symposium

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 8, 2001 | by J.C. Watts, Jr., | Paul Gottfried

Q: Should the GOP do more to reach out to black voters?

Yes: African-Americans' belief in faith/family and community make them a natural future GOP constituency.

As the majority party in Washington, the Republican party not only should continue to reach out to black voters, but all voters. Yet it will not be easy. A long history of distrust in the black community will be hard to overcome with only the simple truth of how close the views of African-Americans and the Republican Party really are. But we cannot and should not give up, because in doing so we're giving up on them.

When thinking about how hard reaching out can be, I recall my experience in becoming a Republican. It was my senior year at the University of Oklahoma. I was a journalism major assigned to cover a debate between a young Republican businessman from Ponca City, Okla., and the Democratic mayor of Oklahoma City. They were both articulate, charismatic and running for the same U.S. Senate seat. Afterward, I walked back to the J-school building confused and shaking my head because I found myself agreeing more with the Republican than the Democrat.

You see, I thought being a Democrat was my birthright. After all, I was the fifth child of a poor black family from rural Oklahoma. I was born in a small community called Eufaula. My uncle had been the president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I had a legacy to uphold. I had to carry my union card for blacks and think like the group -- and I felt that any black who didn't was a sellout.

But I couldn't get this thought out of my head: The Republican candidate had made sense. His words resonated with the values on which I had been raised, echoing all the things my dad had taught me: Work hard, play fair, be responsible, pay your own way. Those were words I thought my dad owned. I couldn't believe a Republican -- let alone a white Republican -- would be agreeing with my father.

Years later, nine to be exact, I switched my party registration. I had the awesome task of telling J.C. "Buddy" Watts Sr. the news. I was probably more afraid of telling him that I was now a Republican than I ever was of facing any lineman during my college or professional football career.

Well, Dad, believe it or not, took it fairly well. (He even admitted he had voted for Richard Nixon for president over John F. Kennedy.) It turned out that Dad agreed with my feelings. He was what was known as a geographic Democrat -- not an ideological Democrat. I think my dad is typical of many African-Americans, who tend to be Democrats by geography or tradition.

African-Americans are not Democrats because they believe in the party's values. In fact, I think the Democratic Party has forgotten its most loyal constituents in the black community. I challenge every black Democrat to ask himself or herself one question: What has their party done for them in the last 30 years?

In fact, it is my belief that continuing to communicate our common-sense principles throughout black America eventually may yield a whole new generation of young black voters who, just as I did, begin to ask: "Why do many of our urban centers -- predominantly under Democratic control -- have higher rates of crime, lower employment, lower school test scores and higher taxes, yet fewer community services?"

Young and old, African-Americans are much more conservative in their beliefs than today's liberal-leaning Democratic Party. A poll conducted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found that while 72 percent of black Americans identified themselves as Democrats, 33 percent characterized themselves as conservative. A series of Washington Post polls found that 35 percent of blacks identified themselves as "conservative" or "very conservative."

I, for one, wasn't surprised. Historically, black people always have been conservative. They are the keepers of the flame of family values. Blacks believe strongly in family, church and community. It was only when they vested their beliefs in the Democratic Party and allowed government to control their lives that they encountered deepening poverty, decaying families and a sick welfare system that penalizes women for wanting to marry the father of their children and mothers for saving money.

Many African-Americans are conservative without even identifying themselves as conservative. They are conservative about traditional morality. They are conservative about empowerment issues such as school choice and lower taxes. I am convinced that if we communicate those values to black voters, we will begin to reverse the long trend of black allegiance to the Democratic Party. If Republicans will continue to spread the conservative principles and ideas of the Republican Party throughout America, even in the most heavily black communities, we eventually will be successful.

In this effort, the goal should not just be to contain liberalism -- but to transcend it; not just to reduce the costs of government -- but to change its very nature; not just to urge Americans toward reduced expectations -- but toward greater and bolder dreams.