Jack Kemp's White Guilt
By Steven M. Warshawsky
Published 6/15/2006 12:07:05 AM

Recently, in Human Events, the New York Sun, and several other newspapers, former Republican Party vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp has been arguing that Republicans need "to get on the right side of history" on racial matters, by supporting the creation of a permanent seat in the House of Representatives for the District of Columbia. Mr. Kemp's article is an outrage. His premise -- that the Republican Party is on the "wrong" side of history on racial matters -- is deeply flawed, both as a matter of historical fact and political philosophy. And his proposed "solution" -- to grant representation in Congress to D.C. (a majority black city) -- is grounded not in sound political analysis, but in what Shelby Steele calls "white guilt."

First, a little history. The National Review's Deroy Murdock has laid out many of the facts regarding the Republican Party's strong support for black Americans, both after the Civil War and more recently. Significantly, Republicans were responsible for the two most important events of the modern civil rights era: the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared public school segregation unconstitutional, and President Eisenhower's decision in 1957 to use federal troops to enforce school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas.

I'm not going to defend Jack Kemp. In fact, his being strong-armed into running with Bob Dole on a platform that was antithetical to the position he'd always put forth...think a sincere John McCain...ended any possibility of my seeing the Republican party as a big-tent organization.

No, I have some commentary on the material Mr. Warshawsky uses to support his really poor analysis of Black America's political motivations.

First, the Washington Times interview of Prof. Steele should convince you of the insincerity of Conservative race "philosophy." We've been hearing "color-blind" from them for so long, their embrace of Prof. Steele's "White Guilt" thesis is most hypocritical.

Second, the off-hand reference to Deroy Murdock's ancient apologia is unsurprising. This is the same Mr. Murdock that on June 3, 2004 wrote Increasing evidence suggests Saddam ties to 9/11. Anyway, I saw and responded to that crap long ago. Here...this is what I said.

Deroy Murdock has trouble distinguishing between the moon and the finger that points at the moon.

Grand Old Party
Blacks might be surprised to compare Republican history with the Democrats .

The only way we'd be surprised is if we confuse the names of the parties for the membership. Is Steinbrenner's Yankees the same team as Babe Ruth's Yankees? Is the L.A. Dodgers the same team as the Brooklyn Dodgers?

But let's make the entirely nonsensical assumption that the Republican Party of pre-Civil War days is the same group of people as the Republican Party of today. Deroy gives us two examplars of each party he felt the need to expand on:

February 2005: The Democrats' Klan-coddling today is embodied by KKK alumnus Robert Byrd, West Virginia's logorrheic U.S. senator and, having served since January 3, 1959, that body's dean. Thirteen years earlier, Byrd wrote this to the KKK's Imperial Wizard: "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." Byrd led Senate Democrats as late as December 1988. On March 4, 2001, Byrd told Fox News's Tony Snow: "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I'm going to use that word." National Democrats never have arranged a primary challenge against or otherwise pressed this one-time cross-burner to get lost.

Foolish as it is to remind people of mainstream politicians with ties to the Kouncil of Koncervative Kitizens since those Republican connections are actually current, we will note Senator Byrd started out as a fucked up individual but has since assumed more progressive (as opposed to progressive) positions.

The Republican example Deroy gives us is Barry Goldwater

July 2, 1964: Democratic President Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act after former Klansman Robert Byrd's 14-hour filibuster and the votes of 22 other Senate Democrats (including Tennessee's Al Gore, Sr.) failed to scuttle the measure. Illinois Republican Everett Dirksen rallied 26 GOP senators and 44 Democrats to invoke cloture and allow the bill's passage. According to John Fonte in the January 9, 2003, National Review, 82 percent of Republicans so voted, versus only 66 percent of Democrats.

True, Senator Barry Goldwater (R., Ariz.) opposed this bill the very year he became the GOP's presidential standard-bearer. However, Goldwater supported the 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts and called for integrating Arizona's National Guard two years before Truman desegregated the military. Goldwater feared the 1964 Act would limit freedom of association in the private sector, a controversial but principled libertarian objection rooted in the First Amendment rather than racial hatred.

There are two things to note here: First, that Goldwater originally voted for the Civil Rights acts in '57 and '60...but changed, became more regressive as time passed. The opposite of Senator Byrd's vector. In other words, as time passed, Byrd became less hostile to Black civil rights as Goldwater became more so.

Goldwater's transformation was mirrored by his "Democrat" associates of the day. This, in fact, was the event that caused all the Democrats that couldn't abandon their racism to abandon the Democratic Party.

Which wouldn't surprise Deroy if he really understood the history of the Republican and Democratic parties.