Question: What possible political ideology does the Republican

[Fire1]

party offer that appeals to African Americans?:shrug:

[Raineyb]

1. Beats me

Clearly it's not respect for others, social and economic justice, and equality.

:shrug:

Regards

[Karenina]

2. NONE.

Punkt. Feierabend.

[Number23]

3. You have to have an ideology for it to appeal to people

Old school Repub party used to be all about small government, little taxes, and fairly significant isolationism from other countries in terms of trying to dictate their foreign policy.

Well they have completely destroyed all three of those principles, especially with that fool GW. The only principle they have now is "poor/black/gay/Hispanic/Arab etc. people are bad for the nation and if only we could get back to the golden years of June Cleavor-esque America, all would be right again." In other words, they've got nothing.

[Fire1]

4. That's the way most of us see it. So, what am I missing that

seems to appeal to that small percentage of AA still in that party?? I used to think Clarence Thomas was the exception to the rule. Now, they are increasing in numbers. Dr. Fisher (some RNC committee chairperson who sent the memo asking Steele to step aside,) Alan Keyes, Michael Steele, C. Powell (old school republican from that original group) and some I'm sure I've over looked. Now, more than ever, I don't get it.

[Number23]

5. I think that these are the people who have convinced themselves

that they "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps" and that the world we be a grand and wonderful place if everyone else did the same too. Never mind the fact that they were probably the beneficiary of God knows how many perks and benefits. The vast majority of successful white people have received so many perks, breaks and benefits on their way to the high road it boggles the mind; there is no way in Hell anyone can convince me that a successful black person has not received a few as well.

But we should not kid ourselves. The idea that selfish, self-centered black people who don't give a crap about anyone other than themselves don't exist simply has no grounds in reality. There are and there always have been @ssholes of every color. And some of them have have still decided that cozying up to people who cannot stand the sight of them is the only way to let the world know that they have "arrived."

I am neither a Dem or a Repub. I am a Dem-leaning indie. But I would swallow hot coals whole before I became a Republican. I don't care how much damn money I wind up making.

[Karenina]

6. Did you see the call for Steele's resignation

on Rachel's show? :rofl:

[Number23]

7. See it?? Girl, I made an OP about it!!

:)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=281047&mesg_id=281047

[noiretextatique]

8. my late great uncle was a republcan

he was also the president of the san francisco chapter of the NAACP in the 1960s. he was one of those "talented tenth" type negroes and he thought black people shouldn't place all their hopes with one party. he was also ashamed of his family and never lifted his finger to help any of us.
he was starting to see the light before he died, so i seriously doubt that he would have voted for the failure.

two stories i think are telling about him.

when i was a sophomore in college, i transferred to uc santa cruz from a private college to save money. i was so broke, my friend would get me food from the cafeteria because i couldn't afford the meal plan. the other black student in my dorm was a guy from san francisco. we became friends and one day we were talking about how we got to santa cruz. as it turns out, this guy was there because my uncle got him a scholarship. my uncle :wow:
that was as hard to swallow as the crap my friends brought me from the cafeteria.

my uncles was married to a sutton, of the new york suttons. she was percy sutton's sister, so he and his clan came to my uncles funeral. at the time, my uncles two sisters were alive, so when the ushers came to bring the family in, we assumed his blood relatives would be seated first. but no, the talented tenth suttons, none of them his blood relatives, all rushed to be seated in the first rows, consigning his sisters and the rest of his blood relatives to the third and fourth rows. i was LIVID and wanted to correct the situation, but my cousins didn't want to say anything. so we sat there in the cheap seats and listened as people like willie brown got up and spoke about my uncle's accomplishments. we were, for the most, stunned by what we heard. we knew he been involved with the NAACP and with local politics, but we had NO IDEA exactly how prominent and well-connected he really was. in fact, my DU friend jaysunb knew my uncle.

after uncle died, the suttons mismanaged his estate and our family ended up with the short end of the stick...how shocking :sarcasm:

my uncle was a jackass who turned his back on his own family in life, and who allowed one of his talented tenth buddies to screw us some more after he died. one bright note: there is still some money in the trust, so my nieces were able to get some of it to pay for their educations. i guess you finally did one right thing for your family, uncle.

[Fire1]

9. These type of AA never cease to amaze me.

[Brewman_Jax]

10. I am sorry to hear

:(

That seems to be a general theme with any repubs. My father votes/voted repub for years. He's a real SOB and a legend in his own mind. My mother wouldn't leave--she and her children living in the projects because she knew that he'd be a deadbeat dad wasn't an option. He'd vote repub, then complain of the perks that they took away, or ones he wasn't rich enough for. He wouldn't vote democratic, he'd complain that they're coming to take his guns (that he had used in years, now he's too feeble to handle any of them), or Al Gore and the environmentalists wouldn't let the oil companies build more refineries (he didn't have much to say when I told him the last refinery built in the US was in the mid-1970's, and if Big Oil wanted to build more in the US, they'd have done so.) or some other RW bumper sticker meme. All he did was work, drink, watch news, sleep, complain that we (the family) cost too much, can't afford anything (we wore quite a few handmedowns), then go spend money on himself or some stupid financial scheme. We think that he lost at least $10K playing with silver, but we'll never know. Got early retired by IBM, and became a bitter SOB. My brothers and I had to go job hunting, and the phone was ringing off the hook for him to do contract work. He didn't lift a finger to help any of us, except his middle finger to say that working part-time wasn't good enough. If you're living here, you must have a full-time job (early '90's) In short, he's been a useless bastard. Now, he's a feeble old useless bastard--and that's sad.

[Number23]

11. That's a hell of a story

Thanks to you and Noire for these glimpses into the psyche of the black Republican.

I know both the bougiest of the bougie, and the brokest of the broke. But one thing I have never come across in my 30+ years of life is a real live black Republican. For real. The only ones I've ever seen were the ones on tv and they damn sure didn't seem like the kind of folks I'd want to call family.

[Raineyb]

12. My father is a Republican

Career Air Force. Clueless about politics. He's lived out of the country for most of my life, can't remember my age, barely remembers my birthday, he's on wife #3 kid #5 has the worst attitude about men, women and money. This is a man who has five daughters yet still thinks that demanding child support is a woman's way of punishing the man. (Because you know he didn't want to pay any for us.) Refers to breast feeding as giving the child the titty just embarrassing to have a conversation with. Cheap as hell! He'll cry about being broke when one of his children asks for money but has no qualms about spending money on whatever toy he's playing with at the time.

I swear if I didn't look like him I'd swear I was adopted.

:shrug:

After all this, I have no idea why the hell he's a Republican. But as he's barely stepped foot in the country for <ahem> years and knowing him he doesn't pay much attention to the news it just might be out of habit these days.

But he does have the seemingly Republican trait of being a sub par husband and father.

Regards

[Number23]

13. "Republican trait of being a sub par husband and father."

Sounds like being sexist, selfish and cheap as hell are some of the other traits.

You guys all have my deepest sympathy. Seriously. It's interesting the ways in which our parents become our role models. Sometimes, they make the best role model of how NOT to be.

[Chovexani]

16. Holy fuck you just described my biological father to a tee

Shit, we may just be siblings. You know how the song goes. "Papa Was a Rolling Stone".
He had me much later in life (he was about 52). And as he approaches 80 he has alienated everyone in his life.

My mom was wife #4. He ended up with six total, #5 being the one he was having an affair with the whole time he was married to my mom. Two families were broken up behind that mess, stepmom ended up with breast cancer and when she was on her death bed my dad was literally crowing in the hospital about how he was gonna spend her money (she was fairly well off). I'm not even lying. #6 was much younger and foolish, he married her in secret so he basically would have a domestic. Except she ended up in a wheelchair after an accident. I don't even know what happened to her.

Think of Mister and his father in The Color Purple and that's basically my sperm donor in a nutshell. Doesn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out, and he may as well be rotting in that pig sty of a farm Mister had by the end of the story. Only he completely gave up on finding another woman to sucker into taking care of him by now.

And yes, he is a proud Republican. A proud, ignorant, country ass Republican. Voted for Bush twice. And voted for McCain because Negroes can't be trusted with any kind of authority. Yes, Mister and Uncle Ruckus' laboratory-bred spawn, he is. You could not cook up a stupider, more hateful little man if you tried. Motherfucker would still be picking cotton and happily taking the whip if he could. Yessir.

And so this post isn't completely depressing, I offer this off-topic post-script. I was fortunate in that during my early teenage years, I found a wonderful male mentor (my teacher in Wicca) who became a father figure to me. Ironically, he was a cigar-chomping white guy heavily involved in science-fiction fandom. But get this. When he was young and dumb at 18, he'd had a daughter with a black girlfriend who took off with her for reasons unknown, and he was not involved in her life. The kid would have been my age. We always say the universe brought us together because we each had a family void that needed filling.

[noiretextatique]

14. they are oddities, like the platypus

no disrespect to the animals, but the africanus republicanus is a rare and odd creature indeed.

[noiretextatique]

15. wow....he sounds a lot like my dad

my dad was so cheap, i didn't realize i was "middle class" until i went to college. wow...i really feel for you and i am sorry you had to experience life with such a bitter, angry person.

my dad was a staunch union man and a democrat. but he was a sexist jerk and a tightwad who bitched and moaned constantly. i forgave my dad for his bitterness and anger because he was basically a decent, caring person, but he rarely showed that side of himself to us. he once asked me why my sister ended up in an abusive relationship, i told him: "it's because of YOU." i could tell that comment hurt him, but he was less of a sexist jerk with his grandchildren than he was with us. after dad got sick, we found out he got scammed for most of his savings, approximately $80,000.00. he wanted so much to "hit it big" his entire life that he made one stupid financial move after another. funny thing is: if he had stuck to more conventional investments, he probably could have made that killing he was always chasing after at the race track, with the lottery, and with various schemes over the years. RIP, dad...you weren't perfect, but you did make me strong.