Political parties should make an effort to groom minorities

By PHILIP GAILEY

© St. Petersburg Times,
published September 30, 2001

As I was saying before being interrupted . . .

I want to return to a question I raised in a Sept. 9 column, two days before the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The question is this: When will the Florida Democratic Party start paying down its huge political debt to black voters, the party's most loyal constituency, by finding and grooming black candidates who can win statewide office?

I wrote: "If blacks can serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and as secretary of state and as White House national security adviser, if they can be elected to the U.S. Senate and serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then surely the two political parties can come up with black candidates for lieutenant governor, attorney general and other state offices."

The column brought some thoughtful responses from readers. Several of them agreed that Democrats deserved a good kick, but they also said the problem was more complicated than I suggested. They are right about that.

A Tallahassee reader wrote: "Unfortunately, unfairly, I believe a black candidate has to be a sort of Jackie Robinson -- so good that no one can deny his credentials . . . The Democratic Party, for its own good, needs to start developing talent and strongly supporting black candidates who can win. But black candidates have to start thinking statewide when they are at the county commission level, and not build a record of positions that Republicans can make a millstone for the party."

This reader makes a good point. Many black candidates begin their political careers as captives of group-think. In order to win elections in predominantly black districts, they often have to embrace an agenda set by the nation's civil rights leadership. In many cases that makes it difficult for these candidates to speak independently or to build records to broaden their appeal to mainstream voters.

Remember when Gov. Jeb Bush announced that he was replacing the state's affirmative action policies in college admissions and contracting with his One Florida plan? At his side was state Sen. Daryl Jones, at the time chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus and now a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Other members of the black caucus were furious, and there was talk of stripping Jones of his chairmanship. Jones suddenly discovered the flaws in One Florida and joined the opposition.

After the first year, the Bush alternative to affirmative action is neither the great success the governor claims nor the disaster critics predicted. I would argue that as important as affirmative action in college admissions may be, it is not nearly as important to the future of young blacks as turning around the public schools that miserably fail so many of them. For most of these kids, college will not be an option, with or without affirmative action. Yet, rescuing minority students from these failing schools doesn't seem to be a priority with legislative black caucuses in Tallahassee or Washington.

Many black office-seekers are reluctant to assert their independence from a generation of civil rights leaders who are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the problems that matter most to black America -- education reform, drug policy, AIDS and family disintegration. Unfortunately, publicity-driven black leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have a disproportionate influence in setting the political agenda for black Americans. Reparations for slavery now tops Jackson's agenda. The grandstanding and dealmaking at which Jackson and Sharpton excel have little impact on the everyday lives of black Americans.

In a recent article on the need for a new generation of black leaders, the London-based Economist magazine wrote: ". . . the problems of America's blacks have changed considerably over the past four decades, but their leadership has not. The typical black leader is still a male over 50 who is a prop of the church (both Mr. Jackson and Mr. Sharpton are reverends) and has some connection to the civil rights movement."

The next generation of black leadership will have to come from "the increasingly wide range of professions in which blacks now make their mark, not just the civil rights movement . . . These days, many of the problems of black Americans have become more local. The time has past when the Supreme Court, with one sweeping opinion, could push race relations in America toward dramatic change. In recent years, the black leaders with the most impact have been those engaged in the nitty-gritty task of transforming their own neighborhoods."

The emergence of a new generation of black candidates probably won't happen until there is a new generation of civil rights leaders. Meanwhile, both political parties, and especially the Democratic Party, have an obligation to find and groom minority candidates who can appeal to voters across racial lines and who understand that the interests of black Americans cannot be advanced from the political fringe where Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton make headlines.

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