Vision Circle

Blacks and the GOP

So we have the Republican Party chair saying this:

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman attended the NAACP convention in Milwaukee Thursday. He planned to express regrets for Republican attitudes toward blacks in the past.

"Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization," Mehlman said in remarks prepared for delivery. "I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."

Now, I've been saying for some time that it isn't entirely "the fault" of Black voters that Blacks vote Dem in such high numbers, and that Repubs have to carry a lot of "the blame".

And I've said that if that was acknowledged and proceed from there, things would be different. That is the path that Michael Steele uses when he says his party was wrong to support strategies that divide and that it was wrong for Repubs to "turn away" from Blacks who used to support the party so strongly.

But coming from a non-Repub, which doesn't mean a Dem, I always catch a lot of heat for it. Even when I provided supporting information from white and Black Repubs.

Now I want to see how Republicans respond to Mehlman.

Next, is this from the same article:

Bush told the Indiana Black Expo that he believes in an America where all people, including blacks, have the chance to own homes and businesses and share in the country's prosperity.

In discussions I've had with a few Black Republicans who were trying to get me to become a Republican and/or during political conversations were they whined complained about lack of Black support, I've asked why they weren't at places "Black leaders" were. Why weren't they at "Black Expos"? I saw the local chapters of the Urban League, the NAACP, League of Negro Women, and the like, but not one "Black Republican" or "Black conservative" group.