The Gloves Come Off re: the GOP

Either Bob Herbert of the New York Times and Roland Martin of CNN coordinate their stories the way that teenage girls coordinate their outfits or there was a critical mass of "Enough is Enough" dust floating in the air yesterday.  Because BOTH journalists -- one an icon of the print media, the other an icon of cable news -- have penned barnburner pieces chewing the Grand Old Party (aka Republican Party) a new you-know-what for how it treats Black voters.

Roland's piece has the more provocative title:  "Why is the GOP Afraid of Black People?" and definitely gets in Republican faces early with its prose.  It is a tightly written, effective piece.  But it eschews the bottom line, ulltimately ending with the entreaty that the GOP could indeed make inroads with Black folks if only it focused on immigration, education and health care (!). 

In it, what is perhaps most notable is that for the first time in a long time, Martin let's his "Black side" come out just a little bit, CNN or no CNN:

The GOP as a whole is completely scared of black voters, and the actions by the front-runners for the party's 2008 nomination show they are continuing the same silly political games the party has played for years.

Oh, don't bother tossing out the appointments of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state by Bush. Yes, they are African-American. But I'm speaking of the party.

In contrast, Herbert's piece entitled "The Ugly Side of the GOP" starts out far more politely but ultimately calls a spade a spade more directly when he just breaks it down so there's no mistake what he is saying:

I applaud the thousands of people, many of them poor, who traveled from around the country to protest in Jena, La., last week. But what I'd really like to see is a million angry protesters marching on the headquarters of the National Republican Party in Washington.

Enough is enough. Last week the Republicans showed once again just how anti-black their party really is.

Reading them, it is clear that one piece is a lament, the other a call to action.  But both pieces are sharply reflective prisms on at least two aspects of Black American political thought right now, as we enter an election cycle in which Democrats are fiercely competing with other Democrats for our votes (Hallelujah!) yet only the sickly racist Tom Tancredo from the GOP respects our collective voice and power enough to actually bother to show up to talk to us.

While both pieces take direct aim at Republican candidates' recent decision to pretty much boycott Tavis Smiley's twin PBS debate to match June's Democratic debate at Howard (with the Republican candidates all telling the usual "scheduling conflicts" lie), each also highlights different -- yet still evocatively similar -- events as evidence that the G.O.P. has not only made its living since the 1960's catering to white folks who resent (if not outright hate) Black folks, it shows no signs that it is willing to let that ongoing strategy go.  Both writers cite compelling anecdotes about events most of us overlooked in making their joint case -- even without talking to each other -- that while they come from different political perspectives, they end up in the same place:  the GOP is not doing its J.O.B.

Which is why I was particularly glad to see these pieces at the same time this morning. 

Definitely check both of these pieces out in their entirety.  They'll make your day.  Particularly since you get to carry with you all day these pull-no-punches yet completely accurate statements by each:

<center>Blacks have been remarkably quiet about this sustained mistreatment by the Republican Party, which says a great deal about the quality of black leadership in the U.S. It's time for that passive, masochistic posture to end.</center>

<center>...[I]it's dumb, dumb, and dumber for the leading GOP candidates to skip Thursday's debate. . .Will speaking at one debate turn around decades of black support for the Democrats? Nope. But not speaking will just mean business as usual, and the GOP needs less of that.</center>