Posted by Jamilah King at 9:00AM
Uh oh. The Republican party is officially on its way to getting a self-described "hip-hop" makeover. After getting trounced in two national elections, Michael Steele, the first black chair of the Republican National Committee, says it's time to change it up and appeal to younger voters of color -- you know, that "urban youth demographic." From the NY Times blog:
"We want to convey that the modern-day G.O.P. looks like the conservative party that stands on principles,” Mr. Steele said. “But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”
And Mr. Steele, isn’t leaving anyone out, including, he joked, “one-armed midgets.”
Though the newspaper reported that Mr. Steele declined to offer specifics, he plans to put together a public relations team to give the Republican Party the equivalent of an extreme makeover. It’s part of a larger overhaul of the committee that he set in motion several weeks ago.
The new re-branding effort he said, “will be avant garde, technically. It will come to table with things that will surprise everyone — off the hook.”
Disregarding the "one-armed midget" comment for sec (womp, womp, Mr. Steele), it's funny -- in an insulting kind of way -- to think that the Republican party thinks communities of color are this dumb. Getting a few high-profile rapper endorsements and a black talking head won't do much to change the realities that many young folks of color face in this country: skyrocketing
costs of living in cities, plummeting job prospects, death by guns,
cops, air,
disease.
Talking to younger voters of color means more than adopting a hip-hop aesthetic and embracing so-called "conservative values." Case in point: this past weekend, Louisiana's Republican Governor
Piyash Bobby Jindal gave the finger to nearly $100 million in federal aid from the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act that would have created 25,000 new jobs, claiming, "expanding unemployment benefits would result in tax increases for businesses."
What's
also scary is that there's a very real --and untouched --conservative undertone in many communities of color, one that's already been exploited by Prop 8 supporters in California*. For better or worse, the fight over gay marriage will be a huge sticking point for conservatives in the next few years, and black communities around the country might find themselves in an interesting paradox. After all, it's going to be tough to promote the Obama's as the new Kennedy's while also rooting for families that look, well,
different.
People aren't just fighting against
whiteness anymore, and if progressively-inclined folks just sit back on their laurels and smile at their collector's edition Obama gear all day, today's crowning political achievements might be the next generations fodder for angsty rebellion.
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