family Values’, that teaches and preaches that Jews are bad because they killed Jesus Christ, a Jew?
          What could Jewish people possibly find objectionable about such a stupid, racial, HYPOCRIRICAL attitude?

    • William

      Joe Biden quote speaking about Obama;  “”I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”. “Joe” is a lifelong, Liberal, Democrat and he is just saying what the majority of the white, Liberal Democrats think about blacks.

  • Sa

    the underlying contradiction (in Ron Christie’s statement) is that if the result of the Harvard Professor’s detainment is a result of profiling then we are not in a post racial America and his point is moot, if he was indeed detained for other purposes and it wasn’t about race then the presidents attitude about the situation may have it’s proper forum but to make it about race and speak about it on this topic moves this listener to wonder if it’s simply because they’re both black

  • Altayor5

    Question for the Professor,  How does speaking of inner city, welfare, and other like parts of our society automatically mean they are speaking of black folks?  If that is perceived to be true, why? 

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

      Look up the “southern strategy.” Basically, every mention of “welfare” also uses terms like “inner city,” “urban,” and “Cadillac” (in older movies, black people, especially pimps, are depicted as driving Cadillacs).

  • Yar

    The current Republican party is against public education.  How does that conflict with using education as a path out of poverty!

    • Worried for the country(MA)

      Proof please?
      De-centralizing and pushing control back to the states is not being against public education.  Also, encouraging competition in education isn’t being against public education.  Even Obama has been pushing vouchers.

      Our education system is badly broken yet we spend more than anyone else.  One argument is the teachers unions are preventing the systemic changes required to revamp the system.

      And before you get on me, I firmly believe good teachers are underpaid.

      • Yar

        Vouchers will destroy public education.  Look what has happened to the cost of college. Here is an interesting video.  I am not endorsing its recommendations. But it makes some valid points.
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZtX32sKVE&feature=youtu.be

        • Modavations

          If they are forced to compete they will get it together

  • Rosco

    The reasons for this are clear cut.  Shrinking the size of (discretionary) government expenditures does not improve the lives of African Americans.  Quite the opposite.

  • Freesmilesinc

    It’s too bad you have a complete race sell-out in the person of Ron Chiristie supposedly representing the viewpoint of any number of blacks beyond one. The Repugs are guilty of neglecting, ignoring and dismissing the vote and the interest of blacks with the willing participation of Sambo’s like Christie and as I’m commenting, a caller from Mississippi. While it is true that the Democrats record on black issues is only marginally better the fact remains that the record is better, and likely to remain so. President Obama is more Red, White and Blue because of his race and because of obvious white reaction to his race that black issues are also integrated into the larger community concerns and not addressed directly as issues of color. So if there is an unwillingness to address issues of race on all sides of the political spectrum there are no party distinctions due to fact that to do so is an admission that the struggle for Civil and Equal Rights as it relates to blacks has been and remains a work in progress and the election of President Obama as a Democrat and not a Repug is transformational if only marginally.
         Please, Mr. Chistie don’t think that you speak in anyway for myself or any other blacks not of your ilk as you remain enslaved to the idea that the whites which dominate the Repugs are even interested in the views or interest of blacks as a balm for your own guilt. I have to suppose that you have some race identity based accomplishment which you claim while you were in the White House, unless of course your place in the White House was incidental to your race,,,,, yeah right! 

  • Kiriakos

    The historical facts of Democratic and Republican party racism are important as a starting point for this conversation, and I am always frustrated that so few understand how the Party of Lincoln became today’s Party of Racism.  Republicans rose to power rapidly in the 1850s on an abolitionist wave that elected Lincoln, and so the Whigs who had failed the abolition test disappeared.  The Democratic Party represented southern slave interests, and southern perspectives generally,  then and for another 100 years (teaming up with northern labor interests in the 20th century)The memory of stealing their “property” so enraged the south that a republican could not win a race for dog catcher in the old slaveholding south for a century following the Civil War.Here are the highlights that caused a total reversal of the parties’ policies on race:  Truman honored the wartime sacrifice of loyal black patriots, as well as improving military effectiveness, by integrating the armed forces by executive order, enraging southern Democrats who splintered off with Strom Thurmond’s  “Dixiecrat” spasm that split the support for Democrats in the south and therefore elected a Republican – Eisenhower.
    Then in the 1960s first Kennedy, and then more importantly, Johnson, became the elected champions of civil rights legislation (pushed to act by the influence of King and many others).  When Johnson – son of the south, signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, he turned to Bill Moyers [a speechwriter in the Johnson White House at the time] and said, “We just turned the South over to the Republicans for your lifetime and mine.”

    And that is exactly what happened, and why.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

    The mention of Republicans being offended by Obama calling the arrest of Gates “stupid” and the Justice Department not prosecuting the new black panther party shows exactly why blacks don’t vote Republican: the Republicans promote the storyline of white victimhood so old white racists can feel justified in thinking that they’re being persecuted by other people having rights. The arrest of Gates was stupid because Gates wasn’t doing anything illegal in Massachusetts. Even further, the Justice Department investigated the New Black Panther case and found that there was nothing illegal because the whole case is a myth created by old white racists. This whole pattern is of course best symbolized by the republican attack on ACORN, whose only crime was signing black people up to vote. This of course makes it hilarious that Republicans got so worked up by Holder pointing out that they were cowards on race, something that every black person knows.

  • Kiriakos

    The historical facts of Democratic and Republican party racism are important as a starting point for this conversation, and I am always frustrated that so few understand how the Party of Lincoln became today’s Party of Racism.  Republicans rose to power rapidly in the 1850s on an abolitionist wave that elected Lincoln, and so the Whigs who had failed the abolition test disappeared.  The Democratic Party represented southern slave interests, and southern perspectives generally,  then and for another 100 years (teaming up with northern labor interests in the 20th century)The memory of stealing their “property” so enraged the south that a republican could not win a race for dog catcher in the old slaveholding south for a century following the Civil War.Here are the highlights that caused a total reversal of the parties’ policies on race:  Truman honored the wartime sacrifice of loyal black patriots, as well as improving military effectiveness, by integrating the armed forces by executive order, enraging southern Democrats who splintered off with Strom Thurmond’s  “Dixiecrat” spasm that split the support for Democrats in the south and therefore elected a Republican – Eisenhower.
    Then in the 1960s first Kennedy, and then more importantly, Johnson, became the elected champions of civil rights legislation (pushed to act by the influence of King and many others).  When Johnson – son of the south, signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, he turned to Bill Moyers [a speechwriter in the Johnson White House at the time] and said, “We just turned the South over to the Republicans for your lifetime and mine.”

    And that is exactly what happened, and why.

    • Modavations

      Bill Moyers was an LBJ assassin.He was in charge of outing Gays.Read NYT last year

      • Terry Tree Tree

        That was everyone’s ‘civic duty’, at that time!  To enlist in U.S. Millitary, you had to list ANY possible contact or suspicion of contact with gays, with the warning that the FBI would be checking for truth, and omissions!
            Like the Joe McCarthy era, of looking for a ‘Commie Pinko’ under every rug, homosexuals were persecuted, and hunted in every aspect of life!

        • Modavations

          And he cried and cried.I didn’t want my son to know

  • Markus

    Hard
    to see that there will be an increasing percentage of blacks voting republican.

     

    I think it’s hard to
    make the connection between reducing welfare, reducing the power of teacher’s
    unions, reducing immigration, reducing the percentage of single parent
    families, etc. to improving the lives of African americans. However I think
    that all these elements will help. It’s
    much easier to see the benefits from things that are immediately given
    to you, whether white or black. Lower taxes and those paying most of the taxes
    right away see the benefits. Increase social services and those benefitting
    from those services will vote your way.

     

    Long term, it’s hard to
    see the party thriving that doesn’t give those who vote, more of the goodies.
     

    • Modavations

      We teach men to fish

  • Modavations

    Republicans think of only one color Green(“lana,Moolah”).We want everyone to be affluent so you’ll buy our products.The Dependency party wants to dumb the populace down,to make them dependent.Every Welfare Agency has a sign saying “Products of the Dem.-Dependency party.We expect your vote”)As soon as a poor person becomes affluent and pay taxes they become Republicans.

    Half “J” Terry

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Texas, with Republican Governor Rick Perry, has made several inaccurate changes to text books, which will dumb down Texas students, and limit them from higher education in other states and countries!
          Glad to see you sometimes remember the “J”.  I do hope for your chances for a decent amount of recovery!

  • Jeffery from Vermont

    Mitt Romney needing black votes? PLEASE…just read up on Mormons idea of Black people…I mean come on…

    • Joe

      Just read up on the History of Mormons in general.  Joseph Smith finding documents in an old house in New York…….Gimme a break.

      • Ray in VT

        I’m surprised that we haven’t heard anything about the history of how Latter Day Saints theology has regarded people of African descent.

        • Worried for the country(MA)

          Yeah and what about the Christian’s massacre of Muslims during the crusade.  How could anyone vote for a Christian with that kind of record?

          • Joe

            What about the current Christian/Jewish war on Muslims today.  Palestine is one big tragedy…..it is heartbreaking how they are dehumanized everyday.

            Media programs that   Muslims=terrorists

          • Ray in VT

            Yeah, but Mormon theology said something to the affect that blacks were souless mud people until 1979.  I’m not knocking members of the LDS church, but Smith had some weird views.

          • Modavations

            You are aware of course,that second to the throne,Harry Reid ,is a Mormon

          • Ray in VT

            Yup, but if you’re referring to the line of presidential succession, I think that he’s third in line.

          • Modavations

            Sorry,but did you get my point???

          • Ray in VT

            Apparently not.  Care to clarify?

          • Terry Tree Tree

            You mean the Oval Office?  What throne is Harry Reid in line for?

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

            Mormonism still regards black skin as the mark of Cain, and Romney was a minister during the time blacks were banned.

          • Hidan

            It wasn’t until the 1980′s did the Mormon church allow blacks to receive the priesthood. The Church of Latter Day Saints also believe that Indian were once white but killed God’s choosen Indian tribe and was marked with Red Skin.

            Many LDS still believe that “the mark” is what caused black skin. During the founding and thereafter of Utah favored Indians who did not mix with minorities as still being Indians and ones who did would loss there indian status.

          • Worried for the country(MA)

            and you conveniently leave off the part where Romney worked within the church to lift the ban and was ultimately successful.

            All of this was out front in the last presidential race and put to bed.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

            Heh, sure he did. Got any other bridges to sell?

      • Zero

        As an atheist, I actually feel more comfortable with a Mormon than most Christians.  They are generally very genuine people.

        • Joe

          To be honest I don’t know much about the Mormons…..but I am with you in the sense that Christians are not good people because they are religious.

          I like religions that are against war, murder and control of ones thoughts.

          I find my religion at the ocean, in the mountains or feeling the sun on my face with a cold drink in hand.

    • guest

      Many mormons still believe they have no soul, and women don’t have souls either. It is a freak Cult.

      • Ray in VT

        I would not demean the Mormon religion in that manner.

  • Markus

    Sorry about the formatting of my last response. 

  • Kiriakos

    The historical facts of Democratic and Republican party racism are important as a starting point for this conversation, and I am always frustrated that so few understand how the Party of Lincoln became today’s Party of Racism.  Republicans rose to power rapidly in the 1850s on an abolitionist wave that elected Lincoln, and so the Whigs who had failed the abolition test disappeared.  The Democratic Party represented southern slave interests, and southern perspectives generally,  then and for another 100 years (teaming up with northern labor interests in the 20th century)The memory of stealing their “property” so enraged the south that a republican could not win a race for dog catcher for a century following the Civil War.These are the highlights that caused a total reversal of the parties’ policies on race:  Truman honored the wartime sacrifice of loyal black patriots, as well as improving military effectiveness, by integrating the armed forces by executive order, enraging southern Democrats who splintered off with the “Dixiecrat” spasm that split the support for Democrats in the south and therefore elected a Republican – Eisenhower.  Then in the 1960s first Kennedy, and then more importantly, Johnson, became the elected champions of civil rights legislation (pushed to act by the influence of King and many others).  When Johnson – son of the south, signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, he turned to Bill Moyers [a speechwriter in the Johnson White House at the time] and said, we just turned the South over to the Republicans for your lifetime and mine.”
    And that is exactly what happened.  And why.

    • William

      The Democratic Party lost the South because times had changed. Most people in the South were fed up with goverment enforced discrimination and switched to the Republican Party because they were pushing for change and the civil rights bill.

      • Ray in VT

        I don’t know about that.  People like Strom Thurmond were Democrats, and he, along with many of the Southern Democrats who had been opposed to the GOP since it had been the Party of Lincoln and the Union, jumped ship after the Democrats began supporting civil rights.

        • William

          They went were the voters went and that was away from the Democrats and the state enforced discrimination. It is amazing how Thurmond and Bird managed to get reelected all those years.

          • Ray in VT

            It is amazing that they did get re-elected for decades, but I still don’t think that you’re right on the first point.  People, like Thurmond and Jesse Helms, left the Democrats after the national party ended its support of state sponsored discrimination.  Where did a lot of the pro-segregation politicians go after the civil rights era battles were over?  They went to the welcoming arms of the GOP.

          • William

            They went where the voters went and that was away from the Democrats. The South was becoming more industrial with companies leaving the North for cheaper labor, lower taxes, non-union South. The South had changed but the old “power brokers” still clung to their die-hard Democratic ideas of discrimination. If the GOP was so racist why was it that pushed for the civil rights bill? JFK sat on the sidelines and LBJ was forced to get onboard or it would have become a Republican victory.

          • Ray in VT

            But where did those old “power brokers” go?  To the GOP!  When there was no space for racist politics in the Democratic party, they jumped ship!  A lot of the same people were in charge, they just called themselves Republicans and talked about states rights instead of being Democrats that talked about states rights.

          • William

            The Democrats never dropped their racist policy. They just pander to the blacks every couple of years, but results would indicate blacks are just being played for fools. Look at black unemployment now with a black, Democratic President. Even the CBC is questioning Obama’s ability to help black Americans.

      • Anonymous

        I think you have it backwards. Most white Southern conservative democrats switched to the GOP due to the civil rights bill. Enforced discrimination was what was in place, it was called the Jim Crow laws.

        • William

          I lived in the South until the mid 1960′s and my father managed a chemical company there from the 1950′s. He said the silent majority of people living in the South did not care for the government laws enforcing discrimination, KKK and the rampant violence. Times had changed despite the picture the media published then and to some extent today. Many Democrats started to vote for Republicans since they were the party that pushed for change.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

            And that’s why the National Guard had to be called and business owners had to be prosecuted for discrimination. Got any other bridges on sale?

          • William

            You can say the same about the North. Remember the busing riots in Boston back in the 1970′s. The South always gets the burden for being so racist, but the North was not much better.

          • Anonymous

            At least black people could eat in a diner in Boston, and I never saw police dogs being unleashed on peaceful black demonstrators.

          • William

            You would be hard pressed to find blacks in South Boston.

          • Anonymous

            South Boston is one part of the city. Blacks could eat  anywhere they chose, including South Boston, if they were foolish enough to go there. When, exactly did it become legal for black people to eat wherever they wanted in cities like Mobile, Birmingham, Atlanta?

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

            There’s a pretty big difference between protesting your kids being shipped to the other end of the city and protesting small children being able to go to the school in their own school district.

          • Zero

            Even LBJ said after signing the civil rights bill that he just lost the South for democrats for at least on generation.

          • Zero

            …one generation.

          • William

            LBJ, like most political “leaders” don’t recognize change and hang on to the past while change passes them by. The South was dumping the Democrats and the Democratic way of governing despite the civil rights act.

          • Zero

              It started with FDR didn’t it…?  The big political shift was between the New Deal and Civil Rights.  What do you think?

          • William

            FDR just cared about bigger government, transfer of wealth from one group to another.

          • Ray in VT

            I find your comment to be factually inaccurate.  I must only assume that you have not read much history.

          • Modavations

            Do you know the man?I find you patronizing.

          • Ray in VT

            That’s okay.  Some people should told that their opinions are either foolish, ill-informed or down-right ignorant.  If you take exception to that, then so be it.

          • Modavations

            Your starting to sweat son.Next post will be the “temper tantrum”.

          • Ray in VT

            Not really.  I’m keeping my keel nice and even.

          • Anonymous

            The pictures the media published then were of  fire hoses, dogs, and “No Coloreds Allowed.” And jeff68 has it correct. The southern democrats fled the party because being forced to treat the “colored” folks like regular people was just going too far.

          • William

            That seems against what history has said about the Republicans pushing for the civil rights bill. You would think those Democrats would just not vote rather than vote Republican.

          • Ray in VT

            Yes, northern Republicans.  Vermont was solidly Republican from 1860-1960 (approximately), yet Vermont, as well as most other Northern, moderate Republicans, have been driven out of the party by the states rights and religious right Southern Republicans who have come to dominate the party today.

      • Anonymous

        This is the most blatant rewriting of history I’ve ever seen on these pages.

        • William

          Rewrite or correct? If you listen to the MSM JFK was God’s gift to blacks, but in real life? He was nothing more than a trust fund baby who only cared about his political future. Recently his late wife remarked she could not stand MLK. Called him a phony. Eventually, the truth comes out about people like the Kennedy’s. Even Chris Mathews lame attempt to make JFK out to be some saint failed.

          • Ray in VT

            Name for me the white southern leaders who stood up for African-American civil rights in the 1960s.  JFK was flawed, as we all are, but he was on the right side of history on civil rights.

          • William

            Very few,..which areas of the country had the most race riots? not in the South, so that indicates the racism being practiced in the North was pretty brutal and wide spread, JFK pretty much gets a free pass on most if not all of his failures. We can’t really say he was much in favor of civil rights since he did not want the civil rights bill passed until after 64.

          • Ray in VT

            Believe me, I’m not going to argue that racism didn’t, and doesn’t exist in the North.  I think that it was less blatant up here.  I would, though, argue that it was far more brutal in the South.  How many protesters in the North got hoses and dogs turned on them.  How many civil rights workers were murdered north of the Mason-Dixon?  Not as many as south of it.

            All who get idolized get their failures passed over.  I’m sure that Ted Williams had some shortcomings, but I ignore that because he hit .406 in 1941.  I’m not saying that it’s right, but that is the way that it is.  That’s why we need honest examination and discussion, not rhetoric and dogma.

          • William

            The list of race riots in areas outside the South is pretty long. Usually, the riots started as a result of police shooting a black. Not much difference between that and shooting civil rights worker(s) in the South. The police in the North were just as brutal towards blacks and could be called the establishments “enforcers”. I agree there has been very little honest examination of JFK. All we get is rhetoric and “don’t you dare question his decisions or the results of his decisions. It was the thought that counted.” Exactly what was that guy thinking? Other than “me first”?

          • Ray in VT

            I’d have to disagree with most of the first part your statement.  To suggest that racial oppression in the north was as heavy handed and violent as that in the south is, to me, preposterous.

            Thoughts count, but so do actions.  Supporting civil rights was a risky maneuver in the early 1960s, and if JFK wanted to get re-elected in 1964, and he would probably need to carry the South to do it, then he probably judged that he couldn’t risk supporting it too much.  That, unfortunately, is the how it goes in politics.  I wonder how many southern states LBJ would have carried had he run in 1964.

          • Anonymous

            Which areas of the country had the “no colored” signs in restaurants, hotels, colleges (remember that great anti-racist George Wallace, barring the entrance of a public university to to those uppity Negroes?) African Americans didn’t need race riots. All they had to do was gather for a peaceful demonstration, demanding their civil rights, and the police would beat the crap out of them.

          • Anonymous

            What in the name of living Hell does Jackie Kennedy’s opinion of any one have to do with the fact that southern democrats left the party for good because they couldn’t bare the thought of drinking water from the same fountain a black man has used?

          • Ray in VT

            I would especially like to know how she said it recently, seeing as how she’s been dead since 1994.

        • Modavations

          and Stalin,Hitler,Pol Pot were just misunderstood

          • Ray in VT

            So you’re comparing Southern conservatives rewriting history to make themselves good during the civil rights era to totalitarian lies?  I was wrong.  We can agree on something.

          • Anonymous

            Better be careful, Moda. You’re new lefty comrades will kick you out of the club if you keep poking fun. That’s no way to make friends.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

      You’re forgetting that the democrats were split between north and south, so much so that the two often ran separate presidential candidates. There’s also black voting for a historically racist party when they saw what actually benefited them: the new deal.

  • Ehdoss

    Christrie is shouting the Republican problem, they are passive-agressive bigots.  They can’t shout the “N” word anymore, but they whiper to to each other, “nudge, nudge, wink, wink”.

    This isn’t to say minorities shouldn’t demand more of Democrats.

    • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

      Demand what, specifically?

      • Gregg

        Bingo.

    • Zero

      Google has a new word-trender, and if you type in the n-word, its usage goes up significantly around election time.

  • JahFyah

    Herman Caine was no accident.  The suggestion that that clown could compete in the clearly scripted “debates” is hilarious.  This whole political debate is nothing short of a circus with all of the fixens.  Those blacks that are not top executives and align themselves with the Republican party, are self loathing apostates, hell bent on getting rich by selling themselves to corporate interests.  Then again, what’s the real difference in being a democrat these days?  I see very little in this Corporatocracy.

  • Hidan

    On one side you have a Professor  of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture. The other an Republican strategist who is paided to get republican elected talking about blacks.

    While the first talks about the history and current events the second has been time and time throwing around talking points and spin. At one point he even came close to blaming blacks for not recognizing the benefits of the GOP. The host asked him on that and he quickly responded that wasn’t his case but of course has been implying such.

    • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

      It’s easy to claim spin, but how about showing what spin you believe that he was using.

      • Hidan

        Example A.

        -the Black Panther incident picked up by Big Government and amplified Ron claimed this was one of the biggest civil rights violation that has been overlooked. The story came ex-offical in the justice department  which has been decredited

        ”
        GOP Civil Rights Commissioner Thernstrom Criticized The Case As “Very Small Potatoes.” In a July 2010 National Review Online blog post, Abigail Thernstrom, then vice-chair of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, wrote:

        Forget about the New Black Panther Party case; it is very small
        potatoes. Perhaps the Panthers should have been prosecuted under section
        11 (b) of the Voting Rights Act for their actions of November 2008, but
        the legal standards that must be met to prove voter intimidation — the
        charge — are very high.”
        http://mediamatters.org/research/201110030016

        • Gregg

           This is the guy you are defending. Nice.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddRNy4MISkg&feature=related

          • Hidan

            So you agree Ron was BS about the case than if that’s the best you got?

            Ron Claim something that was clearly not true. It was proven to be the case despite how disgusting the guy is that he’s trying to use for it.

          • Gregg

            I don’t hear the show until 8PM but it was indeed a case of voter intimidation. That may have been relatively small potatoes but the policies behind the dismissal are a huge civil rights violation.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LUVBZDBXLNCXWUKXGDCGXLLWOM Bill

    If you want to address the needs of a large majority of the black comunity than turn the conversation to economic inequality and what can be done about it.  The Republicans must address the exponentally belooning wealth gap.  Policies must directly open opertunities for all poor black and poor white, Also not so poor groupes who are slinding into poverty 

    • Modavations

      School vouchers,for the millionth time,school vouchers.The income gap is because the American Public School student, can’t even handle a job at McDonalds.Secondly reestablish the two parent household.The one LBJ and the Dems.blew up during theWar on Poverty.When Moynihan said beware the unintended consequence(no male allowed in the household if you want a Welfare Check),he was called rascist.I question Mr.Moynihan,because I think it was intentional

      • William

        I’m not sold on school vouchers. It discrimates against me and my children because we are not the right race or income group. The taxpayers fund public schools and should not fund private schools too.

        • Modavations

          Pell Grants????????

          • William

            Pell Grants are across the board and not just limited to a certain race.

          • Modavations

            Public funds for private and religious schools, was the point

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Hundreds of years of slavery selling off family members, and the cultural evolution of that selling, had more to do with it!
             The continuing of similiar interruptions of stable families, by Jim Crowe Laws, Poll Taxes, Racial Lynching, Segregation, and other repressive policies, that were formally stopped in the 60s, were part of it too!

  • Kiriakos

    wow… when I posted my comment I saw a message about some kind of system error  … and now it is posted multiple times.  Sorry… that was not intentional.

  • Gordon Johnson

    Whoa.  The way Bob danced away from the SC caller’s accusation that “black Republican commentators are on TV for the appearance money” makes me wonder…does ‘On Point’ pay to get guests on their show?  I honestly thought guests appeared for the opportunity to make their points in a thoughtful manner.

    • Ray in VT

      I do wonder about some of the whackier opinions that are occasionally espoused on air.  I wonder if they try to sound reasonable to the screeners and then just go wild when they get on air.  By and large, though, most callers do have reasonable, valid points to make, which is one of the things that compels me to tune in daily.

  • Modavations

    70 members of the house are members of the American Socialist party.Mainly the black caucus.The Capos

    • Ray in VT

      I really do wonder about you sometimes.  Are you just trying to get a rise out of people?  It would truly blow my mind if you believed this garbage.

      • Modavations

        Don’
        t read me!!!!!!

        • Ray in VT

          Yeah, well unite or die!!!!!!!  Did you see, I used one more exclamation point, so my comment is clearly more important than yours.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        If you knew Moda’s history?

        • Ray in VT

          Yeah, what’s the deal?

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Moda has made long tirades about his background of playing with mercury, and eating lead-based paint chips in his childhood.  Many other things were listed by him, that have been proven to negatively affect mental health.  He claims that it had NO adverse effect on him.  Reading his comments, would you think it did?

          • Ray in VT

            Maybe.  Some of the comments certainly seem to come from way out in left field, but some people are just naturally whacky.  I haven’t seen those particular comments, just some stuff about spending years in Mexico or traveling annually to India or something.  Those , I think, were a part of comments about how laissez-faire is greatest thing since sliced bread and liberals are always evil or something.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            He’s done it a few times, over the past several months.   Some of us try to remind him to take his meds.  We HOPE there are meds, to counteract the effects.
               He gets the delusion that if he mentions your name, or advances an idea that you disagree with, and you answer, you are stalking him.
               For months, he bragged about storing thousands of dollars somewhere.  When some of us cautioned him about saying such on here, he accused us of threatening him, or stalking him!

          • Modavations

            You can judge someone by the people they defend.He refers to Ultrax.Go check out Dec.2(wrap up of the week).I rest my case

          • Modavations

            Whose Ultrax you ask.Picture Hannibal Lecter(?)trussed up, with the “face mask”

          • Terry Tree Tree

            You ALSO accused me, and several others, of posting under multiple names!  I have NEVER done that!  I stand on my one screen name, and have NO reason to hide elsewhere!

          • Modavations

            Bull!!!If so,please prove.If I did( I do not remember this),I appologize.

          • Modavations

            Terry has a few issues ,lad.He was molested and wears it like a” badge of courage”.The subject was pampering kids.I was explaining how we are too protective.I explained that we rolled busted thermometer mercury in our hands,chewed on lead paint,,played in trees 100′ in the air,bicycled without helmets,smashed 50 rolls of caps with boulders,hunted frogs and snakes like on a safari.I further pointed out our mothers breast fed us while smoking butts.And miraculously me and all my mates are just fine.Terry knows all this.

    • Anonymous

      Wow, very uncalled for comment.

      • Modavations

        My name is Frederick Douglas Manning

        • Terry Tree Tree

          “J”, delusion, or the actual truth?  Only Alex can be somewhat sure?

  • Crozetian

    There is a very simple explanation why most black voters bypass the GOP and I am not surprised that the guests ignore the big elephant () in the room: the basic philosophy of the party is truly alienating to all (white AND colored) people who try to make ends meet. That blacks vote for Obama just because of is skin color is insulting to the thinking minds of all, the president’s political philosophy is far more considerate to the citizenry as a whole and makes far more economic sense. The GOP advocates the return to the brutal gilded age. Thanks but no thanks.

    • L armond

      I know I will always be a ‘maccaca’ to Virginian Republicans because I am poor and handicapped and have to ride the bus.  It will always be separate but unequal in the Virginia of Jim Crow, beat down your poor and ‘they are inferior or they would be where we are’ And Norfolk, Virginia, all you have to do is walk thru downtown and you know you spoil their view, unless you head right to their mall, spend some money and get out of town.  They are so refined in Norfolk.  We are privilidged to walk behind them and pick up the ‘sweet smell of access.’

  • Liz

    If African -Americans joined the republican party, where would all the racists go?

    • Hidan

      The Teaparty is always looking

  • Modavations

    Pres.Lincoln founder of the Rep.Party fought the Southern Democrat to free their slaves.Jim Crow and the KKK were devices used by southern democrats.Pres.Eisenhower(Rep)liberated Little Rock.20% more Reps. then Dems.voted for the Civil Rights Laws.Robert Byrd,hero of the Left,was the Grand Dragon(Kleegal)of the KKK.Moynihan warned LBJ of the unintended consequence.Modern Dems.renenslaved the Black man for a friggin vote.What’s more dangerous,the Green Zone,or  President Obama’s Chicago(South Side?)

    • Anonymous

      Do you really believe the Democratic and Republican parties of today have not evolved and changed in fifty years? Even one hundred and fifty years? Do you really believe that what you call Republican parties in other parts of the world follow in lock-step with the tenets of the American Republicans. Considering the fact that far more white people than black receive welfare, food stamps, government sponsored drug treatment, free court appointed counsel, WIC benefits, homeless shelter, Government loans for education, Pell grants, probation, parole, unemployment benefits, etc., etc., etc., I can only assume that you believe the “white man” has been enslaved as well. I guess I need that fishing lesson.

      • Modavations

        You’re a name caller and I’m uninterested in conversation.Just read my posts.

        • Anonymous

          I do. The comic relief is refreshing, until it gets boring.

          • Modavations

            I believe you last posted me at 1:47 AM.

          • Anonymous

            With your new found support of liberal causes, I felt a surge of interest, then I got bored. Surprised to see that you can tell time, though. Maybe next you can learn to count without using your fingers.

          • Ray in VT

            Come on, now you know Modivations is just going to write you off for name calling.

          • Anonymous

            I hope so! that’s exactly what I’m doing. Sauce for the goose my friend. Sauce for the goose.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            By calling you a name, usually!  His favorite, of late, is Stalker!

          • Ray in VT

            I got patronizing.

        • Anonymous

          Oh well add me to the list.
          I have a host of names for you, use your imagination, if you have one.

          • Modavations

            Let em rip,howver,you’ve called me all of them ad finitum.I do believe FAX68 made the same complaints

          • Terry Tree Tree

            You have been on his ‘list’, for weeks, if not months!

        • Terry Tree Tree

          Arrogant Delusions of Grandeur, again?

        • Anonymous

          You wouldn’t recognize a conversation if it bit you on the ass.

  • Brad

    Woodrow Wilson relaunched the KKK from the white house and had a racist movie premier in the white house!

    • Modavations

      What party was he???

    • Ray in VT

      It is pretty terrible that the Wilson administration took steps to re-segregate the Federal Government, but just remember, one of the biggest pro-conservation presidents was Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican.  The parties, their platforms, positions and constituents have changed a great deal in the last century.

      • Modavations

        Dems.are more rascist then ever,in my opinion.They are innvolved oin a soft genocide

        • Ray in VT

          Well, that is certainly an opinion with which I disagree.  I think that I know what you’re getting at in your second point, but care to spell it out?

          • Modavations

            Just read past stuff.I’m bored with going over it, again and again and again

          • Ray in VT

            So am I.  I find your comments to be the most routinely predictable and over simplified ones posted here.  I think that I’ve managed to find some common ground with everyone here about something except for you.  I guess that just saying something about two greatly varying world views.

      • William

        I thought “Teddy” was a Progressive?

        • Ray in VT

          He sort of was, but, then again, so was the Republican party of the time when compared to many of the policies Democrats.  I also think that he didn’t care for “Teddy”.

  • Brian

    I’ve turned away from On-point a little more than a year ago because I was really unhappy with how the program seemed to give a wink and a nod to some of most extreme representatives of the TEA Party that were guests on the show.
    I tuned in today to listen to the discussion on African Americans and the GOP and I’m quite frankly more disgusted than ever.
    I don’t know who was screening the callers, but in my opinion the callers that I heard seemed to all have a pro-GOP point of view. That wouldn’t be surprising if the percentage of African-American GOP supporters calling in seemed to align with the percentage of African-American GOP supporters in the general population, but that hardly seemed to be the case.
    Furthermore, the discussion by the guests on the show focused almost entirely on how the GOP can change its message to appeal to African American voters rather than address the very substantive issues that negatively impact American society in general and the African American community in particular.
    If you need an example of what I’m referring to take a look at the negative outcomes of the Federal Omnibus Crime Bill on the African-American community, which while signed into law by a Democratic President (Bill Clinton), was driven entirely by a conservative, fear-mongering agenda. The outcomes of Proposition 209 in California are another example of how conservative agendas have reaped havoc on the African-American community.
    What today’s show has confirmed for me is that On Point clearly has a conservative bias, which make it much more disturbing to me than anything broadcast by Rupert Murdoch because listeners will likely assume that it follows the same format as most public radio programs, making truth and objectivity the basis of each show.
    I listen to public radio programs to get a balanced, informed view of an issue. The producers of On Point are doing public radio a disservice by airing a show like the one I heard today, which clearly has a biased point of view.

  • Brian

    I’ve turned away from On-point a little more than a year ago because I was really unhappy with how the program seemed to give a wink and a nod to some of most extreme representatives of the TEA Party that were guests on the show.
    I tuned in today to listen to the discussion on African Americans and the GOP and I’m quite frankly more disgusted than ever.
    I don’t know who was screening the callers, but in my opinion the callers that I heard seemed to all have a pro-GOP point of view. That wouldn’t be surprising if the percentage of African-American GOP supporters calling in seemed to align with the percentage of African-American GOP supporters in the general population, but that hardly seemed to be the case.
    Furthermore, the discussion by the guests on the show focused almost entirely on how the GOP can change its message to appeal to African American voters rather than address the very substantive issues that negatively impact American society in general and the African American community in particular.
    If you need an example of what I’m referring to take a look at the negative outcomes of the Federal Omnibus Crime Bill on the African-American community, which while signed into law by a Democratic President (Bill Clinton), was driven entirely by a conservative, fear-mongering agenda. The outcomes of Proposition 209 in California are another example of how conservative agendas have reaped havoc on the African-American community.
    What today’s show has confirmed for me is that On Point clearly has a conservative bias, which makes it much more disturbing to me than anything broadcast by Rupert Murdoch because listeners will likely assume that it follows the same format as most public radio programs, making truth and objectivity the basis of each show.
    I listen to public radio programs to get a balanced, informed view of an issue. The producers of On Point are doing public radio a disservice by airing a show like the one I heard today, which clearly has a biased point of view.

    • Modavations

      Spoken like a true reactionary.If NPR is not 125% left,you’re offended

      • Ray in VT

        Wouldn’t Brian be a socialist of some type to you?  Reactionaries are extreme rightists.  Don’t you hate liberals?  Also something can’t be over 100% something.  I’m 110% sure of that.

        • Terry Tree Tree

          You don’t know of Moda’s Delusions of Grandeur?  He can make over 100% of anything, from nothing, evidently?

        • Modavations

          What,what,what.It means to react.It has nothing to do with politics.A reactionary is one who “knee jerks”

          • Ray in VT

            Fair enough.  In the context of the general discussion I certainly took it for the political connotation.

      • Anonymous

        Once again, please look up the definition of the word “Reactionary.” Every time you use it incorrectly you validate the popular belief that you’re an idiot.

        • Modavations

          What does this bring to the conversation.Perhaps you will understand why I would rather not talk to you.Next step is the Temper Tantrum

          • Ray in VT

            I think that it has to do with your command of the language and the meanings behind the words that you choose to use.  And didn’t you say that same thing about the tantrum to me earlier?

          • Anonymous

            OOOHHH!!! Dat Modavations. I so angwy. GRRRRRR!!!!!

          • Anonymous

            What this brings to the conversation is the fact that you don’t even know the meaning of the words you use yet you think your a fountain of insight. If you have any difficulty with the bigger words I just used, please let me know and I’ll try to help.

  • Modavations

    I believe Pres.Obamas first official act, was to wipe out the Wash D.C.,voucher scholarship program.17,000 poor kids were affected

  • Zero

      I’ll echo Cenk Uger: “Republicans care about black people until they’re borne.”  I haven’t seen anything different to make me think that isn’t true.

  • Dpweber83

    Dave Chappelle already answered most of these questions: http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=219443

  • Modavations

    I love hearing Vermonters speak on race.Vt.is the most caucasian of all the states.They also have the highest percent of Fed.and State workers in the country.No wonder a runaway socialist-ciommunist(Brooklyn born,of course)like Bernie has a post for life!!!

    • Anonymous

      More unfocused, meandering blather.

      • Modavations

        I believe you blathered on till 1:47AM last night.Unfortuneatly everyone had gone to bed at 10:00.

        • Terry Tree Tree

          Everyone?  You say I’m 100% wrong?

        • Anonymous

          True. But my blather doesn’t meander nor is it unfocused.

    • Ray in VT

      Yeah, it’s like hearing Republican politicians talk about race.

      I think that both Maine and Wyoming give us a run for our money when it comes to having the least minorities, but thinks are changing here.

      Bernie’s great.  He calls it like he sees it, and he gets plenty of cross over GOP votes here in VT.  Of course most Vermont Republicans would be called liberals in the south and parts of the Midwest.  I’ve never figured out why Bernie critics like to get off on how he’s from Brooklyn.  So what?  Who cares?

      • Modavations

        Vt.is the whitist of the white and the most socialist-communist of the social communists.One of my clients also complained that the men were rampantly Metrosexual.I don’t even know what that means

        • Ray in VT

          You really do have some ignorant opinions, don’t you?  Wait, I better stop to make sure that the Commisars here aren’t listening to my thoughts before I respond.  I must also conclude that your client, if that person even exists, must be equally tweaked.  Why don’t you try coming up here and meeting smoe people before painting my statesmen with such a broad brush.

          • Modavations

            You missed the story about the govt.monitoring Huff.Post and Drudge and who knows,maybe NPR.You’re on the Big Govt.,Big Brother side,so don;’t worry

          • Ray in VT

            I heard the one about the CIA monitoring the web for trends.  If you’re so worried about the government monitoring people, then why are you on here?  They’re probably coming for you now.

            Also, why do you presume that I favor totalitarianism?  I can only imagine that you just cannot fathom that people who hold opinions contrary to your own can be decent.  What a small world you must inhabit.  I really feel sorry for you.

          • Modavations

            Honest men have nothing to fear

          • Ray in VT

            Someone once told me that only fools have no fears.  I think that it was Mr. Worf.

        • Anonymous

          You don’t even know what YOU mean.

    • Anonymous

      So what’s your point? That white people can’t talk about race? If so then maybe you should take your own advice.

      • Modavations

        Sort of.It’s hard to discuss the ghetto when there is none.Plenty of whites live in international cities.Miami,NYC,etc,so they can speak.How big is the ghetto in Burlington??

        • Ray in VT

          You mean the Old North End?

        • Anonymous

          Moda, my comrade. You’re an African- American and a liberal. Whod’a thunk it?

          • Modavations

            If your 21 and you’re not a socialist,you’ve got no soul.If you’re thirty and still a socialist,you’ve got no friggin brains.

          • Anonymous

            None of those horrible socialists in Europe have any friggin’ brains? Why don’t you move there? You’d fit right in.

          • Modavations

            While you were sleeping,Europe flipped Republican.Please explain why Spain threw out the Socialists in a landslide.Of course Greece remains in your column.Sweden went right.Norway and Finland are Right-left coalitions.I could live in West Europe with no problem,but I prefer Boston,the Athens of America

          • Anonymous

            Nice try, but as soon as the health care systems of Europe come up you’ll be right back on board with the Europe bashing crowd. Europe, bastion of right-wing philosophy. That’s really funny.

        • Anonymous

          You have never been to Vermont or if you had it was not to towns such as Richford or Hardwick or Barre were poverty is a huge problem. In all seriousness you seem to think you know what you are talking about but in reality you don’t seem to be able to parse the idea of difference. Be it be the difference of color or class.

          One can have an opinion, but that does not mean it’s true or based on reality. The evidence from what you post is not in your favor in this regard. You seem to like to degrade people by calling them communist or socialist. You don’t even have the intellectual curiosity to look up what Bernie Sanders has done for his state and how popular he is due his honesty and positions on unpopular issues. He works for his constituents.
          In some ways you remind me of the worst type of demagogue from the McCarthy era who throws around glib accusations of being a socialist or communist to tar anyone they don’t like or whom they disagree with. To quote the army’s chief legal representative from the McCarthy herrings, Joseph Nye Welch:  “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

          • Modavations

            I know every road in Vt.I’m a “REP”.I used to run the road from Randolph to Waterbury when it was dirt

      • Anonymous

        If being white denies one the right to discuss race, I guess he must be Black. Oh, the poor downtrodden soul. 

  • http://www.dogoodgauge.org The Do Good Gauge

    Are there any non-lemmings among the lot of you? Where is the self interest?  Why is it that you clamour to a name, defined for the benefit of someone else?  You follow an ideology as if it was your home town team.

    Examine your arguments.  You can’t take credit for a historical figure beliefs.  Maybe on one specific artifact, but not as whole.  Knowledge and belief change as historical understanding is acquired.  Take the truth when it can be acquired.  Use it for the betterment of others.  Don’t blame or demonize what you never witnessed and don’t blame friends and family for past evil which they did not participate. Take from it which will allow you and others to grow.  Maybe a little self interest is required over this consistent collective thought directed from the privileged few.  

    The problem is not our government.  The problem is you.  The problem is me.  The problem is the ambivalence to see the American government still provides an opportunity for each of us to participate.   When this country fails it will not be the fault of the privileged few.  It will be the fault of each of us who refused to listen to our neighbours, who refused to examine the collateral damage of our good intentions, it will be the fault of each us who stood by and allowed injustice to rule.  

    There is something you can do.  You can stop blaming others and start participating in the civic process.  You can identify the injustice and work with others to insure it is stopped.   You can steer from the mayhem, bias, and ignorance and guide your energy with civic engagement for the betterment of more.  You can understand there are thousands of answers and maybe just maybe your first thought is not the right one.  

    Listen, examine, and adjust.

    • Zero

      …vote…?

      • Ray in VT

        But it’s more than just voting.  People need to be involved in discussions at all levels.  There is more to active democratic participation than just voting, although that is obviously important.

  • Hidan
  • Modavations

    Pres.Obama’s first official act(?) was to rescind the D.C. voucher-scholarship.The lives of 17,000 poor kids were probably ruined forever.One in 3 black men are in jail,probation,or parole.Anyone who thinks the Dems.are for civil rights and the common man are quite niave .When they say yes to school vouchers,I’ll stand down

    • Brett

      Lives ruined forever? What, because they won’t get to go to Sidwell Friends or some other prestigious private school in D.C.? (I’d say you are exposing something about yourself here, but I don’t think you have a clearly defined ideology about private education; you just want to be able to send your kids to private school but you don’t want to pay what some of the schools charge.) One’s life is ruined if one does not attend a prestigious private school? You do know how the voucher thing worked in D.C. (implemented in ’04), don’t you? …So much for increasing competition and prompting private schools to pop up all over the place bringing tuition down, huh? 

      (The vouchers were for $7,500, BTW, way below the $32,000 a year, say, to go to Sidwell Friends. Sidwell Friends, to use that as an example, then selected a few “lucky” poor kids to attend, and Sidwell Friends picked up the difference. Do you think private schools are going to do that en masse so that ALL “poor” kids will get “lucky”?)

      I guess poor kids not “lucky” enough to attend a prestigious private school costing over $30,000 a year can go to a Catholic school at just over $8g a year (your figures from a comment you made this morning) and pay the $1500 difference themselves! Or maybe the Church will be charitable, too, and cover the difference (heaven knows they have the money). 

      Vouchers, charity, winners, losers, the corruption that goes along with profiteering, etc., sounds like a great future for poor kids. WE can agree that public education needs fixing, we just are not going to agree that vouchers are the solution; but, according to you this makes me racist…

      • Ray in VT

        Don’t get too worked up about it.  You’ll probably get some one sentence response calling you a commie or something, and you will have wasted precious minutes of your life trying to engage certain individuals who have no interest in dialogue.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Go to a private school, by voucher, or get molested by priests?  Lousy choice!

      • Modavations

        Sidwell.What are you talking about.The vouchers were for $7000.00(?).There are many parochial schools in Boston that afford great educations for $6000.00ish

  • Brett

    While Christie doesn’t really offend me or anything, man what a partisan hack! (And a bit of an Uncle Tom, too!)

  • Todd Vetter

    Ron Christie mentioned that he wishes African Americans would vote for a presidential candidate based on merit; and not because of their skin color. Doesn’t this ignore a good part of our history, in which people of color were excluded – often violently – from the electoral process. It strikes me as well that an African American might perceive the vicious and angry nature of some Republican rhetoric directed at the president as evidence of an underlying racism still very much alive in our country and reason enough to vote for Mr. Obama.
    Finally, I find it absurd that Mr. Christie would venture any suggestion of blame or suspicion at African Americans for voting for Mr. Obama, rahter than being very honest about the failure of the Republican Party to speak to issues that concern African American communities.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      They have to come up with excuses, they have NO reasons for blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, or other minorities, to vote for them!

  • Hidan

    Ron Christie Defends Rush Limbaugh’s CPAC Speech

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pkmm3wTJ2g

    Ron Christie destroyed on Real Time with Bill Maher.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmijzaLX9rk&feature=related

    Ron Christie wordpress
    http://afrocityblog.wordpress.com/tag/ron-christie/

  • Brett
    • Worried for the country(MA)

      Nothing wrong with charity as long as it is voluntary.

      • Ray in VT

        True, but the modern welfare state and the benefits of it aren’t charity.

      • Brett

        First, Romney was grandstanding (and I was joking about Romney’s “spontaneity”–his handlers must get really nervous when he goes off script). Second, there is nothing wrong with charity, luck, being in the right place at the right time, etc., but are those substantive, long-term solutions to poverty? 

        • Worried for the country(MA)

          The racists at MSNBC are in a snit because this african American woman had the audacity to volunteer for Romney and Romney had the audacity to give her $50 clams.

          Watching their comments is cringeworthy.

          http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/01/16/msnbc_romney_racist_for_giving_needy_black_woman_cash.html

          • Brett

            Why are you responding to my opinion about Romney’s cheap grandstanding by providing some link showing MSNBC talking heads sounding knee-jerky about the story? Is it easier for you side step the fact that your “charity is good as long as it is voluntary” meme didn’t quite get the traction as a comeback to my criticism of Romney?

            Do you think Romney’s actions show he’s in touch with average American’s? Are you defending Romney? Do you think charity is the answer to people in financial trouble or to those who have long-term poverty? Are those questions clear enough for you to actually respond in a way that doesn’t look like some neocon’s inaccurate perception of tit-for-tat? 

          • Worried for the country(MA)

            Overreaction?

            btw – I did respond directly to your unsubstantiated charge of grandstanding.  I also don’t try and read into Romney’s motives like you do.  I guess Romney did a poor job of grandstanding since he didn’t even film it.

            This thread is about race relations and the parties.  The video I posted is related directly to the article you posted.  It was a video of Democrat operatives making fools of themselves by playing the race card when none is warranted.  Even if it makes you uncomfortable because it makes your side look bad these fools should be called out.

            There are plenty of examples of right wingers being jerks and they should be called out too.  Can you say Macaca?

        • Worried for the country(MA)

          Grandstanding?  Can you substantiate that charge?  It wasn’t even on camera.

          • Brett

            You don’t see Romney’s action as grandstanding? And YOUR “substantiation” is that he didn’t have a camera right on him filming the whole thing? You don’t think he thought it was a clever move that might sound good when the story got out? It might have not played well if a camera had caught the whole interaction. The woman he “helped” sounds kind of like a superstitious, hysterical person (something that might not have looked right on camera). It wasn’t staged; it didn’t have to be for him to grandstand…Sorry, but you seem easily conned.  

          • Worried for the country(MA)

            Give Oliver Stone a call.  He’ll probably make feature length film out of  the incident.

            She’s a Romney volunteer.  Does that bother you?

            Did it  bother you when Obama promised a woman down on her luck to have his staff help her out?  Did you call him out for “grandstanding” at the time?

          • Worried for the country(MA)

            The Obama ‘incident’ was in a large campaign event and was filmed.  btw – I didn’t consider that Obama was grandstanding, he was just being a smart politician.

          • Still Here

            I love to see Meryl Streep try her chops on that one.  

          • Brett

            Yes, I don’t like grandstanding even if it comes from Obama…(Am I supposed to defend Obama all the time because I have liberal views? Okay, go to the Obama trump card, if that makes you feel better.) How quaint that you are still in point-counterpoint mode. But, hey, at least you’ve realized that you neocons have to get behind and stay behind Willard, no matter what. Good luck with that. 

  • Modavations

    Would someone explain to us why Pres.Obama rescinded the Voucher-scholarship program in D.C.?17000 poor were affected

    • http://www.dogoodgauge.org The Do Good Gauge

      I got a better question.  Explain to me the process of who is placed on the Sunday morning political talk shows.   Take George Will for instance.  Explain to me the entire linear exchange of money which allows him to speak every Sunday.   Does ABC pay him or does the money come directly from a political lobbyist?   Explain to me where the millions upon millions of campaign contributions go.  Is it not the media?

      Where does all this money come from to feed the media machine?  There is no liberal.  I’m not for sure the ‘P’ of NPR stands for public, the bias is apparent when the authority of the paycheck is understood.   This bias is to the detriment of the public and representative government. 

      Maybe the ‘P’ stands for Paycheck.

      • Modavations

        I’m not privy to the workings of ABC.I believe Public in NPR has something to do with tax payer funding

        • http://www.dogoodgauge.org The Do Good Gauge

          Why on a day set aside to remember Martin Luther King does On Point dedicates an hour to a subject which the polar opposite of King’s point of view? 

          I’m sure NPR is not as guilty as the others, but someone should seriously do an  undercover journalist report to find out the truth in our political media.   ‘Face the Nation’ gives 100% of their time to the GOP talking heads last Sunday.   I’m not saying CBS is a GOP outlet, I’m saying the GOP is their revenue stream.   Maybe that explains when Bob Schaeffer nor George Stephanopoulos never calls their guest on the obvious fallacies repeated through party lines.

          It doesn’t really matter if it is the GOP or the DNC.  When our media is paid to air political talking heads there is no incentive to question motives.   Who wins in such a media?   Not the public. 

          Come clean “On Point”.  Disclose the linear transformation of the transfer of money in this program.  Better yet, do an investigative report on how the money is exchanged for the Sunday morning political shows.

          Just watching the commercials of the Sunday morning political shows hints at where the money is coming from.

          • Modavations

            Didn’t we talk about sentence structure,puntuation,etc,. a few times in the past.You’re a bit better,but the missive remains flawed.As for the actual content,you’re not making sense.Sorry to offend

          • http://www.dogoodgauge.org The Do Good Gauge

            Apologies are not required when the media provides a Do Over.  Simple correct your statement and move on.   Maybe if you gave the politicians a break, gave them a do over, they would be inclined to share the truth.

            Listen, examine, and adjust. 

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Moda has NEVER made such mistakes?  Enough to lecture others?

          • Terry Tree Tree

            To show that Dr. King’s struggle is NOT over.  Equality is NOT here!  We’re STILL a work in progress!

  • Modavations

    40% of our Solons send their kids to private schools.10% of the citizens do.How many members of the Black Caucus send their kids to private schools.How many live in Black neighborhoods?

  • Modavations

    The US Dept of Education said the kids in the D.C.Voucher program were significantly outscoring those in the Public Schools.When Pres.Obama rescinded the program the mostly Black parents were dismayed to say the least.Obama rescinded the immediate termination and allowed those in the program to continue till graduation.Leiberman led a commitee reviewing the program and said the program is worrking why should we rescind it.Ms.Feinsten piped in and said Mr.Obama,”What the fu-k”.
           

    Half joke Terence tt.Please tell me you weren’t serious when you thought the photo was Haley Barbour

    I appologize for saying 17,000 kids.That should have been 1700 

    • Anonymous

      That was a pretty coherent, reasonable, well-structured comment. You should try it more often.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        You don’t want to over-stress him, do you?

        • Modavations

          As for you lad,I’ve extended the hand many times,even offering to take you to a Mex.archeological dig.You prefer to spit in it,so………..

      • Modavations

        I don’t know you,but here’s my peace offer.Treat me civilly and I’ll do the same

        • Brett

          That’s just the weed talkin’, Mo-D (‘j’)

          • Modavations

            Any good.I’m strictly a weekend warrior

        • Anonymous

          Fair enough. I’m honest enough to admit that I’ve gone overboard with you. It was unseemly, and contrary to my nature. But, as far as the issues of the day are concerned, all bets are off. I’m prepared. I suggest you get prepared, also.

    • Brett

      http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2011/11/enrollment-dc-voucher-program-surge

      http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/30/house-reinstates-dc-school-voucher-program/

      I haven’t been up on this story, but it really doesn’t resemble the characterizations you’ve been perpetratin’ 

      Where are the stats from the DoE? Was there an increase in scores among the kids who participated in the program? Now that would be a reliable stat, not that their scores were higher than those in the ailing schools. One would hope an expensive, private education might help students to improve their scores. I don’t want to use my tax dollars to send someone else’s kids to prestigious private schools.  

      • Modavations

        Where in the world did I ever say prestigious schools,or Sidwell.Here’s what Juan Williams said,I’ll paraphrase as it’s been a year.This is an “outrageous sin against our kids”,or something to that effect

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Moda, if you had looked, I was making a comment about comments above, one of which WAS thinking the picture was of Gov. Haley Barbour.  The commentor had a derogatory remark about his size and of another Republican, Christie. 

         Moving a decimal point one place, multiplies by 10, or divides by 10, which is a significant amount!  Bears watching, don’t you think?

      • Modavations

        I appologize when wrong.That’s how honest men work

        • Terry Tree Tree

          Others have seen my apologies on here, when I am convinced that I am wrong!  So, am I an honest man, or am I 100% wrong, as you have said several times?

          • Modavations

            In my opinion you are petty

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Well, you have one opinion, and one…..

          • Modavations

            What would you call someone who yells Mercsry with no further comments, on a forum about cars.I call them stalkers

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Mercsry?  Never heard of it!

    • Brett
    • Brett

      No apologies for making up stats from the DoE, Millie davations?

      • Modavations

        None.Just google it.This was years ago.

  • Lakestate

    The last caller was just a plain BIGOT. Nevermind that he was talking about white conservatives-he made broad, sweeping generalizations about a class of people he had no understanding of.

  • Gregg

    MLK’s niece was on Fox and friends this morning and said if he were alive today MLK would be a pro-life social conservative. That makes sense, he was a Republican.

    • Ray in VT

      But could he stomach being in the same party as the Pauls, who oppose the Civil Rights Act?  Saying what someone would be decades after one’s death is always a tricky matter.  MLK also had a lot to say about social justice, and that is not exactly high on the GOP radar these days.

      • Ray in VT

        Oh, and is that the niece that thinks that abortion is some sort of eugenic conspiracy to get rid of black people, or is that the relative of another 1960s leader?  I can’t recall.

        • Ray in VT

          Oh (again), and that was a real question, not an attack or anything.  I heard someone a couple of years back espousing that position, and I didn’t care enough to google it today.

        • Gregg

          That was Sanger’s intention when she founded Planned Parenthood.

      • Worried for the country(MA)

        Come on you’re not being fair to Ron Paul. He has railed on discrimination against African American’s in the justice system.  He has the stats to back him up. I believe Ron Paul promotes a color blind society which includes the elimination of race quotas.

        • Ray in VT

          That’s all well and good to promote that ideal, as it should be, but if we had gone with his idea that the best thing for government to do about obvious inequalities, and outright discrimination, is nothing, then where would we be.  Don’t get me wrong, I agree with some of Congressman Paul’s positions, but I think that he’s wrong regarding the Civil Rights Act.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Anyone can ass-u-me how a dead person would behave!
          MANY of the things that Dr. King stood for, were NOT what the Republican party stands for, or puts in action!

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Scott-Finkelstein/1385845930 Scott Finkelstein

      On the other hand, his econ statements and speeches paint him as a pretty archetypal non-Marxist socialist.

  • Sherrill Morgan

    If I were an African American, I would take into account the GOP mantra of small government and minimal government intrusion.  Then, I would remember the role of government in passing the Civil Rights Act, of enforcing integration when the states refused to follow the federal law, and I would think that we need a strong government, not a reduced one.

    • Worried for the country(MA)

      How about support for the party that gave us the Emancipation Proclamation and ended slavery?

      • Anonymous

        The Republican Party of the civil war era was not the Republican Party of 2012. People change. Political philosophies change. Parties change. In my own lifetime, reverence for the idea of states rights has shifted largely from Democrats to Republicans. That’s a significant change. Ronald Reagan was a Democrat, until he changed, and became a Republican. The idea that the parties of Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, or Dwight Eisenhower experience little or no change over the passage of time is demonstrably false.  Likening Lincoln’s republican Party to today’s Republican Party makes as much sense as comparing the Pony Express to E-mail.

        • Terry Tree Tree

          GREAT ANALOGY!!

        • Zero

          Eisenhower’s economics are a little left for me, but he had a great economy. 

      • Ray in VT

        Just like in sports, one day you’re a miracle worker, then next you’re a bum.  Those events were 150 years ago, and politics, like most things, is a game of what have you done for me lately.

        • Worried for the country(MA)

          Fair point.  But it appears we are quibbling over between 50 years and 150 years.  We are still measuring in generations.

          • Ray in VT

            Well, so let’s say that the current attachment of the African-American electorate to the Democratic Party is due to the party’s actions 50 years ago, which it very well may be.  If you’re already on board, what’s the incentive to move your allegiance?  What planks in the GOP platform will get you to go over?  It’s just a thought.  I don’t have that answer, and as someone said it is a bit silly to be talking about an ethnic group as though they are a solid block with a monolithic interest, but that’s just for the sake of argument.

            And with that, On Point, I bid a you a good night.

          • Worried for the country(MA)

            I agree it is unseemly to treat any group as a monolithic voting group but when that group votes with 97% solidarity in a single election they will be taken for granted by the Democrats.

            The attraction for the GOP is freedom, opportunity and meritocracy.  However, the GOP has a trust gap and they need to earn back that trust.

          • Anonymous

            The evidence of the last 30 years does not bode well for the GOP in this regard. The GOP offers freedom, opportunity and meritocracy… the evidence of what the GOP stands for does seem to add up to these statements.
            The record for red states such as Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina do not bode well as examples of how the GOP is dealing with African Americans or anyone else who is a minority.

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Evidently 3% of minorities see the GOP attraction, the rest see the advantage of taking for granted that the Republican party is NOT doing much to change that , except blather!

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Well put!!

      • Terry Tree Tree

        The STATED, and APPLIED goals of the Republican party?   How do they fit into the NEEDS of minorities?
            The party of ‘NO!’ government, isn’t helping ANYONE but the rich!

  • http://whilewestillhavetime.blogspot.com/ John Hamilton

    This is a silly conversation. Both parties are servants of the rich, with the “Republicans” moreso. We live in a bigoted society. Even the guests, presumably “African-Americans,” talk about “blacks” as a thing, an undifferentiated mass. What they should be talking about is poverty, regardless of “race.” What does the “Republican” party have to offer poor people. One thing they have to offer nationwide is voter suppression laws, not accidentally weighing most heavily on “blacks.”

    Before this show I was listening to “Fresh Air,” where an author was interviewed about the vastly disproportionate effect of the “drug war” on “blacks.” Who are the main proponents of severe punishment and unequal application of these laws? “Republicans.”

    There is something to be said for wooing. I remember Lionel Hampton being wooed by Richard Nixon, and he became a “Republican” for life. People can be wooed by crooks, liars and thieves. Jazz musicians in the 20s, 30s and forties thrived by playing in clubs operated by gangsters. Then there was Las Vegas, a boomtown for entertainers of evey stripe, and operated largely by mobsters in the 50s, 60s, 70s and into the 90s.

    What makes this conversation so silly is the premise that there is a specifically “racial” benefit to voting for and/or being a member of one party or another. If there were, then maybe these “Republican” guests could say what that “racial” benefit might be. I might add that this begs the question of what specific benefit there has been for “black” people from the presidency of Barack Obama.

    Given that both political parties are essentially criminal organizations, legalized bribe-based mafiosi, it’s a pretty moot point to ask what one or the other of these criminal organizations can do to sucker voters to pay them fealty.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      I AGREE with a lot that you say.
         President Obama, HAS, however helped ALL minorities, by just getting elected to a job that was ALWAYS held by a white guy!
         Personally, I am an Independent voter, because I don’t think that either party has a lock on having ONLY the best candidates!    ‘W’, as the BEST the Republicans had to offer, convinced me that Republicans don’t have much to offer!

      • Coloradoman11

        George W was certainly not the best that Republicans could offer, but he may have had the most campaign money.  Barry Hussein O was not the best that Democrats could offer (no experience as a leader or a politician, but a darned good speaker!).  One of our largest problems with our political system is how money can buy a campaign victory.  I have a solution for that, in summary: ban all political ads and give all candidates time on public access (community) channels.

  • Mjrupsch

    I cannot believe you aired today the show on African American voters and the GOP’s inability to earn their vote. Ron Christie’s argument implies deep unspoken racism held by the GOP.  The beliefs he presented subtly imply that African American voters are just not wise enough or informed enough to choose the GOP.
    I ask rather, why should they vote for  a republican?  In the past 50 years, what has the republican  party done for African American voters? Christie never presented any information that shows that the GOP is worthy of their vote and, again, he communicates a deep and arrogant form of racism.  His point that there is no class disparity in America is deeply insulting to the poor and working poor of our nation.  Clearly, he has never set foot in or spoken to anyone in a disenfranchised neighborhood in the US.  During your show, Christie was too busy spewing the GOP platform.  And this in full view the numerous republican controlled states that have recently disenfranchised African American voters with their unwarranted voter ID laws.  Mr. Christie, I ask you why should African Americans vote for your party?  The republican party has made it more difficult and, in many cases, made it impossible for them to vote.  To sponsor, support and to not protest against the disenfranchisement of African American voters through unwarranted voter ID laws once again reveals the GOP’s plan to leave African Americans out of the democratic process.  You need to earn a citizen’s vote and the GOP has done nothing but insult and exclude them.  What is particularly troubling about this matter is that On Point aired this show on the day we celebrate the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. Shame on you On Point and shame on Ron Christie.

    • Terry Tree Tree

       I think Dr. King would appreciate the show about what the Movement was to correct! 
          The concept that a political party has focused on holding people down, and then trying to convince the oppressed to vote for the oppressors, shows that we STILL have a long way to go!

  • Zero

    How can republican politicians talk to black people when they have to talk to the notorious republican base as well?  Republicans play to their base, and playing to their base is playing against black people.  And anybody who doesn’t think the republican base isn’t racist, take five minutes and look up the comment sections on Fox News or Yahoo News. 

    Republicans can’t talk about black unemployment numbers because it goes against their racist base.  If republicans start talking about black unemployment numbers, it sounds like an economic system is not in their favor.  The republican base much rather hear that “it is black people’s fault…they need to work harder.”  They are the party that champions religion and not-doing-anything-for-black-people; that is the way they politic.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Could Republicans, in general, be HYPOCRITES?

  • Rsayling

    I loved the essay on firsts.  Excellent!

  • JBW

    Most republicans I’ve encountered in my life are, in one form or another, racist. Most are just ignorant; one thing I’ve noticed that seems to be a commonality amongst republicans is they fail to understand anything in regards to social dynamics and why people behave in certain ways given their socioeconomic status/environment. This leads to a dismissing of plausible reasons behind certain realities in our society. They say, oh they’re playing the race card, or they should get off welfare, or get a job and stop gang banging.
    Republicans are selfish and unwilling to see the world outside of their tiny scope of existance. Sorry but the world is bigger than what you see and what goes on in your little town or corner of the world.

    • TFRX

      I may have met more more reasonable Republicans than you have, based on where I live.

      But I think we agree on who is driving the Republican bus.

    • kate

      You might want to look in the mirrow, oh ignorant one.

    • Zero

      I’ll use the term that I think is flawed all over…but nobody used the race card more and without warrant than Herman Cain and his supporters.   But if democrats jump on Santorum or Gingrich for things they recently said, the republican base cries, “Oh, it’s always about race with liberals.” 

      Personally, I would love to see Gingrich keep to his word and go in front of the NAACP and repeat what he said.  But he won’t because he is just playing to a racist base.

      As for Herman Cain, he is the beginning of a political gimmick.  From now on, you will see republicans scramble to find a black republican for president in order to obfuscate some something that can be observed on comment sections on Fox News.  That’s just a theory though, and I sure there could be legitimate challenges against it.   

  • Still Here

    Most Democrats I’ve met are whiners, constantly blaming others for their own ignorance and poor choices in life.  They are only too ready to blame others and label themselves the victim.  As a result, they sit and wait for a government handout, taking the easy road.

    • TFRX

      You need to get out more.

  • Genhol

    Here is what I believe: I believe that every citizen is entiteled to a ‘Human Life’-that means an apartment, if he/she needs it-not in a ‘housing project’-but the ‘suburbs, with heat, food, and clothing, if necessary. I believe they are entitled to education; and not in some substandard school, but one with all the amenities given to the suburban schools. Health care is a basic right, administered by a not-for-profit insurance company.
    And this is just to start.
    We should stop the corporate socialism given to the big corporations, and radically reduce our military budget, characterized by monumental waste in return for benefits received.. The $1 trillion wasted on Iraq-they really hate us now- would have given us a start.
    Don’t worry it won’t happen; the real owners of this country won’t let it happen. The big corporations: Banks, Agri., ‘Defense’, Pharma, and others, have bought and paid for the Senators, Representatives, and Judges.The Citizens United ranks with Dred Scott as the worst decisions ever handed down by the Supreme Court.
    Americans remain willfully ignorant, and nothing will ever change.

  • DebbieS

    When I saw the topic, I knew the comments were going to be a bunch of left wingers calling everyone racist. What a waste of time.

    • Zero

      Thanks for being so brave to engage in the conversation, and putting what you think is “crazy left winger” talk in its place.  I nice to see a conservative who is willing to have her views challenged.  You are a very brave conservative who really knows how to back up an argument.  Thanks for changing liberal opinion with your astute analysis and empirically based argument.

  • Anonymous

    The caller who lives in section eight housing should move out before she starts voting Republican. 

  • Sy2502

    I think the people in the show need to decide what they want exactly. First, they complain that when the GOP addresses the black community, they talk as if they are all on entitlement programs. Then they complain that the black community doesn’t vote GOP because they don’t know if the GOP will guarantee their entitlements. I am confused…

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