South Bend Tribune: The Republican Party has a lot to offer black voters

[Larkspur]

This is an op ed, not an editorial.

http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/thisday/opinion.20050914-sbt-MICH-B5-The_Republican_Party.sto

I read Les Payne's column, "Klan triple murder and the rise into power of the GOP" (Tribune, Aug. 23), and my first reaction was extreme anger. Anger at the fact that The Tribune would publish a column like this, but even angrier that Payne, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has actually deluded himself into believing what he wrote.

I am a black man, and I am also a Republican, and I can assure you, I get much more racism from Democrats than I have ever gotten from other Republicans. The approach of the Democratic Party towards African-Americans, in my view, is inherently racist. To assume that one party, one ideology, should be the only option for a race of people is insulting.

Why is it that because my skin is brown I must agree with where the Democratic Party is now in order to validate my race? Why can't liberals such as Payne accept the fact that being black doesn't force me to be pro-abortion, anti-death penalty, and pro-gay marriage? Because my hair naturally curls rather than lying flat doesn't mean that I believe that government social and welfare programs are the best way to fight poverty. The fact that my eyes are brown rather than blue doesn't mean that I naturally think that war is never the answer.

In fact, I can remember one war in particular that benefited my ancestors very much, and if history serves me correctly, it was a war fought by some Americans for the freedom of those they had never met.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I'm pretty sure the president was a Republican.

I don't buy the argument that because the South votes Republican it must be because they are racists and that since Republicans stand for racism they will always hold the South. It seems to me that liberals love talking about big ideals, and the value of every person, but they have no problem talking about their opponents as if they are one-dimensional people.
<SNIP>