MANSFIELD: The Rise of Local Republicrats

With the Ohio Democratic Party pretty much in shambles due to the meltdown of its self-absorbed gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald (a man party leaders should have done a more thorough job of vetting, instead of just clearing a pathway through other candidates for), Republicans see a grand opportunity to make inroads with blacks here in Cuyahoga County, who they view as being loyal to the point of obsequiousness towards an uncaring Democratic Party that has done little for minorities.

So, how are Republicans going about seizing what they view as a golden moment? How are they going to fit a round peg into a square hole?

Well, by bringing conservative black Wall Street Journal political columnist Jason Riley to town and have him talking down to local blacks — basically blaming us (and of course the liberals who brainwashed us) — for the poverty, crime and hopelessness one-third of the black race remains mired in. It’s his view that our plight is our own fault for embracing the Democratic Party.

Of course those on the virtually all-white right simply love hearing a well-spoken black like Riley excoriate blacks for embracing victimhood (and sagging pants), while exculpating Republican obstructionists from any and all responsibility for the racial quagmire and widening economic divide that threatens to engulf the country.

With a new book out, Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed, Riley has taken on the mantel of race guru for the right … a role other blacks (who’ve known for years they can make a handsome living by telling conservative whites what they want to hear about blacks) have played since the end of the Civil War. Riley is just the most recent iteration of a long line of black apologists who loves to tell right wing whites that history plays no role in the events of the day and that since black folks created the situation themselves … we therefore don’t deserve — indeed, are not worthy of — any sympathy or succor.

Riley’s premise — that liberals have accomplished little in terms of leveling the economic playing field for blacks — is indeed somewhat accurate, but the notion that we blacks should now turn towards the Republican Party (which has done virtually everything within its power to obstruct every step of black progress) is sheer and utter nonsense. If the Democratic Party has treated blacks shabbily at times (and it has), what Republicans have in store for us is far, far worse.

The tired trope from the right … that blacks should not depend on government to help solve their problems rings specious when one realizes that government (by first allowing slavery, then Jim Crow, which was replaced by economic racism that still is allowed to flourish in this country) bears the primary responsibility for the predicament that impoverished blacks and browns find themselves in today.

Black demands for a level playing field in every aspect of American life is mischaracterized by those on the right as begging for government handouts … when all we want is the same opportunity to succeed and prosper afforded to us that other Americans have enjoyed for centuries … and by-and-large take for granted … and often as an exclusive birthright.

How do you free four million impoverished slaves and then basically abandon them when abandoning Reconstruction, leaving them to fend for themselves in a hostile, racially charged environment? After the Civil War, weary America was quick to abandon recently emancipated blacks and turn the country’s eyes toward westward expansion instead, allowing racist white Southerners to institute “slavery by another name.” We blacks never received our promised “40 acres and a mule,” nor were any of the other promises made by Lincoln carried out once Andrew Johnson took over the presidency. These policy decisions — much like the Founding Fathers’ refusal to deal with the issue of slavery — still haunts us to this very day.

Since reparations is out of the question for the nonce (we blacks can’t even get an apology from the government for the wrong done to us, let alone any compensation), at the very least government should fully fund Promise Neighborhoods programs around the country, which, if properly administered, could break the back of poverty in one generation. This isn’t asking for a hand out, but a hand up that blacks so roundly deserve for helping to build this country with centuries of unpaid labor.

Ian Blair, writing in Salon earlier this year, nails it: “…Riley’s invective sheds light on the twisted logic that continues to pervade Republican circles. He thinks that once the liberal spell is lifted, black liberation will be realized. That when blacks no longer drink the liberal Kool-Aid, believing in their status as victims, they will be made whole. Republicans, desperately trying to convince blacks to abandon the Democratic Party, have imparted the same messaging (evidence be damned): Liberals have made your lives worse; but we can save you. Rid yourselves of liberalism, and follow us down the road to salvation. But the truth is no political ideology can save black people from the tireless forces of racism. White supremacy knows no party or clique. American history has proven how resilient the virus of racism can be; even when blacks have been made equal in the eyes of the law, racism resurrects itself and spreads through the veins that gives life to the American ideals of freedom and liberty.”

Hush, truth.

Certainly blacks have a bone to pick with the Democratic Party, which historically begins to ignore us right after Election Day … but other progressives (such as environmentalists, immigrant and gay rights’ advocates and women’s groups) also rightly feel as if they’ve been played too. But the answer for progressives is to take over the Democratic Party (since the two major political parties in this country are in collusion to make sure no other parties gain any real power) and change it into what we want it to be … not to turn to the Republicans … who’ve strived mightily to block any meaningful changes for decades.

Can you say “Elizabeth Warren for president”?

Blair quotes James Baldwin, who reminds us, “The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.” Republicans would love for us blacks to simply erase our memory banks and just believe what they tell us, rather than judge them by what they’ve historically done (and continue to do, such as attempts to roll back voting rights) to us.

Are we blacks supposed to be so dumb to history that we ignore the fact that, starting with Lyndon Johnson’s failed attempt to build a Great Society and up to the present day, reactionaries on the right have worked tirelessly to roll back any gains, stop any and all efforts at fairness … and then blame those mired in poverty for their own condition?

So, welcome to Cleveland, Mr. Riley, I sincerely trust your stay was a pleasant one. I’m sure you had some blacks agreeing with you — their heads bobbing up and down like a herd of dumb horses eating oats — when you spoke here last week. But most of the blacks you interacted with are merely legends in their own minds … they really are not the opinion molders and shapers of black thought and opinion they hold themselves out to be.

But hey, I’m not one to knock a steak off of someone else’s plate, and if these local blacks can get on the Republican gravy train payroll (their jobs would be akin to fattening frogs for snakes), I’m not mad at them. But the truth is, they’re actually only fooling Republicans, convincing these right wingers they can persuade blacks to vote against their own self-interests, all the while playing conservatives like Riley — and others of his ilk — as if they’re six-string guitars.

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.

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