Detroit News: Whither Detroit's Black Republicans?

[Hypestyles]

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opi...cans/31178663/

On July 30, five of Detroit’s more visible black Republicans joined me for a one-hour discussion at the Detroit Seafood Market on why their party is the answer for Detroit and why their membership in the GOP is largely misunderstood.

The panel:
■ Jerome Barney, a Detroit attorney;
■ Bill Brooks, a prominent civic leader and former GM executive;
■ Wayne Bradley, the Michigan GOP African-American outreach director:
■ Ellis Washington, activist, lecturer and author, and;
■ Langston Bowens, a GOP youth leader.
“We don’t get exposure because diversity of ideas on how to address the plight of the [[black) culture is not a strong consideration in a monolithic political landscape. I am clear on my message: Blacks need to be part of both major political parties,” said Barney, who joined the Republican Party in the 1970s. “Criminal justice is a moral and fiscal issue that a segment of the Republican Party has addressed for years, albeit it has not been a mainstream issue because of lack of black participation in the Republican network.”

Brooks, who once ran for mayor of Detroit and is a former chairman of the board of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., helped host the first political fundraiser in Detroit for Obama during his first run for president.
“I believe that once we are only on one side we are taken advantage of rather than being on both sides,” Brooks said. “There is some leverage that you can make and influence you can have in making decisions that are relevant to us when you are in both parties. For now Democrats are just taking us for granted.”

Sidebar: No women on the panel? I'm sure they're out there-- somewhere.
It's an overdue conversation- it needs to continue and be as public as possible. But I hope these folks can offer some real solutions that helps everyday residents besides, um, "Lib rule sucks!"....

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Black and Republican are two words that don't go together.

[brizee]

I think that's a loaded [[and often disengenuous) question.

It's founded on the premise that black people are either:
a. stupid
b. unable to logically arrive at a conclusion
c. blind to their best interests

I refuse to label myself as anything, and alot of the causes Democrats champion I have no interest in, yet I vote for their 95% of the time or just won't cast vote.

Republicans bring NOTHING to the table for me.

Start offering something than barely hidden racism, BOOTSTRAPS, and austerity and maybe just maybe your ideas might ring through.

Or; Republicans wan't America to go back to the way it used to be....uh...it gets worse for us black folk the farther we go back!

[belleislerunner]

No Asians

No Arabs

No Albanians

No Kenyans

No transgenders

At some point, let's mature to looking past our physical characteristics and aim for diversity of ideas - that makes the best conversations.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Slightly off topic, but maybe the MI GOP should first start by getting rid of the Loony Tunes wing of the party.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckrak...gamra-michigan

Of course, as teahadists, they are both all for the sanctity of traditional marriage.

"The Detroit News reported that both lawmakers are married with children. They are also allies who have pushed legislation that would have required religious leaders sign off on marriage certificates, a move that would have potentially created a road block for same-sex couples in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision, according to the newspaper."

[douglasm]

You can be fiscally conservative and socially moderate or liberal. Unfortunately for the Republican base, they can't seem to get away from their social agenda. This has caused a problem for a couple of my fiscal conservative friends, who are considered RINOs by the party establishment.

[1953]

Hear, hear douglasm.

I believe in a balanced budget, sound fiscal planning and discipline - and I hold a libertarian view of most social issues.

Plus, I'm agnostic, bordering on Atheist. So, I liked the Fox News debate last night, until that last, silly question, about whether God had told everyone what to do - ha!

1953

P.S. I met a black Detroit Republican man a few years ago at the Mackinac Policy Conference. Nice guy.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

After watching last night's debate, I've come to the conclusion that the GOP is more of a cluster_uck than the Dems, even though they have they're own issues. Trump is more of a joke, than the one's he tells. I might sit this next election out, or vote independent.

[Hermod]

If African-Americans wanted more political influence, they would position themselves politically between the Republicans and Democrats as a voting bloc that can go either way. As it is, being a safe Democratic vote, the candidates lean to them in the primaries then move awy in the general election. As a result, the only thing they get from the Democrats is the crumbs that drop from the table. If their vote was "in play" every election, they could get a lot more.

[Zacha341]

Well, the democratic base cannot seem to escape their social agenda either. More specifically the agenda of their extreme support and members of their base. Nope, they've not magic pixy dust of escape. Both parties have this problem. In the mean time most people find themselves in the middle - not having our voice heard! If the dems or repubs could jettison the extreme aspects of their special interest groups and floatsome they would. But the vote and endorsement is the master.

And yes, you can be fiscally or even socially conservative in areas of social culture and policy without being a republican. And IMO I find it more of an advantage to able to navigate between the parties [[and their associated rhetoric) and not constrained to silence should you be accused of speaking dem or repub eh, 'talking points'. Since when must certain ideas and policy always reprimanded to a party?

I do like that the repubs give us more variety so far in this election! Let the games continue. Somewhere some consensus we can all agree on may leak out. Umm, probably not...... the so 'un-united states'....

You can be fiscally conservative and socially moderate or liberal. Unfortunately for the Republican base, they can't seem to get away from their social agenda. This has caused a problem for a couple of my fiscal conservative friends, who are considered RINOs by the party establishment.

[Zacha341]

I hear that, yet more black people are questioning the results and therein default loyalty the democratic party has comes to expect of us. I'm meeting more politically 'agnostic' blacks. It was coming and it's being more openly discussed.

Black and Republican are two words that don't go together.

[Zacha341]

Precisely! I advocate such dynamic positioning especially re. public policy.

If African-Americans wanted more political influence, they would position themselves politically between the Republicans and Democrats as a voting bloc that can go either way. As it is, being a safe Democratic vote, the candidates lean to them in the primaries then move awy in the general election. As a result, the only thing they get from the Democrats is the crumbs that drop from the table. If their vote was "in play" every election, they could get a lot more.

[Hypestyles]

People like to make a big deal about the "far left" but they don't hardly run the Dems, not ever. The party collective has been running from "liberalism" since George McGovern was thrown under a bus in the early 1970s after it became clear that being too prominently for civil rights & being anti-war pissed off "white moderates" [[see Michigan, & everywhere else)...
First, a sidebar: no disrespect to the esteemed panel, but were there any women on the list of local GOP personalities to bring into the conversation?
As far as the discussion at hand goes: from my vantage point, whatever may have passed for a "moderate Republican" has, over time [[decades), been squeezed into the fringe of party loyalists, while the post-Nixon/Reagan/Bush I/Bush II neocon culture has become the mainstream identity of the party. Look at how Colin Powell has been treated since he left the Bush White House, especially after his public endorsing of Obama [[the first time or the second time.) several years back, Michael Steele himself was quoted as saying [[I’m paraphrasing) that moderates are welcome to join the GOP, just don't expect to change anything. Curious that Steele’s RNC leadership was internally challenged from day one, and even after the 2010 midterm congressional seat wins by GOP candidates, Steele got bounced for the dramatically named [[and Caucasian) Reince Preibus.

Steele’s comments on moderates let me know up front that even if I were simply a fiscal conservative/libertarian to whatever degree, but let's say I don't automatically have a problem with affirmative-action or organized labor, and I’m for lowering the defense budget and putting the money into primary education and for urban reinvestment, I probably don't have much of a place in the "mainstream" ranks of Republicans. Also, especially among the “religious” types in the Republican ranks, my bona fides would be suspect no matter the company I keep. The hardliners among my contemporaries who share my Catholic upbringing would see me as a recalcitrant backslider for not having a problem with birth-control pills [[among other things.) Meanwhile the most hardcore of conservative-evangelical types see me as an Illuminati sympathizer/ ‘Mary worshiper’/Vatican apologist/child-molestation advocate by default. Oh, well…

I would respect black Republicans a lot more if I heard anything from them that was different from the likes of the most iconic GOP politicians and strategists like Gingrich, Rumsfeld, Palin, Santorum, Cheney, Rove, Bachmann, Robertson, etc. They all come across as some form of jingoist super-patriots, profiteer-culture free-market absolutists, across-the-board tax-abolishing zealots, defiantly Old-Testament-fetishizing more-saved-than-thou "Christians". Seemingly by default, they have no opinions independent of the most up-to-date NeoCon talking points—especially on urban issues. I have my own problems with what I feel is a hyper-centrist culture in contemporary Democrats, but I’ll take their general platform vs. what Tea Party Central & co. have to offer.

[bmick67]

It's too bad they didn't have Bill Johnson involved in the conversation. He is a former editorial writer for the News, and always brought a clear perspective in his columns.

[detroitbob]

Nolan Finley thinks he is...

[Király]

You can be fiscally conservative and socially moderate or liberal.\\

[EastsideAl]

Hahaha. What a stupid straw man question from Mr. Thompson, who somehow doesn't even discuss the real issues involved.

A significant portion of the Republican party has done almost everything in their power to chase blacks [[and women, and hispanics, and gays, and really anybody who isn't a Christian white male) away from their party for decades. They took over the old segregationist wing from the Democrats after the Civil Rights Act and have pandered to them for as long as they could help them keep their hold on the "solid south".

So, for instance, the discussion of the Confederate flag controversy in that article comes off as totally clueless by conveniently omitting the fact that it was Republican governors and legislators who most vehemently supported flying that flag [[and often went out of their way to demonize those who opposed it) until public opinion tuned so conclusively against it in the last few months. The same elements in the party have worked to gut the Voting Rights Act and to gin up a BS fear campaign over non-existent "voter fraud" by minorities in order to try to limit the franchise as much as possible. I really see little or no reason for any black citizen to support, or even trust, a party that has so consistently acted like this.

[EastsideAl]

If African-Americans wanted more political influence, they would position themselves politically between the Republicans and Democrats as a voting bloc that can go either way. As it is, being a safe Democratic vote, the candidates lean to them in the primaries then move awy in the general election. As a result, the only thing they get from the Democrats is the crumbs that drop from the table. If their vote was "in play" every election, they could get a lot more.

I definitely see your point when it comes to the Democratic party and its "using" of its black support base without doing all that much in return. However, given the refusal of so much of the GOP to join the rest of us in the 21st century [[or even the 20th), I don't foresee the majority of black voters positioning themselves between the Dems and the Repubs - or anywhere near the current GOP at all - in the near future. A more likely outcome, I think, is for African-Americans to better organize as a semi-outside pressure group on the Democratic establishment, much like the evangelicals, the Tea Party, and other groups have done under the Republican umbrella.

[Dumpling]

Black Republicans in Detroit - or even the average Republican in Michigan - don't own the car
insurance regulatory process at the state level, though many of the state insurance powers
that be are Republican. This process negatively affects lower income Detroiters, in particular those with lower credit scores which get factored into auto insurance rates.
It is also true that if every Detroiter decided one day as a part of "personal responsibility" valued by some Republicans to never go over 25 mph on the side streets and 30 mph on commercial strips, the amount paid for auto insurance could go down. The unloved auto insurance firms are paying out for real events.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Hahaha. What a stupid straw man question from Mr. Thompson, who somehow doesn't even discuss the real issues involved.

A significant portion of the Republican party has done almost everything in their power to chase blacks [[and women, and hispanics, and gays, and really anybody who isn't a Christian white male) away from their party for decades. They took over the old segregationist wing from the Democrats after the Civil Rights Act and have pandered to them for as long as they could help them keep their hold on the "solid south".

So, for instance, the discussion of the Confederate flag controversy in that article comes off as totally clueless by conveniently omitting the fact that it was Republican governors and legislators who most vehemently supported flying that flag [[and often went out of their way to demonize those who opposed it) until public opinion tuned so conclusively against it in the last few months. The same elements in the party have worked to gut the Voting Rights Act and to gin up a BS fear campaign over non-existent "voter fraud" by minorities in order to try to limit the franchise as much as possible. I really see little or no reason for any black citizen to support, or even trust, a party that has so consistently acted like this.

Indeed; when the Party of Lincoln became the Party of the Confederacy, they sort of gave up much of a reason for blacks to join.

[Towne Cluber]

Interestingly, in talking with a number of other African-Americans about the past 3 gubernatorial elections, many actually sided with the a lot more of stances of the Republican candidate versus those of the Democrat. Over and over I heard the same thing. The person wanted to vote for the Republican but simply couldn't because ________:

1. They were brought up as a Democrat.

and/or

2. Their friends/family/neighbors/co-workers were voting for the Democrat.

and/or

3. Their church "endorsed" the Democrat.