Now that most of the ballots have been counted and recounted, Republicans are finding themselves out of power. For more than eight years, Republicans have been a driving force in Washington, and in 2000, they had the White House, House of Representatives, and the Senate. One can argue that they even had the Supreme Court.
Under Republican guidance, we are finding ourselves in two wars that seem to make no sense, in the midst of the worst financial crisis since 1929, and at a loss in world confidence.
Party leaders and political pundits are asking themselves, and the nation, what happened? Where does the party stand? Political pundits have already put several faces upon the screen as potential leaders of the party. These people include governors Sarah Palin (Alaska) and Bobby Jindal (Louisiana) as potential leaders. There were also several senators included.
What struck me the most about these shows and the potential Republican leaders, was the absence of color. Yes, Virginia, there are some Black Republicans.
For the most part, the Republican Party and the nation have taken these people for granted, often leaving them out of key decisions and debates. In one of the first presidential debates, Allan Keyes angrily pointed out to the moderator that she never allowed him any time to answer questions. African Americans have traditionally labeled these people as Uncle Toms, and threatened to kick their asses (Remember all of the death threats that Black guy got for telling John McCain to go after Obama?).
But wait one hot minute. I think that African Americans and Americans need to give these Republicans of color a deeper look. One of the main reasons that the Republican Party has fallen so low is their pandering to Evangelical and Fundamental Christians. These people, in the guise of Christ, have proved to be the most divisive and exclusivist sects of the American population. They have often embroilled and entangled politicians in pointless social debates, and have used the power of rhetoric to scare people into thinking that their "values" and "morals" were constantly under threats of obliteration. In addition, many Evangelical pastors banked on the fact that most Evangical Christians are both Biblically illiterate, and prone to voting on the heart instead of the purse.
Meanwhile, it was the African American and Latino Republicans who separated themselves from these social arguments and debates. Though I did not agree with their views, I have heard people like Shelby Steele, Bob Parks, Jennifer Carroll, Ward Connerly, Deborah Honeycutt, and others offer real Republican Conservative solutions to things that matter like: health care, equal opportunity schooling and employment, crime prevention and control, and welfare reform. Often, these people were ignored by their own national party, and demonized by the African American communities that they would like to serve.
We should stop demonizing our African American Republican brothers and sisters. They have a right to their own opinions, and thoughts. Anyway, African Americans are traditional social conservatives. We tend to vote Democratically because we often carry our empty purses with us to the voting booth. While we treasure family values as much as the next evangelical Christian, we also know that we need a strong economy with good jobs and opportunities to provide for our families.
African Americans and other minorities also need people with power on both sides of the aisle to agitate for what we want.
The national party should pay attention to these politicians. These politicians offer plausible solutions to very realy problems without becoming entangled in Evangelical Christian rhetoric. Why aren't they held up to be the Republican Standard Bearers? The fact that they are not, is one of the many reasons that African Americans have not voted Republican, and why the party has lost its way. It used to be a party of inclusion. Dr. Martin Luther King was a Republican, and so was Fredrick Douglass. Now it is the party of religious fear, ignorance, and intolerance.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
From the Plantation to the White House
Last night, something historic happened. America elected its first black president, Barack Obama. I tried to be jubilant, but the benydryl won out, and I dropped into sleep right after his speech. My husband and brother celebrated for me by illegally shooting fireworks in front of our home!
I awoke this morning, however, joyous but not surprised. I knew it was going to happen. And how did I know? A surprising source: football. National Football League, and the way it deals with African American coaches should teach us a thing a two about why we can't let our guards down. We might have shouted last night, but today we must be sober. We stil have work to do, and here's how football teaches us this...
1. It took a long time for Black coaches to be considered as candidates for coaching jobs in the NFL. When they are picked, they are usually given the sorriest teams imaginable. They are put under more pressure to produce results, and given less time than their white counterparts. Remember how Tampa Bay did Tony Dungy?
Think of what it took for a Black candidate to be taken as a serious competitor for the office of president. We are fighting a senseless war of aggression in one country, and half-ass fighting where we are needed most. We have lost our sense of moral and intellectual integrity and our perception as a beacon of hope. Because of greed and racism, the housing market has gone down, and caused a global financial crises. The stock market has crashed and crashed again. WE are experiencing our own depression. Education is in a standstill. America lags behind even some third-world countries in educational funding. Crime is sky-rocketing. In short, this country is a mess. This country had to be tore up from the ground up for a Black man to be considered for presidency. At this point, I think people would have accepted a dog over another Republican, if that dog were white. Even with all of this going on, Obama had a tough fight because of his skin color. Which brings me to my next point...
2. America's team, the Dallas Cowboys, has never had a Black coach, and Jerry Jones won't even think of interviewing one for the job. He wants that winning team, and doesn't think it's a shame that his stubborness is costing him good will in the eyes of his fans and colleagues. Think of the Dallas Cowboys as the South. Do you all realize that the South is one of the poorest regions in the nation, and always votes Republican? With the exception of Virginia and Florida, Obama did not carry any Southern states. So, we can't sit back and relax. Normally, everybody gets to dump on Mississippi, however, this election has proved that the whole South is content to remain at the back of the bus. The South has taken her stand yet again, and like Jerry Jones, is content to accept losing and/or dying over positive change with an African American leader.
3. And then there are teams that have liberal and empathetic coaches, and players shoot themselves in the foot. These teams, like the Bears, and the Bengals, are unruly and undisciplined. They stay in trouble both on the field, and off the field. It is as if their money and superstar status have given them a license to act a damn fool, and piss away a magnificent opportunity to just play football, rather than hit the grind like the rest of us. These men, drunk on the wine of the world, screw up their marriages, their jobs, and their families because they are not mature enough or disciplined enough to handle the enormous responsibilities that come with success. Don't laugh at Michael Vick, one only needs to pay attention to the behavior of some urban African American populations to understand his behaviour. Instead of taking advantage of the tremendouse educational opportunities given us by our ancestors who died in the Civil Rights Movement, and before then, we became satisfied raising our families on trinkets, baptizing them in materialism, and teaching them to accept mediocrity. After the Civil Rights Movement, many Baby Boomer African Americans dropped the ball and fumbled it. They decided that being able to buy more material goods was more important than teaching our current generation our history. Now, it is coming to fruition. We have more Black men in jail than college. We have Black women having a bunch of children by different men so that they can receive more food stamps and other benefits. We have a generation whose only knowledge of Black history consists of a preacher from Georgia and woman whose feet were tired....Period. We are lost...almost.
But Obama gives us hope. And this time, we cannot afford to fumble the ball to the likes of BET and other psychologically damaging images of ourselves. We must look to ourselves and take responsibility for ourselves.
1. Let us reembrace Jessie Jackson. People make mistakes. WE need to stop putting our leaders upon a pedestal, thereby alleviating ourselves of any responsibilities for our own personal actions. Jessie did wrong, but he is our brother, and our father. We need to show him love. We do wrong, too. It's just that his wrongs are public and ours are private. We need to stop putting everything on the preachers' shoulders, and read and study for ourselves.
2. Let us always lift up President Obama with our prayers. Yes, he will be tested. But don't give in to typical Negro apathy, "I told ya'll he wasn't gone do nothing."
3. Let us be parents again, and not friends. Let us teach our children our history. Let us stop putting in ourselves into a system of volunteer slavery that tells you that a maxed out credit card at an interest rate of 29.9% is worth a new outfit for church, and passing on the curse of financial irresponsibility to our children. We don't have to be dressed to be blessed.
4. Let us look past the surface of things. Let us start to address some things that have been quiet as kept for far too long. Let us stop pretending that the young folk are to blame for so much silliness. We learned it from somewhere.
While we lift up Barack in our prayers, let us pull ourselves up by the emotional bootstraps. Mr. Obama once said that his favorite writer is Toni Morrison. I can see that. I can see that because in her books, she lets you feel the power of the white supremacy, but does not concern herself with it. Instead, she holds the Black community responsible for what happens to its weakest individuals. When we don't guide our children, love our neighbors, address our painful pasts, or pray for one another, disaster usually happens to somebody who felt like their own people did not love or support them. By the time the community realizes what is has done or failed to do, it is often much, much too late. And in her narratives, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
I awoke this morning, however, joyous but not surprised. I knew it was going to happen. And how did I know? A surprising source: football. National Football League, and the way it deals with African American coaches should teach us a thing a two about why we can't let our guards down. We might have shouted last night, but today we must be sober. We stil have work to do, and here's how football teaches us this...
1. It took a long time for Black coaches to be considered as candidates for coaching jobs in the NFL. When they are picked, they are usually given the sorriest teams imaginable. They are put under more pressure to produce results, and given less time than their white counterparts. Remember how Tampa Bay did Tony Dungy?
Think of what it took for a Black candidate to be taken as a serious competitor for the office of president. We are fighting a senseless war of aggression in one country, and half-ass fighting where we are needed most. We have lost our sense of moral and intellectual integrity and our perception as a beacon of hope. Because of greed and racism, the housing market has gone down, and caused a global financial crises. The stock market has crashed and crashed again. WE are experiencing our own depression. Education is in a standstill. America lags behind even some third-world countries in educational funding. Crime is sky-rocketing. In short, this country is a mess. This country had to be tore up from the ground up for a Black man to be considered for presidency. At this point, I think people would have accepted a dog over another Republican, if that dog were white. Even with all of this going on, Obama had a tough fight because of his skin color. Which brings me to my next point...
2. America's team, the Dallas Cowboys, has never had a Black coach, and Jerry Jones won't even think of interviewing one for the job. He wants that winning team, and doesn't think it's a shame that his stubborness is costing him good will in the eyes of his fans and colleagues. Think of the Dallas Cowboys as the South. Do you all realize that the South is one of the poorest regions in the nation, and always votes Republican? With the exception of Virginia and Florida, Obama did not carry any Southern states. So, we can't sit back and relax. Normally, everybody gets to dump on Mississippi, however, this election has proved that the whole South is content to remain at the back of the bus. The South has taken her stand yet again, and like Jerry Jones, is content to accept losing and/or dying over positive change with an African American leader.
3. And then there are teams that have liberal and empathetic coaches, and players shoot themselves in the foot. These teams, like the Bears, and the Bengals, are unruly and undisciplined. They stay in trouble both on the field, and off the field. It is as if their money and superstar status have given them a license to act a damn fool, and piss away a magnificent opportunity to just play football, rather than hit the grind like the rest of us. These men, drunk on the wine of the world, screw up their marriages, their jobs, and their families because they are not mature enough or disciplined enough to handle the enormous responsibilities that come with success. Don't laugh at Michael Vick, one only needs to pay attention to the behavior of some urban African American populations to understand his behaviour. Instead of taking advantage of the tremendouse educational opportunities given us by our ancestors who died in the Civil Rights Movement, and before then, we became satisfied raising our families on trinkets, baptizing them in materialism, and teaching them to accept mediocrity. After the Civil Rights Movement, many Baby Boomer African Americans dropped the ball and fumbled it. They decided that being able to buy more material goods was more important than teaching our current generation our history. Now, it is coming to fruition. We have more Black men in jail than college. We have Black women having a bunch of children by different men so that they can receive more food stamps and other benefits. We have a generation whose only knowledge of Black history consists of a preacher from Georgia and woman whose feet were tired....Period. We are lost...almost.
But Obama gives us hope. And this time, we cannot afford to fumble the ball to the likes of BET and other psychologically damaging images of ourselves. We must look to ourselves and take responsibility for ourselves.
1. Let us reembrace Jessie Jackson. People make mistakes. WE need to stop putting our leaders upon a pedestal, thereby alleviating ourselves of any responsibilities for our own personal actions. Jessie did wrong, but he is our brother, and our father. We need to show him love. We do wrong, too. It's just that his wrongs are public and ours are private. We need to stop putting everything on the preachers' shoulders, and read and study for ourselves.
2. Let us always lift up President Obama with our prayers. Yes, he will be tested. But don't give in to typical Negro apathy, "I told ya'll he wasn't gone do nothing."
3. Let us be parents again, and not friends. Let us teach our children our history. Let us stop putting in ourselves into a system of volunteer slavery that tells you that a maxed out credit card at an interest rate of 29.9% is worth a new outfit for church, and passing on the curse of financial irresponsibility to our children. We don't have to be dressed to be blessed.
4. Let us look past the surface of things. Let us start to address some things that have been quiet as kept for far too long. Let us stop pretending that the young folk are to blame for so much silliness. We learned it from somewhere.
While we lift up Barack in our prayers, let us pull ourselves up by the emotional bootstraps. Mr. Obama once said that his favorite writer is Toni Morrison. I can see that. I can see that because in her books, she lets you feel the power of the white supremacy, but does not concern herself with it. Instead, she holds the Black community responsible for what happens to its weakest individuals. When we don't guide our children, love our neighbors, address our painful pasts, or pray for one another, disaster usually happens to somebody who felt like their own people did not love or support them. By the time the community realizes what is has done or failed to do, it is often much, much too late. And in her narratives, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
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