Last month, the wingnuts freaked when Howard Dean called the GOP "the white party." But chances are if you saw the convention last night, you didn’t see much color.
Organizers conceived of this convention as a means to inspire, but some African American Republicans have found the Xcel Energy Center depressing this week. Everywhere they look, they see evidence of what they consider one of their party’s biggest shortcomings.
As the country rapidly diversifies, Republicans are presenting a convention that is almost entirely white.
Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black, the lowest number since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies began tracking diversity at political conventions 40 years ago. Each night, the overwhelmingly white audience watches a series of white politicians step to the lectern — a visual reminder that no black Republican has served as a governor, U.S. senator or U.S. House member in the past six years.
"It’s hard to look around and not get frustrated," said Michael S. Steele, a black Republican and former lieutenant governor of Maryland. "You almost have to think, ‘Wait. How did it come to this?’ "
How’d it come to this, Mike? Maybe it’s that the Bush economy has been absolutely brutal on minorities. Or perhaps it was that a Republican President sat on his hands while New Orleans drowned, then didn’t rebuild the city as promised. Might also be the ugly nativism that runs through the GOP’s official party platform like a sewer. Or it could’ve been the not-so-thinly veiled racist attacks on Barack and Michelle Obama. Mystery solved!
The lack of diversity is out of sync with the demographic changes in the United States. The Census Bureau reported last month that racial and ethnic minorities will make up a majority of the country’s population by 2042 — almost a decade earlier than what the bureau predicted just four years ago. Two-thirds of Americans are non-Hispanic whites, 12.4 percent are black and 14.8 percent are Hispanic, according to 2006 census numbers.
…
"If we don’t get better at reaching out, we’re in big trouble," agreed Michael Williams, a black Republican who chairs the Texas Railroad Commission and who spoke Wednesday night. "It doesn’t take much to see that this is not what America looks like. . . . We’re trying, but we’re not there yet."
Not by a longshot. And they’re already in big trouble.
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They’re doing the best job of reaching out that their current policies and officeholders will permit.
Boxturtle (Zed?)
The overwhelming number of caucasians at the convention is entirely consistent with the GOP’s apparent desire to roll back the clock 50 years. Former soldier in the White House, Cold War, women cranking out babies, gays all back in the closet, cops giving malcontents what-for without fear of retribution, non-whites who KNOW THEIR PLACE and don’t act all uppity by graduating at the top of their Harvard class or running for president.
To all caucasians who buy into the GOP vision of America, know this, they STILL intend to outsource your jobs.
No shortage of black Republican Pundits. Juan Williams and Michelle Bachman do an outstanding job every day. Whatever happened to Armstrong Williams? He was good. /s
Breaking -
Abramoff gets 4 years – AP
link
white? yup. and old!!!! I’ve never seen so many old people in one place since ……. There’s a joke there. I just don’t have it. Feel free.
Rep. Lynn Westermoreland (R-GA): Obama’s too “uppity.”
The Hill
wonder if they’ll show the closing cross burning ceremony tonight :D
Had to get Abramoff squared away before any change of administration, doncha know. Couldn’t have him available to answer questions from people who might acually be inclined to expose and prosecute corruption at the highest levels.
Until Republicans can get your falling wages to be more in line with Chinese and Indian wages, your jobs must continue to be outsourced. (Your) labor costs are always too high for Republicans no matter how low you think they are.
Yeah, it’s a veritable Lawrence Welk-a-palooza. They should make it easier on everybody and schedule the next convention in Branson.
Lynn Westmoreland(R-pig-ignorant) is the idiot who loves the ten commandments and can’t name one.
Cafferty responder sez:
Sarah palin is dick cheney with lipstick.
the sentencing Judge is supposed to be of the no-nonsense type. I say that because the maximum could have been 11 years (remember, he’s already serving 6 for the Fl wire fraud)- initial sense is this judge thought he did a helluva lot of cooperating.
we’ll see. there’s supposed to be a pre-sentencing report avail. both parties have up til 10 (?) days after the report to respond – but then it is to be released publicly –
name names and Own Your Failures !
Y’know, I have never seen Cheney and Palin in the same place at the same time, you don’t suppose..?
Probably the one positive thing J. Edgar Hoover did was make it possible for every other cross-dresser in the world to feel pretty, although Cheney might be pushing the envelope.
Please excuse my cynicism, but I’ll believe justice has been served when Rove and Cheney are locked away. Hope the report
. . . is juicy though.
They want to go back a LOT further than 50 years. Fifty years ago, we were enjoying the benefits of the New Deal.
I think Republicans would like to go back to the late 1800’s when the Robber Barons ran amok.
I watched the convention last night and my comment to my wife was, “It looks like an Amway convention from Hell.”
Anyone remember that scene from the movie “They Live” where all the aliens and the human traitors are in some swanky convention hall?
Dick Cheney is Sarah Palin with balls.
hmm, I don’t know if that’s the best analogy because I think there are times Dick Cheney does wear lipstick.
you know, I just figured out this week I’ve never seen John Ashcroft and Phyllis Schlafly in the same place at the same time :D
It really is not a joke. For along time we have been talking about the generation that has to die off to see decline in racism, antiGay attitudes, etc. Some of that younger outlook is at work in the Obama campaign. I have to be very careful from where I sit, you know. All those Young Republicans that were so excited about Goldwater are not so young any more.
You want the inside scoop? Interview the cameramen who are working on the floor. They hear it in the headphones throughout the evening. They actually have to keep track of where those black faces are and keep a camera at the ready, so that when the producer calls for a “color shot,” they’ve got one to throw to. The coverage is completely disingenuous, as they have to go out of their way to put the rare black face on the tee vee, and they are doing so at the behest of the RNC – NOT because the amount of times they show black faces on a relative basis is representative of those in attendance.
The nuts and bolts of the coverage, and the way they produce it all in the truck, is where the evidence of pandering resides. The conversations between the director of photography and the cameramen – that’s where the truth is.
I was going to say I’ve never seen John McCain and Caligula in the same room, but then I realized when McCain was young, it could have happened.
Any video-inclined person who wished to really tar the Republicans with their on words coud do it this way:
Fade in on a Confederate battle flag, gently flapping in the breeze. Then scroll out the words of all these quotes from Republicans, like Westmoreleand, with audio, that betray their true feelings about race in America. Maybe have “Dixie” quietly playing in the background. Finish with “The Republican Party in America today.”
A thirty-second nuclear weapon of truth.
gotta go firedogs -
bookmark this link should the Lake be inaccessible and you need a place to chat
mad arch liberal love to all.
here’s something that just happened at work, very frightening comming from an
It just looks like he’s wearing lipstick right after he drinks blood.
I was going to say I’ve never seen John McCain and Caligula in the same room, but then I realized when McCain was young, it could have happened.
enter before done…*damn it*
here’s something that just happened at work, very frightening comming from an EIGTY YEAR OLD COUPLE as they were leaving my office
“if “something” happens this election then watch out ’cause our money is gonna be worthless, I don’t want to say what that “something” is but just watch out”
holy cow, this comming from an eighty year old couple
I believe as elliot believes, that cheney is in the closet
What a revoltin’ development !
Tee hee hee. The opposite of FDL–WCP!
cheney is in the closet
…where he sleeps, upside down and hanging by his feet, every night.
Get ready for the Bush Administration to literally buy McCain the Presidency. When Hurricane Ike hits Florida, watch and see how much of your money pours into the state, right on time to buy the election.
They did it before – it’s in their playbook…spending your money to enrich themselves.
He would probably do ok in prison then.
Rolling the clock back 50 years is the is the facade the GOP uses to pander to it’s base. Their actual (mostly) hidden agenda is to prevent or remove any government regulation of corporations. In that respect your time frame is accurate since the late 19th century is when the Republicans went in the bag for big business.
…or a man-sized safe in an undisclosed location
The Republican Party is white cuz that is where their votes are. If the 36 non-white folks at the rethuglican nationalistic conversion don’t understand this then they are drink very strong koolaid.
If there is any justice, Cheney will be reincarnated as a pen-raised quail at a sportsman’s club.
Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black…
That explains it. That’s 1.5% black, yes? Therefore, Not The White Party.
Think of it this way: if your ancestry were 1.5% black, would a racist consider you to be white?
They do offer great opportunities for the Judas goat. If one wearing the proper skin tone like Uncle Thomas will parrot the party line, then there is no limit to the advancement possible for this lawyer who might be charitably considered mediocre. It’s like the house slave of another era; you can be favored by Massah if you sell out your own tribe on his behalf. For women, it’s only a matter of taking on Lady Macbeth’s injunction: “Unsex me here.”
yes, and every day, for eternity. kind of like the movie “Groundhog Day” but without the laughs.
I have to correct Howard Dean. It’s the white party of men with a sidedressing of overly madeup women with dolly doos re: Sarah Palin. ( An acquaintance of mine from TN always used that term “dolly doo” so scathingly.)
So I take it Sarah Palin was more lifelike the X*n*x fairy lovin Laura Bush?
I’m thinking more like black leather, heavy curtains, no daylight, tomb like atmosphere, plus sulphur and dry ice machine. And a Xtra-top-secret, classified-by-yours-truly file cabinet. but with what inside? Could be wrong though.
1,754 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Blue Texan:
Great post and the racial homogeneity of the fascist GOP has long been taken for granted by those with 3 er more functionin’ brain cellz (I get in at the threshold a that group)…but your thesis was demonstrated in full color (so ta speak) for those of us in the march on Monday. And not only were the majority of the delegates and convention participants that we saw white as a KKK sheet, but they appeared ta be mostly over 60 years of age, boast Dixie accents and were scared ta death of goin outside without a police escort.
My 20 year old daughter and I had an experience at about 10AM Monday mornin’ that really advances yer thesis. We were walkin from the Capitol Hill gatherin spot to the cathedral jest a couple a blocks away and passed a group of about 50, white haired and peroxide blond fascist counter demonstrators. These folks were dressed in red, white and blue T-shirts and were equally divided between over 60 males and females. My daughter who is most beautiful and blond (I dare ya ta make a dumb blond joke…she’ll tear ya a new one and leave ya in the street for the storm troopers) was wearin an Obama T-shirt. One of a gaggle of about 10 harpies called out to Emmy sayin “you should be ashamed of yourself young lady…wearin thet T-shirt”. Well, I didn’t want my daughter ta get arrested fer vivisection on a public street so I said “she’s your worst nightmare…she’s blond, smart and thinks Barak is hot”. I thought the old hen was gunna stroke out right there. Now that wasn’t the end of it, however…comin’ back we passed the same cluster of folks except they’d brought out their male champions. One of the guys in the front of the group was wavin’ a sign that said “Support The Troops…Let them Win” or some such bullshit. Now I couldn’t pass up that opportunity for dialogue at 10:30 in the mornin’ so I stopped in front of ‘im and asked ‘im if he had ever served in the military. “yes, and I was proud to serve.” So I asked ‘im “I’m a “Nam vet, didja ever see a shot fired in anger?” And his reply is gunna stay with me ’til the devil gets my ashes, he said “no, I didn’t get the opportunity, I was stationed in Germany.” Well, I spat back at ‘im ” You, sir, are a chicken hawk and you are full of shit”. He turned a bright shade of purple and, as he was even older’n I and twice as fat, thought better of takin’ a swing at me, he jest backed up and said “have a nice day”…Classic!!
As we continued past the group, a clump of the old geezers were doin’ their exercises er some such and chantin’ “freedom is not free”… well jest in front of us was a brother talkin on a cell phone and I interrupted him and said “they’re talkin to ya…they’re sayin ‘freedom ain’t free”. The brother smiled and said “They ain’t talkin’ ta ME, Brother”. Oh my…I am convinced that irony is one a God’s little tricks on wingnuts.
Thanx again for the post…
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THIS IS THE LAST BATTLE AGAINST AMERICAN FASCISM!!
The “Whites Only” phenomena of the RNC has jumped out at me more than anything actually said by any one speaker, or the appearance of any personality the party has offered up. I know from experience, having lived in Los Angeles for thirty years, that people of color and non- white ethnicities are very sensitive when they are left out of the mix of something as large as a major party convention in a presidential election year. I hope they watched the DNC and are watching the RNC and making the stark comparison.
Heh. Maybe I’m a little sick, but I think I’d pay good money to see it.
@42 response to jayt@31
An Amway convention would have more energy and optimism and a lot less hate.
There just aren’t enough monstrous, privileged assholes who also happen to be black. There are some, just not enough to make them look like anything but flyspecks when tossed into the mass of Republican delegates.
Also worth noting, the Red states look an awful lot like the slavery-supporting states about the time of the Civil War. Their support for corporate dictatorship seems meet to make slaves of all of us who are not born wealthy.
I believe as elliot believes, that cheney is in
theLynne’s closetjust a little edit