Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
We black Americans know we’re not a monolith. The Hill reported this bit of old news: blacks vote differently. While most vote for Democrats, there’s a contingent of conservative voters among us who hope to see things change.
Paris Dennard, national spokesperson and director of black media affairs for the Republican National Committee (RNC), told The Hill that the RNC tracked over 160 black Republicans who’d filed to run for office, and 120 are still running.
“There’s no doubt that come November, the road to retiring [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi is going to be paved with new Black Republicans coming to Congress,” Dennard said.
While the RNC remains neutral in primaries, Dennard mentioned there were several where Black Republicans are running that the RNC has been keeping an eye on over the past year, even in blue states such as Illinois and New York.
Illinois Republican candidate Jimmy Lee Tillman said “the future is bright” for black Republicans. He said he hopes to see more running.
“A lot of Blacks who are concerned about what’s going on in their county board, what’s going on in their school boards, what’s going on in townships should take up that mantle.”
Is education the one issue to finally turn black Americans toward the GOP? Those on both sides of the aisle must be outraged by the homosexual grooming going on in government schools. Some of these families are low-income, so their kids, stuck in failing schools, are subjected to these perverse experiments.
Tasha Philpot, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, said that black conservatism and black Republicanism are not the same.
Like Dennard, Philpot said there is a big part of Black conservatism that is based on faith. But there’s also no denying the racial tensions that impact U.S. politics and everyday life, she argues.
In many ways, Philpot said, the Republican Party is seen as more racially conservative and “downright hostile” toward African Americans than the Democratic Party — something that worsened during the Trump administration. That hostility often means Black conservatism is not translated into GOP support at the ballot box.
And having Black candidates like Tillman doesn’t really change that, either.
Philpot said black Republican candidates tend to downplay race-based and so-called colorblind platforms, which she implies turns off black conservative voters who’d otherwise embrace these candidates.
“Typically in this day and age, Black Republicans are considered race traitors,” she told The Hill, “especially the Herschel Walkers, the Tim Scotts, the ones that espouse the same type of racist rhetoric that the rest of the GOP expresses: anti-critical race theory and that we should just ignore the history of the United States because it makes people feel uncomfortable.”
If black Americans are waiting for the GOP to start race-baiting like the Democrats do, perhaps they shouldn’t vote for the GOP. The point, from this writer’s perspective, is to remove race from the equation and serve up a platform that helps all Americans at every level of society. Race-based politics pits Americans against one another. Who benefits? The politicians desperate to maintain power.
The only thing that needs to be colorblind is the law, not people. We see and perceive differences among our fellow human beings. It’s not wrong; it’s natural. We just have to make sure not to infringe on anyone’s rights based on the color of their skin — or for any reason.
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