TJGoSurf
11-22-2005, 11:13 AM
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/naacpleaders1122
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-owens1905nov19,0,2848137.column?coll=orl-news-col
During her 2000 re-election bid, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, a black Democrat, compared black Republicans to two-headed snakes.
Black Republicans, she reckoned, "are a freak of nature."
One of those rare but not unheard-of freaks was discovered this week in -- of all places -- the director's chair at the Orange County NAACP.
Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell revealed that NAACP head Derrick Wallace had flip-flopped political loyalties, kicking the donkey to the curb and hitching his fortune to Dumbo.
Fortune, it turns out, is the operative word. Wallace, CEO of the construction-management company Construct Two Group, told Maxwell a desire to rub shoulders with the largely Republican clients that help him live large induced his change.
"It's purely a business decision. Ninety percent of those I do business with are Republicans."
Predictably, his defection brought a hail of criticism:
". . . Welcome to the world of Strom Thurmond, Tom DeLay, and Barbara Bush -- the trio of bigots," one reader posted on the Sentinel Web site. "But hey, maybe you'll make even more money, so it's worth it."
Of greater worth would be a stream of blacks emulating the march into enlightened self-interest.
Blacks are born Democrats, the assumption goes, and can no more change sympathies than our color. After enjoying voter loyalty for supporting civil rights and social reparation, Dems must account for results, argues the Rev. Wayne Perryman in his book Unfounded Loyalty: An In-Depth Look Into the Blind Love Affair Between Blacks and Democrats.
"Inner-city blacks," he writes, "who have given their vote to the Democrats for the past forty years, are left wondering what that party has done to remedy the still-prevalent problems within their community."
Stagnant waters now are spawning more freaks: The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies 2002 National Opinion Poll found that 17.2 percent of blacks ages 18 to 25 either identified with the GOP or as independents tilted more toward Republican than Democrat.
Polls show blacks largely share similar conservative stances on education, religion and social values. Yet the number of black Republicans remains small because of lingering distrust among older blacks, contends the Joint Center's David Bositis. Young converts, he adds, often renounce their fragile allegiance after GOP leadership adopts policy noxious to blacks -- or Trent Lott waxes nostalgic about segregation.
Given the whittling of affirmative action, steep black unemployment and the Hurricane Katrina response, black GOP support likely never will approach the 30 percent pre-civil-rights era level.
Nor am I advocating a mass Democrat exodus. All I'm saying is this: Wallace, as a leader of the Democrat-leaning "nonpartisan" NAACP, showed that there are other ways of reaching the Promised Land of social, educational, economic and political parity than on the back of a burro.
After four decades, it's time to consider candidates on merit, not the party stamped on their political buttons.
Perhaps, as Economist magazine has suggested, think in a "Machiavellian manner" and "vote Republican in large enough numbers to worry Democrats and thereby gain more influence in both parties."
Maybe someoen picked up a history book and said, "Holy shit Democrats wanted to keep us as slaves."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-owens1905nov19,0,2848137.column?coll=orl-news-col
During her 2000 re-election bid, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, a black Democrat, compared black Republicans to two-headed snakes.
Black Republicans, she reckoned, "are a freak of nature."
One of those rare but not unheard-of freaks was discovered this week in -- of all places -- the director's chair at the Orange County NAACP.
Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell revealed that NAACP head Derrick Wallace had flip-flopped political loyalties, kicking the donkey to the curb and hitching his fortune to Dumbo.
Fortune, it turns out, is the operative word. Wallace, CEO of the construction-management company Construct Two Group, told Maxwell a desire to rub shoulders with the largely Republican clients that help him live large induced his change.
"It's purely a business decision. Ninety percent of those I do business with are Republicans."
Predictably, his defection brought a hail of criticism:
". . . Welcome to the world of Strom Thurmond, Tom DeLay, and Barbara Bush -- the trio of bigots," one reader posted on the Sentinel Web site. "But hey, maybe you'll make even more money, so it's worth it."
Of greater worth would be a stream of blacks emulating the march into enlightened self-interest.
Blacks are born Democrats, the assumption goes, and can no more change sympathies than our color. After enjoying voter loyalty for supporting civil rights and social reparation, Dems must account for results, argues the Rev. Wayne Perryman in his book Unfounded Loyalty: An In-Depth Look Into the Blind Love Affair Between Blacks and Democrats.
"Inner-city blacks," he writes, "who have given their vote to the Democrats for the past forty years, are left wondering what that party has done to remedy the still-prevalent problems within their community."
Stagnant waters now are spawning more freaks: The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies 2002 National Opinion Poll found that 17.2 percent of blacks ages 18 to 25 either identified with the GOP or as independents tilted more toward Republican than Democrat.
Polls show blacks largely share similar conservative stances on education, religion and social values. Yet the number of black Republicans remains small because of lingering distrust among older blacks, contends the Joint Center's David Bositis. Young converts, he adds, often renounce their fragile allegiance after GOP leadership adopts policy noxious to blacks -- or Trent Lott waxes nostalgic about segregation.
Given the whittling of affirmative action, steep black unemployment and the Hurricane Katrina response, black GOP support likely never will approach the 30 percent pre-civil-rights era level.
Nor am I advocating a mass Democrat exodus. All I'm saying is this: Wallace, as a leader of the Democrat-leaning "nonpartisan" NAACP, showed that there are other ways of reaching the Promised Land of social, educational, economic and political parity than on the back of a burro.
After four decades, it's time to consider candidates on merit, not the party stamped on their political buttons.
Perhaps, as Economist magazine has suggested, think in a "Machiavellian manner" and "vote Republican in large enough numbers to worry Democrats and thereby gain more influence in both parties."
Maybe someoen picked up a history book and said, "Holy shit Democrats wanted to keep us as slaves."