Have you ever been at a party with mostly Caucasian people, and an African American walks in, and the white partygoers forget how to behave themselves? One person starts making inappropriate pop culture references. Another assumes that since the person is African American, he or she must be well-versed on rap or jazz music, or basketball, or something else that’s stereotypically dominated by members of the black community. Someone else starts throwing slang words around, trying to endear themselves to their new minority “friend.” Even worse, someone starts talking about how much time they’ve spent in the South, or “inner-city.” The whole thing turns into a giant race to see who can clumsily convince the room that he or she isn’t a complete bigot.
That’s kind of like the Republican Party right now.
You have to applaud them a little: never in the history of the GOP has there been so much diversity (and I say that with a grain of salt. It’s kind of like having one dollar and finding another dollar on the ground and saying “I have more money than I’ve ever had before!”). But let’s give credit where credit is due. The Republican Party now has an African American chairman, an Indian Governor, two Asian Congressman (Joseph Cao of Louisiana, who is Vietnamese, and Steve Austria of Ohio, who is Filipino), Alan Keyes, and…well, that’s about it.
If you take every Republican Representative, Senator, and Governor from across the country, here are the stats you come out with: 4 Hispanic-Americans, 2 Asian Americans, 1 Indian American, 0 African Americans, 0 Americans of Middle Eastern decent. The other 233- or in proportional terms, 98.1%- are white.
But with just this tiny dose of multiculturalism, Republicans have lost it.
On Curtis Silwa’s conservative radio talk show last week, GOP Chairman Michael Steele sent out some “slum love” to the “slumdog millionaire governor,” Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. The American-born Jindal, of course, is the son of Indian immigrants. The racial insensitivity there is mind-boggling. Have you ever heard anyone call Ted Kennedy “The Boondock Saint Senator” because he’s Irish, or dub Bill Richardson the “Desperado Governor” because he’s Mexican?
Then there was Congresswoman Michelle Bachman (R-MN). Last year, she read an article on the House floor blaming the economic crisis on “minority lending.” But she managed to top that last week by resorting to Ebonics to cheer on her new party chairman, shouting “Michael Steele, you be da man! You be da man!” after his speech before the CPAC convention. That’s kind of like someone asking President Obama, “What’s up, dawg?” Was she talking like that because that’s how she thinks black people speak? Would she have said that after a Bush speech?
How about Mitt Romney? During his campaign, he came across a little African American girl on the trail, pointed to her jewelry, and told her that he liked her “bling-bling.” That might seem pretty innocuous. But you have to ask yourself, would he have called it “bling-bling” or “necklace” if he was talking to a white girl?
Senator John McCain, the party’s presidential candidate, just promised- and I mean within the last few years- to stop using the word “gook” to describe people of Vietnamese decent. In fact, what he said in context before the pledge was, “I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.” I wonder how his interactions with Congressman Cao have been? (By the way, during the Vietnam War, that word wasn’t used to describe just the Viet-Cong, but Vietnamese people in general).
Hoping to prevent these kinds of things, Nevada Senator John Ensign- who was elected Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee after the bruising the GOP took in 2006- sent out a pamphlet advising GOP candidates to avoid “Macaca moments.” This, of course, was a reference to former Virginia Senator George Allen, who saw his hopes of reelection go up in smoke when he pointed to an Indian-American videographer who worked for Allen’s opponent and uttered the words that tanked his career: “Let’s give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia!” Few people were familiar with the word, which was used by white colonists in North Africa to refer to people with dark skin. As it turns out, Allen’s mother grew up as- you guessed it- a white colonist in North Africa.
Apparently, Republicans like Bachman, Steele, Romney, and McCain neglected to take Ensign’s advice.
It’s not that insensitive comments are a strictly Republican issue. But Republicans seem genuinely stupefied when it comes to dealing with their new iota of diversity.
I’ve said it before, but Steele seems to be on somewhat of a quixotic quest. He began his tenure by saying that he wants to widen the GOP base, which is to be expected. He said he wants to focus on recruiting “hip-hop” Republicans, and by that, of course, he means minorities, urban residents, and young people. He’d presumably have to move the party considerably to the left to accomplish that. But at the same time, Steele is trying to shove the party hard to the right to appease the old Conservative Coalition, forcing the GOP to reemerge behind Reaganesque principles of hard-line fiscal conservatism (especially in the wake of the stimulus controversy). But let’s face it: convincing inner-city residents that the local community centers and programs that keep their neighborhoods alive should be cut in favor of “responsible spending” (i.e. tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% of Americans) is a tough sell. In fact, it’s a downright incongruous message.
If he manages to do it at all, it’s not going to be by pulling the wool over the eyes of American minorities. Steele has this annoying little habit of peppering his conversations with “baby,” to make him sound young and hip (maybe he’s doing this for the hip-hop voters). But it’s phony, completely disingenuous. Plus, it makes for some awkward exchanges. Last week, Neil Cavuto asked Steele whether he would withhold campaign cash from Republicans who backed the stimulus, to which Steele replied, “I’m open to everything, baby.” Somehow, Cavuto screwed that up with this majestic response: “So, by being open to that baby, does that mean you would consider punishing them?”
Minorities aren’t going to flock to the Republican Party because their Chairman looks and talks like they do. Give them more credit! They want to know which party is going to benefit their communities directly, which one is going to address the massive economic disparities they face.
What leads to all these embarrassing occurrences is the simple fact that the GOP views race as a tool of political opportunism. They use stereotypic terminology to show minorities they’re “on their level.” And that will never work. It’s a substantively empty approach, and what’s most likely to happen is that this plan will backfire. At best, the GOP will show American minorities that they’re completely out of touch. At worst, they’ll outright offend them. But whatever the case may be, the aggregate effect is that they’ll end up galvanizing those voters among the Democratic rank and file.
Talk about a party foul.
