Prometheus 6

You go, MIB!

The most assured way of gaining political legitimacy in the United States is to win an election. Black Republicans, to date, have utterly failed to win any election at any level in a district that is either majority or predominantly black. Their cries for recognition or, now apparently, respect from members of the black electorate should be seen exactly for what it is: an effort to acquire political legitimacy without having done the necessary work to create any substantive political following within the black electorate.

Well yeah, there's that...

thanks

Ken Blackwell was an office holder. He said he regularly got over 50% of the Black vote.
Jackie Winters received a large majority of Black votes in Salem when she was in office. She was in a majority Black district.

There are some, but my point isn't to defend. My point is, it happens and it will happen more as the old guard steps or is voted aside. The ineffectiveness of Black Dems is going to provide an opening and someone is going to take it.

If you haven't noticed, the younger set of Blacks who are politically aware are complaining more about the ineffectiveness of Black political leadership.

The ineffectiveness of Black Dems is going to provide an opening and someone is going to take it.

At this point the only reliable political prediction you can reasonably make about the behavior of the black electorate is that ineffective black officeholders will be challenged by those who not only promise to be more effective but are also more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. The Republican Party and its candidates have no appreciable cachet with black voters.

If you haven't noticed, the younger set of Blacks who are politically aware are complaining more about the ineffectiveness of Black political leadership.

Yes, I have noticed. Many of us who are no longer young have been complaining about the state of black political leadership for nearly forty years. Younger folks don't have a corner on this market.

Ken Blackwell was an office holder. He said he regularly got over 50% of the Black vote.

Blackwell may well have gotten 50 percent or more of the black vote the first time he ran for Ohio's Secretary of State but those black voters, if they existed, did not switch over to help him when he ran in the Republican primary for governor. In addition, the black electorate was probably not too pleased at how Blackwell paid them back for their alleged support when he removed voting machines and consolidated precincts in primarily black districts throughout Ohio for the 2004 presidential election.

Blackwell also refused to allow the polls to remain open to accommodate thousands of black voters in Ohio who were stuck in long lines as a result of his actions. Thousands of black voters in urban areas of Ohio were not able to exercise their right to vote as a result of Blackwell's decisions. I don't think his behavior built any bridges between the black electorate and the Republican Party. Blackwell, in my opinion, is selling woof tickets about the level of support he received from black voters in Ohio. In fact, he is probably lying. No politician in his position would have risked alienating such a large group of voters if they had supported him in previous elections.

The only thing that black Republicans at this point can bring to the table of the black electorate is their appetite for political power.

I certainly don't believe that being black means we all ought to think the same way. There's room for people who support radical socialist policies, middle-of-the-road liberalism, libertarianism, even anarchism. And certainly conservatism, both religious and economic.

But being a Republican isn't the merely same thing as being of a conservative mindset. Being a member of the Republican party is casting your tent with the sworn enemy of black people. If you achieve prominence, as a black Republican you WILL be used as an agent to disrepect the culture, the values, the history and the struggles of black Americans. It's the equivalent of a US Citizen swearing allegiance to Russia.

DarkStar, I remember you when you were a young eager race man on Usenet. Now that you've found clarity -- and clarity to you means the Republican Party, the party of Ward Connerly and Clarence Thomas, the party of people who describe Jeremiah Wright as morally equivalent to the Grand Wizard of the KKK, I say its a shame.

About the only good reason to join the Republican party that I can think of is to hook up with Amy Holmes. If that's on your plate, then brother, I understand...

People here seem to be saying, "If your not a democrat, your not black enough." - BALDERDASH. If you achieve prominence as a black republican, you should be celebrated for your achievements, not torn down and spat upon by your envious brothers and sisters. As in - Oh she was just made Secretary of State as a tool of the Republican party or Oh- he was just made Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a pawn of the Republican party.
Black Democratic city politics smacks of Tammany Hall. I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans based upon their records. Being from Detroit, I can attest to the fact that black democrats will vote for blatantly corrupt democrats and ignore honest black republican candidates every time.
(maybe honest only because they never got a chance to become corrupt, who knows?) And they keep voting for those corrupt black democratic politicians right upto the time they are carted off to jail.
As I have grown older, I have moved from reading Marx/Engels and Chairman Mao to somewhat more conservative literature. I find that I now agree with some of the republican politicians and see with a new clarity that many black democratic leaders are little more than money grubbing, power hungry politicians being tossed bones by the white democratic party.
I support Mr Obama because I want social change or at least not backsliding and losing rights. On the other hand, I almost always vote against raising my taxes unless the money goes to education.

People here seem to be saying, "If your not a democrat, your not black enough."

I think you enjoy being provocative simply for the sake of being provocative. As I recall, when you initially began posting here you, at some point, wrote some screed blaming Democrats for every ill afflicting urban America. Now you are asserting, with no facts to supports your claims, that folks here are snatching away the black identity cards of black Republicans. What is being questioned, however, is the basis of their commitment to this particular Republican Party at this juncture of time and space. To hell with Powell's and Rice's personal achievements and credentials. They are not germane to this discussion.

..where are people saying here, "If you're not a Democrat, you're not black enough"?

Nobody even said anything about having to be a Democrat. And nobody, leastways not me, is saying that you're not "black enough" whatever that means, if you're a Republican. What I am saying is that the Republican party supports racism, and is a comfortable home to those who hate black people. So a black person who joins the Republican party is helping to support that racist agenda. That doesn't make them "not black enough."

"I support Mr Obama because I want...not backsliding and losing rights." OK, well, I'm saying that a central tenet of the current Republican Party is to cause blacks to blackslide and to lose rights. Do you understand my antipathy towards it?

Blackwell also refused to allow the polls to remain open to accommodate thousands of black voters in Ohio who were stuck in long lines as a result of his actions. Thousands of black voters in urban areas of Ohio were not able to exercise their right to vote as a result of Blackwell's decisions. I don't think his behavior built any bridges between the black electorate and the Republican Party. Blackwell, in my opinion, is selling woof tickets about the level of support he received from black voters in Ohio. In fact, he is probably lying. No politician in his position would have risked alienating such a large group of voters if they had supported him in previous elections.

That makes sense, but since he has been saying it and no one has disputed it, I have to take it as the truth. These things are very easy to determine, no?

DarkStar, I remember you when you were a young eager race man on Usenet. Now that you've found clarity -- and clarity to you means the Republican Party, the party of Ward Connerly and Clarence Thomas, the party of people who describe Jeremiah Wright as morally equivalent to the Grand Wizard of the KKK, I say its a shame.

Shame? On who? Is this post about ineffective representation or Republicanism? And what does it say that I'm on the same side as the NAACP and Larry Young?

There's damn good reason to distrust the GOP. Even some in the GOP say so. But Blacks can't keep electing the same ineffective Black folks. And once they get into power, the power structure protects them. Think about Cory Booker's first run as mayor and how that went.

But Blacks can't keep electing the same ineffective Black folks.

No, we can't but are you arguing that black Republicans, as a group, are more competent solely by virtue of being Republicans than Democrats? At this point, given that black Republicans have no headway with the black electorate there is no way test this claim.

As I have grown older, I have moved from reading Marx/Engels and Chairman Mao to somewhat more conservative literature.

My interpretation is that you have moved from one group of thinkers who tended to interpret human beings solely in economic terms and have replaced them with another group who does the same thing but from the political right. The problem is that we are far more than economic beings. Check out, for example, The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt for a different perspective.

A wise person posted the following on this site -"In America black people don't suffer from a lack of accomplishment. They suffer from a lack of recognition of their accomplishments." I am saying that if a black person happens to be a republican and acheives something, they should be celebrated and not disrepected as in "Being a member of the Republican party is casting your tent with the sworn enemy of black people. If you achieve prominence, as a black Republican you WILL be used as an agent to disrepect the culture, the values, the history and the struggles of black Americans."

I am saying that if a black person happens to be a republican and acheives something, they should be celebrated and not disrepected as in "Being a member of the Republican party is casting your tent with the sworn enemy of black people. If you achieve prominence, as a black Republican you WILL be used as an agent to disrepect the culture, the values, the history and the struggles of black Americans."

First of all. no Black person "happens to be a republican."

Secondly, if that achievement has no connection with being a Republican, one finds it gets celebrated until the obviously politically motivated declaration of Republican identity is added.

Finally, if the achievement IS connected with being a Republican then expecting props here for being promoted by a self-declared enemy of Black interests is kind of laughable. It would be like celebrating the promotion of a Sudanese general.

Finally, if the achievement IS connected with being a Republican then expecting props here for being promoted by a self-declared enemy of Black interests is kind of laughable. It would be like celebrating the promotion of a Sudanese general.

ROTFLMBAO!