Fear of a Black Republican

This is the name of a documentary movie by film maker Kevin Williams that is screening now at Theater N in Wilmington. I went to the 11Am screening of this movie, presented by the filmmaker and his co-producer wife in person — both of them engaging the audience in a lively Q&A afterwards.

Fear of a Black Republican launches off from the idea by Kevin Williams that the Republican Party doesn’t exactly *want* to be in urban areas, asking for votes. He and his wife are Republicans and they live in the city of Trenton, where all of the local elected leadership is Democratic. When he wanted to do some basic campaigning (door-knocking and lit drops) for GWB in 2004, the Party people discouraged him from that. He knew that African Americans were overwhelmingly Republican after the Reconstruction through the 20’s or 30s and he wanted to know how the Republican Party lost all of that support.

His film explores some of that history, then takes a look at how the GOP is working at outreach to African Americans, using the experience of a real GOP candidate on the ground (Catherine Davis running for the GA-4 seat that had been held by Cynthia McKinney) and discussions with various party functionaries, then looks at a path forward. Throughout this film, he talks to a wide range of people — Cornell West and Tavis Smiley; Christine Whitman and the Democratic Mayor of Trenton; Mitt Romney, John McCain, Newt Gingrich and Jim Gilmore ( mostly a quick question re:outreach); former Senator Edward Brooke from MA (who should have had more screen time, IMHO); Michael Steele and Ken Melman along with many others talking about the experience of being a Black Republican.

Frankly, I expected my head to explode after seeing this. But this was more even-handed that I expected. He lets the Presidential candidates and other senior Republicans clearly sidestep his question (or in the case of Ken Melman, ineffectually reach out to African Americans) about expanding the GOP coalition to include African Americans, is largely honest (with one glaring exception) about the history of how African Americans left the GOP, let’s you see how the Republican Party dissed one of its African American candidates (Catherine Davis) over and over and over again (and the remarkable thing is that Ms. Davis seemed to be a sane Republican. She didn’t come across as the Georgia equivalent to Christine O’Donnell)and lets the National Black Republican Association look pretty foolish in spinning their wheels. But this film is largely an earnest attempt to wonder why the Republican Party can’t figure out how to be a part of the revitalization of urban areas.

The biggest hole in his diagnosis or exploration of this issue is the effects of the GOP Southern Strategy as implemented by Nixon. He talks about this in the history section and then it disappears, as if the Southern Strategy and its variants don’t still exist and haven’t existed since Nixon’s campaign. And this is always the elephant in the room when Republicans wonder why African Americans don’t make common cause with them. I had a chance to ask Mr. Williams about this — because coalitions require not just issues and solutions, but also some trust. And it is necessary for the GOP to know that African Americans know beyond shadow of a doubt that the Southern Strategy is baked into the GOP cake — so it is going to be really hard to join forces with someone who may say he’s interested in my issues, but yet huge parts of his party are working hard at making sure that people of color remain an “Other” to be demonized or to be used to manipulate fear and ignorance. Not addressing this — as in calling out those portions of the Party still doing this stuff — does not help to create that trust that the GOP will need to get to their goal here.

Some of this was illustrated quite nicely with a segment featuring Mr. Williams asking Ann Coulter about how to reach out to African Americans. She had some of her usual snideness, but then launched into a bit about how the GOPs blacks were better than the Democrats’ blacks. And she said pretty much those words. It is this racial cluelessness that provides some of the wall that the GOP is up against. No one in the room called her out on this, either. And why should they? This is a variant of the I-can’t-be-racist-I-have-black-friends defense, which lots of black folks hear as “I’m not a racist, I just sound like one.”

The two smartest comments on how to reach out to the African American community came from Senator Brooke (who probably couldn’t get elected as a Republican today) and from Cornel West. Dr. West noted that if the GOP could seriously address employment issues, the prison-industrial complex and education they could make serious inroads to the African American community. But he also noted that the GOP would have to get its Corporate allies to put their own agenda on hold to get this done. Which provides some insights on why the current Democratic party isn’t as useful to the black community as they could be. But it also points out one of the real weaknesses in the GOP outreach. What they have is an already codified approach to a bunch of problems — more vouchers, more entrepreneurship — but building a coalition is not about getting people to just buy into your playbook. It is about listening to the problem, listening to ideas about solutions and agreeing on how to go about getting to those solutions. Unfortunately for the GOP, buying into the playbook is pretty much the price of admission and is one of their big obstacles to a bigger tent.

This was more interesting than I expected it to be. Maybe because I’ve been soaked in listening to the angry tea party types and the movement conservatives soaked in their alternate facts. And I was surprised that there were not more people at this screening. Not sure why, maybe I expected in a very blue state where the GOP is trying to get its act together, they’d be way more interested in joining this conversation. But I was intrigued by the fact that after the Q&A was done, there wasn’t much interaction between the whites in the audience and the African Americans. So that even in an audience where there were black people open enough to see what was going on, reaching out and saying hello was still even abit much. But I will say though, that if Mr. Williams lived in my neighborhood, this is someone I could work with to make the place better. Because I think that while he is a Republican, making his home a better place is a higher priority. And that is the beginning of any coalition.

The last showing of this movie is on Sunday at 11AM at Theater N. I recommend it, if you can make the time in the morning.