black…MYstory

As I have stated before, the Republican platform consists mainly of the issues of guns, God and gays but, in more desperate times, they also pull out their trump card: race.

In the late 60’s, Richard Nixon was able to use race to get Democrats, disillusioned with their party’s embrace of civil rights for black people, to join the ranks of the Republican party. In the 80’s, Ronald Reagan kicked off his presidential campaign with a speech on states rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the very place where many Civil Rights-era murders took place, most notably those of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney.

Now, it seems that this strategy may be released yet again in attempts by at least one candidate to get into the White House.

Strategist for Rudy Giuliani are preparing to undertake a race-based strategy to pull in votes from “social conservatives” (in this context, it’s a code word for racists). What does it involve? Consider the following:

The themes the campaign are lining up for renewed emphasis are those reflecting Giuliani’s confrontational stance towards black New Yorkers and their white liberal allies, as well as his record of siding decisively with the police against minorities who launched protests alleging police brutality during the years he was mayor from 1994-2001.

Giuliani’s eight years as New York’s chief executive exemplified a Northern adaptation of the GOP’s politically successful “Southern strategy” - the strategy playing on white resistance to and resentment of federal legislation passed in the 1960s mandating desegregation - resistance that produced a realignment in the South and fractured the Democratic loyalties of white working class voters in the urban North from 1968 to 2004.

“Race is at the heart of Rudy’s story,” according to Wayne Barrett, one of Giuliani’s preeminent biographers. Giuliani ended race and gender preferences in New York’s city contracting. He eliminated open admissions at City University and re-instituted testing requirements for the school — requirements which disadvantaged black and Latino applicants seeking to complete the four-year curriculum. Also angering black leaders, Giuliani instituted tough law and order policies that were consistently cited by his administration as the driving force pushing crime rates down over 60 percent during his tenure as Mayor.

Equally important in courting a racially conservative Republican primary electorate in the current presidential election, Giuliani brought to a halt the black and minority domination of New York city politics.

Once again, we see this strategy at play with a party that then has the nerve to ask us why they aren’t getting our votes. When your presumed front-runner is embracing these tactics, we would have to be total fools to put him in a position to allow him to enact policy based on these beliefs on a national level.

Black folks in New York already know what Giuliani’s “leadership” meant to them and I have heard enough to know that I don’t want to experience it for myself.

UPDATE: In a semi-related article, the Miami Herald is carrying an article on Giuliani’s legacy of racial animus.

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