Republican National Convention: Where are the African Americans?

Story by Washington Post 

Written by Raynard Jackson

Photo by Getty's Mark Wilson

If the most segregated time in the United States is 11 a.m. Sunday mornings, then the most least-diverse time in America is during a period every four years at the end of the summer: the Republican National Convention.
 
This is the fourth Republican convention that I have attended, and it is by far the least diverse. I now know what America would look like if all blacks and other people of color mysteriously disappeared. Reporters have been calling me, practically begging me to find them some blacks to interview for their various media outlets. Is this really the 21st century? I have not been showered with this much attention since I was a little baby!

But even more alarming than the lack of blacks as convention attendees, delegates or Mitt Romney staff members is the lack of blacks in the pipeline to be future party operatives.

When I came into the party with George H.W. Bush, there was a pipeline of other African Americans who worked for the Republican National Committee in the headquarters, staffers who worked for Reagan, etc.

We are now some of the most experienced operatives in the game; many of us have our own firms or work for corporate America. Unfortunately, we are never consulted on party issues unless there is an overtly black angle or, more typically, someone in the party leadership has done something stupid and they expect us to go on camera to provide cover. Those of us with integrity have never allowed ourselves to be used in such a manner, though, some blacks have.

Today, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus doesn’t appear to have any African Americans in significant decision making positions on his staff. The same can be said for the Senate and House campaign committees. So, where will the next generation of black political operatives come from?

If there are no blacks in these pipelines, then the party has made the decision that there will be no blacks in the party’s future. Imagine there were no college football programs; where would the NFL get its players from? Who would provide players for their future?

The Republican line is that the overwhelming majority of blacks will vote for Obama because he is African American. I find this thinking extremely insulting as a black Republican. The reason the majority of blacks will vote for Obama is because Republicans have not given African Americans a reason to vote for Republicans or Romney.

A Wall Street Journal poll earlier this week showed Romney polling at zero percent of the black vote. (A Washingotn Post poll found that 4 percent of black registered voters would choose Romney) How is that even mathematically possible?

I am embarrassed at the lack of diversity at this convention. Have the Republicans not noticed the demographic changes that are taking place in this country? Numerically, there are not enough old, white, balding males to win a national election.

The sad thing is that many of the party leaders agree with me in private conversations, but over the years, they have done absolutely nothing to address this issue. When all is said and done, there has been more said than done when it comes to changing the whiteness of the party.

In the immortal words of the Doobie Brothers: “What a fool believes, no wise man has the power to reason away; what seems to be is always better than nothing at all.”

If the Republican Party think they can continue to have a white strategy for electoral victory, what a fool!