Fields: GOP Choose A Black Leader, But Remain Racists
BY SAM FIELDS
Guest Columnist
(Sam Fields is a Fort Lauderdale lawyer and a rabid Democratic activist.)
The GOP would have you believe that the election of a “colored guy as their national chairman — Michael Steele — proves that the Republican Party is down wit’ Da’ hood.
The choice of Steele is their sorry answer to the questions that have been haunting Republicans since the November debacle:
Whose fault is it? What do we need to do to get back in the majority, reclaim the White House and do it without making any real changes?
How bad is it for Republicans today?
Only 23% of Americans now identify with the Republican Party and they are overwhelmingly in the former Confederate States with a dash of Utah and Idaho Mormons.
Six vied for the job of national chairman, including Steele and America’s most infamous Oreo Cookie Ken Blackwell.
Blackwell is the former Ohio Secretary of State. In 2004, he borrowed every trick from the Mississippi White Citizens Council to suppress the Black vote. My favorite was trying to disqualify ballots that were cast on paper that was not the “official weight.
You have to admire the honesty of “Honky candidate, Chip Saltsman, the former Chairman of the Tennessee GOP. He sent a racist CD titled Obama the Magical Negro to every member of the RNC.
If there was a moment that showed the isolation of the GOP it came on January 5th when all six candidates were asked to name the All Time Greatest Republican President.
The final vote: Ronald Reagan-6 and poor Ol’ Abe Lincoln-0.
That 6-0 vote made very clear that in 2009, all six candidates believed that core Republican voters are still the former Dixiecrats personified by Strom Thurman. Thurman, you remember, not only was a racist, but he secretly suffered chronic Jungle Fever.
These Republicans are the people that still refuse to call it the Civil War. It’s The War Of The Northern Aggression.
These are the folks that watch Gone With the Wind backwards so that it has a happy ending.
These are the folks who think The Gipper had a point when he could not exclude the idea that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Communist.
These are the people that don’t mind that the 2008 convention had the fewest Black delegates since 1968.
No problem as long as you have one or two for photo ops.
These are the people that rule the GOP.
Slavery, schmavery say the six. The negatives are overblown. After all, it did come with free room and board.
Real oppression comes from raising capital gains taxes from 15% to 17%.
So what’s the solution to reaching out to the majority of Americans without really changing one bit?
Steele is Mel Martinez Redux.
As in pick a minority in an attempt to gloss over their Know Nothing, xenophobic values.
Two years ago, the GOP picked a Cuban-American as their chairman –our very own Senator Mel Martinez. Embarrassed by the immigration reform debacle he quit after year.
It does not look like they will have that same problem with Steele. He’s Mr. Photo Op and the GOP is sure that as long as the public does nothing to look beyond his Hollywood good looks, Steele should neutralize the Obama Effect.
February 1st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
You have a point that is ruined by using intemperate and unkind language like “colored” and supposed dialect. Just make your point. Don’t demean a whole people
February 1st, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Demean which whole people?
Republicans or White people?
February 2nd, 2009 at 6:48 am
And yet, there are Black Republicans, Gay Republicans, and Women Republicans. It’s just WRONG!
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:43 am
you have lost all crediability for YOUR racist attitude-look in the mirror. Idiot.
February 2nd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
It’s called irony look it up the dictionary.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:33 am
Thank you for writing this post. I had no idea that I am a racist. I was wondering what all that hatred was that I keep inside…YOU DONKEY!
February 4th, 2009 at 4:57 am
Glad I could help.
hee haw!
February 4th, 2009 at 6:32 am
For the record, it wasn’t a Southern Republican who called a politician he didn’t like “a little schvartze with a mustache.”
Racism knows no geography, party or ethnicity.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:36 am
It is difficult to take Democrat activist Fields seriously when he attempts to make his case that the Republicans are racists. In the very piece where he seeks to make the case against Republicans, it is Fields who used the not discredited word “colored†to refer to African-Americans. It is Fields who describes an African-American as an ‘oreo cookieâ€, an openly racist remark.
Then we get to the real rub: Strom Thurmond was a racist who was a Democrat then turned Republican. He was a racist when he was a Democrat, too. He didn’t start with his change of party registration. So was George Wallace, as be stood barring the door of the University of Alabama. Today, a sitting Senator is a former member of the KKK. And still a Democrat: Senator Byrd of West Virginia. Yes, it hurts that Jim Crow was a Democrat.
The bottom line is that lingering racism transcends party lines. Surprise, surprise! There is both good and evil on both sides of the aisle.
Using racism for partisan purposes, to inflame people for or against a candidate or a party, is, unfortunately, alive and well, and it permeates Fields’ essay. I will remember that next time he runs for Judge and comes around to the Republican clubs seeking support.