Race and the Republicans

By Crispin Sartwell

The best thing that happened in the first two days of the Republican convention was an electrifying sermon on the subject of faith by Reverend Herbert Lusk of the Greater Exodus Baptist Church here in Philly. Then the astoundingly inspirational Bill Jolly Choir rocked the gospel.

These were only two of many incursions of African America into what has traditionally been a very pale party indeed.

One of the most conspicuous features of the speaker list has been its blackness. Among others Colin Powell was the keynoter in Monday, Condoleezza Rice (George W. Bush's international affairs expert) had the second slot on Tuesday, and Congressman J.C. Watts has taken a couple of shifts as chair.

The strategy has been widely condemned as tokenism, and indeed the proportion of black speakers is much higher than the proportion of black delegates. It will be surprise almost everybody if the Bush garners as much as twenty percent of the black vote in November.

But if I were a Democrat, I'd be nervous. The Republican party is extremely well-placed to make inroads into the black vote, and, if they do, they could destroy the coalition that has made the Democrats something close to a majority party for several generations.

As the presence of Rev. Lusk suggested, the key to the shift will be black churches. Many of these are basically conservative, especially when it comes to what are called "moral issues" such as drug abuse, extramarital sex, and teenage pregnancy.

If you listen carefully to the rhetoric of, for example, the Reverend Louis Farrakhan, it is hard to miss the conservative message of self-reliance, free market capitalism, and individual responsibility.

And with the centrality of religious institutions in black communities all over the country, very little would be needed in order to break off part of the black vote for conservative candidates. Indeed, a few simple gestures of openness and inclusion might do the job, and the Republicans are making such gestures here this week.

One of Bush's central themes has been a movement away from federal programs and into support for "faith-based institutions" in areas such as education, drug treatment, convict rehabilitation, and sheltering the homeless. Whatever you may think of that in relation to the separation of church and state, it is likely to be both popular and effective in black communities where churches are already the most lively and effective institutions.

And such an approach points up the failures of the Great Society initiatives that the Democrats developed and still support. Some of these, especially federal housing programs, have been abject failures and have destroyed rather than enhanced communities. Others, such as aggressive welfare programs, are still supported by many black leaders and many liberal Democrats.

But these too have engendered deep underlying resentments. In her book *No Disrespect,* the black activist Sister Souljah says of her childhood, "We had to adjust to the welfare system and its bureaucrats. They wanted to know everything, and I mean *everything.*"

The bureaucrats wanted to know whether her mother had a boyfriend. They searched the family's project apartment for new toys and appliances, trying to prove they had sources of income other than the welfare check. Souljah and her family felt continually violated and disempowered in the welfare system.

If that is the alternative, then moving federal funding through faith-based institutions is a very good idea indeed.

So the shift of African-Americans toward the Republicans in likely to express a deep underlying resentment of government programs. But it is also likely to respond to demographics, as more African-Americans enter the middle and upper classes.

Bush's choice of Cheney, who is a very white man, was perhaps not particularly inspired with regard to the black vote. But the conduct of the convention has been, and may well signal an historic shift of power.

_________