GOP Woos Blacks with Symbolic Politics

After decades of neglect, the Republican Party has made an abrupt about-face with the most aggressive campaign in recent memory to woo African-Americans back to the party of Lincoln. With an eye on the 2006 congressional elections, Mehlman hit the road in a series of unprecedented outreach meetings to the black community almost immediately after taking office in January. He has appeared before African-American residents in Prince George's County, Md., one of the wealthiest black counties in the nation; a meeting of the National Black Chamber of Commerce in New Jersey and the Martin Luther King Jr. Library and memorial in Atlanta on the 40th anniversary of the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.[more]

• Pictured above: Photo Op for Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman right, and Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr. tour the King memorial. Alveda believes she is honoring her father's legacy by marginalizing gays. go grrl 
• Mehlman To Visit Howard University As Part Of GOP Outreach To Blacks. USA Today reports Adam Hunter, president of the College Republicans at historically black Howard University, "will host Thursday night when Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman comes to Howard as part of a GOP outreach offensive.  [more]
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• Republicans are against Affirmative Action. Hold Campus Bake Sales to get the Word Out. The "Negro Problem" that Gunnar Myrdal wrote about in his 1944 classic "An American Dilemma" still exists. That is, vast inequality exists between Black & white Americans. To Myrdal the existence of this inequality in a land of "freedoms" was an "anomaly" and "a moral crisis" that needed to be corrected at once. He didn't understand that Republicans could care less. How do these Right Wing Cave Dwellers explain away the vast inequality between the races? They believe Blacks are genetically inferior people - because of their skin color. So naturally, inferior people should be poor, live under substandard conditions, work for lower wages and make bad life choices. To Republicans inequality is to be expected.  Affirmative action is odds with this redneck Republican world view - as Affirmative action to them is simply a way to promote unqualified, inferior people into their jobs. This also explains the Republican "outreach" to Blacks - Blacks are simply too stupid to recognize when they are being insulted by bake sales and such. And far too inferior to understand that the Bush budget excludes and harms millions of us. BW [more] and [more] and [more] and [more]and [more]
  
• Pictured above: Roxanne Greaves, an international business senior, argues with Isaac Erickson, a member of Campus Republicans, during an affirmative action bake sale at the University of Minnesota. [more]
• Latino Outreach? Young Conservatives of Texas Host “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day”. It predictably upset many students of color. The game involved “catching” other members posing as illegal immigrants and winning candy-bar prizes for their efforts.  Learning of the massive protest against an “Immigrant Hunt,” the Young Conservatives at UT Austin called off an event planned for March 2. About 350 Latino, Asian American, Black American and white American students went ahead with the protest at UT Austin’s main mall. Holding up signs reading “Hate is not Activism” in multiple languages, the protesters included 30 Latino groups, one South Asian American sorority, and many individual students and community members. [more

• More Outreach: Republicans at University of Connecticut Invite Racist Homophobe "the Ultimate Warrior" to campus to discuss "a thought-provoking discussion from an individual who would appeal to a broader range of students than normal, given his background." Apparently, this redneck went off on a racial tirade and the young neo-cons had to apologize. [more] and [more]
  
• DNC Chairman Dean Says Republicans Have “Nothing to Offer” Blacks [more]