Awakening the Deafening Silence: An Elephant Never Forgets

I am a black Republican, and I think it is absolutely ridiculous for the leading GOP candidates to snub an entire demographic of an electorate and then ask to lead their country.
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Princella Smith Responds to Tavis Smiley's Criticism of Silent Black Republicans. Dr. Wayne Bowen of Ouachita Baptist University contributed to this post.

Tom Joyner had Tavis Smiley on his morning show last week. Smiley, who has really defined himself as a noteworthy power-player in presidential debates, expressed his disdain for black Republicans who have remained silent on the fact that the leading Republican candidates in the 2008 presidential elections have declined invitations to the September 27th PBS Debate. What is the significance of this debate? It is being held at the historically black Morgan State University and is clearly aimed at African American voters.

Smiley is quoted as saying that the silence of these black Republicans is "deafening."

I am a black Republican, and, for once, I absolutely agree with Tavis Smiley. What a lot of Republicans don't understand is that it is no longer a choice between winning Southern conservatives and making inroads among black voters, as it was from the 1960s to the 80s. I think good candidates (like Mike Huckabee got 42% of the African-American vote) can keep southern whites, while appealing to independent and conservative black voters who are closer to the GOP on issues, but have been turned off by our party's tactics and neglect over the years. The same holds true for Hispanics, who are now the largest minority and the fastest growing group in absolute numbers. The leading Republican candidates also declined invites to a debate targeted to the Hispanic audience.

Please do not get my message twisted: I understand the candidates' so-called smart campaign tactics. Many times Republicans have tried to reach out to majority African-American groups and find themselves being demonized on a public forum, but in my opinion, the time is up for this kind of cowardice or, more softly put, an excess of caution.

Even Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, former Dixiecrats and segregationists, made special efforts to campaign for black voters in the Senatorial campaigns, and never fell below 10%-12% in those efforts.

My former boss, and former Lt. Governor of Maryland, Michael Steele, is a black Republican who is now the Chairman of GOPAC, a Republican political action committee. He was asked by Smiley to aid in the production of the debate. Recently, he expressed disappointment for the so-called leading Republican candidates' snub. "I think it's an important opportunity for Republican candidates to put up or shut up, when it comes to minority communities in the country," he said on WBAL's "Kendel and Bob Show".

Steele notes that African American voters have played a significant role in helping presidential candidates and reminded the listeners that in 2004, President Bush received 16% of the African-American vote in Ohio, which was seen as a battleground state in 2004.


The way I see it, Republicans should be strong enough to prompt the historical memories of our country and remind America that it was a Republican president who led the fight to abolish slavery and issued the

Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. It was a Republican Congress that overrode a presidential veto and helped finance the Freedmen's Bureau in 1866 out of which derived the great historical black college, Howard University -- a university that was first chartered and funded by a Republican Congress. It was a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sent federal troops to Arkansas to integrate public schools in 1957 and more recently, a Republican Congress in 2006 which helped pass the historic extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which was signed into law by President Bush.

As Jack Kemp said, Republicans were not the ones who "used the Constitution to deny freedom, property, education, and the vote to African Americans for almost 200 years", so why have we allowed the argument to be reshaped on us? Why are we running from debates targeted to black audiences? I am disappointed with the so-called leading presidential candidates of my party.

It's going to take a generation to reclaim the position the GOP had with black voters before 1964. As recently as 1960, national Republicans in a good year could expect to get 1/3 of the vote.

This about more than just winning elections -- at least for me. Even if this country was 95% white, it is simply a matter of justice and equal opportunity that we should try to include as many people of different backgrounds in our party and our government. Managing diversity in a positive way can be difficult, but managing it badly is a nightmare, as our history and current events all around the world have shown.

I'm not sure what Romney and Rudy are thinking. Do they believe voters in IA, NH and SC are going to say: "Well, I wasn't sure who to support, but since you boycotted that debate for black folks, you've got my vote!" Surely not.

It is absolutely ridiculous to snub an entire demographic of an electorate and then ask to lead their country. If this is their train of thought, I feel they are not worthy to lead. To think this incident will go away with time is unwise, because like the African-American electorate, this elephant never forgets.

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