Customer Reviews

Jumping Double Dutch: A New Agenda for Blacks and the Republican Party

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It has been said, quite correctly, that a black man voting Republican is not unlike chicken little voting for the Colonel for President. As GOP policies show, people of color are not welcomed in the party. Just look at the facts.

The GOP has tried to abolish basic civil rights guarantees for minorities and women, as well as the handicapped. They decimated the safety net under Reagan and tried to do it again under Gingrich and Dole in 1995. They favor privaitzation of Social Security and Medicare, the brunt of which would fall on blacks which are too old and too poor to bother to protest. They favor deep cuts in food stamps, Head Start and AmeriCorps. They in 1995 proposed deep reductions in public education spending, as well as Affirmative Action and pro-woman aid in colleges. They favor eliminating the income tax on the wealthy. They favor deep restrictions on the civil rights of immigrants. They favor English Only laws and repealing all gun control laws. They favor reductions in urban aid and public works. They refuse to back national health insurance or national job unemployment insurance.

Does this strike a picture of a conservative party that is dying to have black support? Of course not. The author is crazy to ever think that the word 'African American' and 'Republican' will ever go together. Sell outs never cease to amaze me!

Rarely ever have I read such a sorry backward looking message. I picked up this book with interest. Yes, I am a proud progressive Democrat who believes in every American's right to good health care, housing, education, equal rights and privacy. Yet, I wanted to see what a conservative African American could find so wrong with the agenda of civil rights and economic mobility. What I found was laughable. The author's "points" are barely points at all. They are mostly attacks - quite defensive ones, indeed. These "attacks" seek to paint the author as white as possible, with a conservative brush which stems further and further to the far right as the reader goes into this book.

This book is a joke, simply put. African Americans and minorities - as well as whites - in America today do not need the Republican party of regression and privatization. The GOP of the past - with its occasional moderation and conserving conservatism - was bad enough. Yet, today's nativist and Southern-based and increasingly regionalized Republican party has no rooms for minorities or forward looking whites.

The author says that the GOP has room for minorities. That is wrong. The GOP will never have room for minorities until it changes itself dramatically and becomes the Democratic party. This book is a joke, as well as a defensive attempt to paint oneself as white as possible!

As for me, I will never be a part of a party which bashes unions and working people(as well as their public protections), caters to the interests of the rich and bigotry and attacks public safe guards for the poor and at-risk.