NY TIMES Columnist Assails Republicans On Race Issues

There are a lot of great columnists at the New York Times but until recently Mad Professah and other bloggers have not been able to really comment on their work since we were unable to link to the columns since they were behind a pay-service firewall called TimesSelect. Well, TimesSelect was abandoned by the New York Times on September 19th, 2007. Today, in "The Ugly Side of the G.O.P.," Bob Herbert, an African American twice-weekly op-ed columnist at the Times explains "the Southern Strategy" that Republicans have been using to win the White House and it's significant racial overtones. The money quote is in the last paragraph:

In one of the vilest moves in modern presidential politics, Ronald Reagan, the ultimate hero of this latter-day Republican Party, went out of his way to kick off his general election campaign in 1980 in that very same Philadelphia, Miss. He was not there to send the message that he stood solidly for the values of Andrew Goodman. He was there to assure the bigots that he was with them.

“I believe in states’ rights,” said Mr. Reagan. The crowd roared.

In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan’s presidency, the late Lee Atwater gave an interview to a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the Southern strategy:

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

The column is generally to talk about the Jena 6 protests of last week and to condemn the Republican presidential hopefuls for not attending Tavis Smiley's presidential forum on issues of interest to the African American community which Herbert links to the fact that Senate Republicans last week also prevented a bill to give Washington, D.C. (a predominantly Black major American city) from getting voting representation in Congress refusing to end debate even though there was a solid majority of 57 votes to approve the bill (D.C. would have received one voting Representative in the House, along with Utah receiving one, bringing the total up to 437 voting members in the lower House of Congress).

Anyone else recall the ridiculous project announced by ("Bush's brain") Karl Rove and former Republican Party head (and closeted gay man avowed heterosexual) Ken Mehlman to court Black republican votes? Mad Professah does, and I am glad that Bob Herbert is educating potential voters for Republican candidates what the Republican party really stands for with regards to race.