Unfortunately, some Republicans are now busily demonstrating that offensive racial politics is not limited to Democrats.
Black Republican groups emerged from the political margins yesterday, launching a campaign to persuade African American voters to support Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele’s bid for the U.S. Senate.
….
The push was evident in a Baltimore radio advertisement targeting African American listeners that was sponsored by the Washington-based National Black Republican Association. The ad identifies Martin Luther King Jr. as a Republican and pins the founding of the Ku Klux Klan on Democrats.
One woman says: “Democrats passed those black codes and Jim Crow laws. Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan.”
“The Klan?” her friend replies. “White hoods and sheets?”
First woman: “Democrats fought all civil rights legislation from the 1860s to the 1960s. Democrats released those vicious dogs and fire hoses on blacks.”
Second woman: “Seriously?”
The ad says that “Democrats want to keep us poor while voting ONLY Democrat” and, “Democrats have bamboozled blacks.”
I think blacks in Maryland should vote for Steele, but not because he’s black or because the Klan was founded by Democrats, etc.
Of course, I think whites in Maryland should vote for Steele as well. Indeed, I think blacks and whites should vote for Steele — or against him, if they prefer — for the same reasons.
It doesn’t matter whether the historical points in this radio ad are true or not (generally, they are). They are not relevant to this election. Asking blacks today to vote Republican because the political grandfathers and great grandfathers and great great grandfathers of todays Democrats founded the Klan and opposed civil rights laws is no more appealing than the grandfather clauses those now dead Southern Democrats used to disfranchise blacks.
I have similar objections to the efforts of Project 21, a black conservative group that I admire, to oppose a proposed “National Heritage Area” because it “is likely to disproportionately harm minority families in the region by making homeownership more inaccessible.”
By giving legitimacy to “disparate impact” arguments in general, such an approach undermines sound civil rights policy. If there is no intent to cause disparate harm to blacks, the proposal should be opposed (or defended) on its merits rather than introducing race into the debate. I don’t believe Project 21 opposes, say, standardized tests because they often have a “disparate impact” on blacks. Why do so here?
All voters decide issues in part based on whether it is good for them. I see nothing wrong in black people doing that.
Voters will decide issues in part on self-interest (though I like to think most voters also incorporate what they believe to be good for the state/country/world into their decision-making). Perhaps voting based on what’s good for other people of one’s race is also unavoidable, but I think it’s an extra level of unfortunate.