Vision Circle

This is the quote that I picked up on.

The real watershed, in his view, was the 1980 election. Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford tried to build up, and win over, a black middle class; the Reagan team figured they could do better by shutting out the black political establishment and mobilizing white conservatives. "Black elites were shocked to find out that with Reagan and his advisers, there were no longer 'good Negroes' and 'bad Negroes,' " Dawson says.

that was the quote that said to me that either gates mailed it in or he's more savvy than i give him credit for. because it directly contradicts the iconic King story he starts off with--of COURSE the reason why black people stopped voting republican was because Nixon didn't say "i'm sorry" to coretta!

this latter quote reflects...i don't know...maybe REAL WORLD POLITICS?

i'm prone to think gates mailed it in. or was in over his head.

You know I'd bet a nickel that Viguerie has a different answer and that when the Republicans when cruising for new voters during and after the election of Reagan, that black were simply ignored. I seem to recall the term 'benign neglect' gaining currency in the Nixon years.

Aside from that I am curious as to how it would have looked to the racists and the simple backwards bigots who hated Earl Warren to see a major initiative go out to the black electorate.

Who was it that kicked Eisenhower and Buckley to the curb? I can hardly beleive it was done just to spite blacks. Come on.

Nobody has been able, since MLK, to go to either party and say 'appease me, and I will deliver 40% of the black vote', unless Jesse Jackson has been doing it behind our back all these years. Who else could?

The term "benign neglect" reflects a calculus that contradicts the type of literal "ignorance" you posit. Was it Haldemann that Nixon spoke to about getting Toms to support him?

I found curious Condi Rice's comments that "during the 50s and 60s, the Black community was more coherent and our business prospered." She went on the note, as Gates points out that," we need to get back to that era." Perhaps I'm a little naive but wasn't that the era of violent racial segregation/isolation. Where out of necessity, and rule of law, Blacks could not do anything else but support each other or wither away? I mean, having strong competitive Black business class is one thing. Especially, as major component of our group viability nationally and locally. But to have it based on immoral and inhumane laws and repressive actions of the state and its constituents is quite another.
Finally, with regards to Nixon not calling Corretta after MlK's arrest in Georgia, and therefore, Blacks refusing to subsequently, support the Republican party, is a bit farfetched, and actually dememaning, to an extent.

Actuallly, I'm of the opinion, increasingly these days, that as the economic screws tighten on whites via the exporting of jobs other the incarceration industry,Black interest can never be truly represented by both parties for fear of of engendering a 'civil war' in effect.
GDAWG

There is a long history of romanticism in American spaces. In black ones that translates into a warm nostalgia for the thirties, forties, and fifties. Their primary premise--that black businesses thrived then--doesn't hold up under scrutiny. But then again, romanticism is never based on reality.

As for the Kennedy call? The argument that people will shift their voting preferences en masse based on a phone call can only be made about black people. For every other group this would be seen as an idiot theory and the person making the theory would get kicked out of grad school.

The final comment is on the money.

Thank you.
GDAWG

Yeah, I saw it but didn't feel like pointing it out. I was more interested in Rove's statement and the view about the call that I had heard about, but never linked to bloc voting.

The commentary here was good.

I've decided to pull the lever for a Republican for President.

Colin Powell. 1/2 :-)

nice work!
I was more interested in Lester Spence's statement.