symposium

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

Some Republican leaders, including former congressman Jack Kemp, loudly have lamented the mass exodus of black voters from the GOP since the sixties. Yet, more than 90 percent of congressional Republicans (in contrast to about 50 percent of congressional Democrats) voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and in the late sixties Republican President Richard Nixon introduced what became the essence of the civil-rights revolution for black leaders -- affirmative-action programs. Nixon and Labor Secretary George Shultz pioneered minority set-asides in government contracting.

Republicans lost the black vote not because of racist rhetoric or a racist past but because the Democratic Party outbid them for that vote. Most black voters want less of what the Republicans appear to be offering -- limited government -- and more of what Democrats do offer: quotas and other forms of compensatory justice directed at their community.

There is no way that Republicans can pick up large chunks of the black vote except by playing ball with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rep. Maxine Waters of California and other black politicians with demonstrated mass support among blacks. The price for such cooperation should be obvious: It would oblige Republicans to take the initiative in pushing affirmative action, reparations to blacks and hate-crime legislation aimed against whites. After all, the reason that these leaders rage against Republicans is for dragging their feet on such issues. When on Nov. 4, Gore told a black Methodist congregation in Pittsburgh that Bush's reference to strict constructionism was a code word for slavery, for having some people considered three-fifths of a human being, he was drowned in cheers and applause.

That kind of rhetoric will be de rigueur for Republicans who have the stomach to pursue the black vote any further. Recall that Bush had Confederate memorabilia scrupulously removed from the Texas statehouse prior to the start of his campaign, but the gesture didn't satisfy the civil-rights establishment. More dramatic groveling will be required before Republicans will be able to bring that group around.

Republicans who think they will garner black votes by doing less are deluding themselves. Democrats court the black vote by promising social programs and by making public confessions about white burdens of guilt in the appropriate places. Republicans can do the same, but in the process they will look like faux-Democrats and will relinquish what differentiates them, at least theoretically, from the Left -- the belief in real constitutional government as opposed to a parody of one.

Moreover, it is both dishonest and demoralizing for white Americans to apologize to blacks for what some white Americans did or did not do to black Americans in the past. This is a rite of humiliation that tens of millions of Americans are loath to join. These Americans vote for the Republican Party not as an antiblack party but in retaliation against an antiwhite one. Like my white neighbors in Pennsylvania-Dutch country, they believe that Republicans, if nothing else, proclaim the right idea: All American citizens should be treated the same under the law. As white Americans, they will treat black ones fairly but see no reason to mortify themselves when addressing black groups. Republican strategists are hopelessly naive if they imagine they can hold on to such voters while playing pals with Jackson and Kweisi Mfume. Whatever they may chip away from the 10 percent of the total American vote cast by blacks this year, these strategists likely will lose from traditional Republicans. Such people do have choices besides voting for the Democrats such as staying home or voting for third-party candidates on Election Day.