Tennessee GOP Development Council

I stumbled across the "Tennessee GOP Development Council" again.

I have been aware of it since its inception, but dismissed it as yet another feeble attempt by the GOP to create the thin patina of reaching out to Blacks. I've seen it many times.

The problem with GOP Black outreach programs is the GOP won't conduct the sustained, comprehensive effort that is needed to bring more Blacks into the party. The Party seems content to charter these toothless groups with limited or no resources, appoint some titular head, and dispatch them to the hinterlands with the charge to bring more Black and other minorities into the party. This exercise usually takes place within a few months of an election cycle. It is the consummate fools errand.

I have tried to tell the Party leaders that their efforts are a waste. Not because Blacks will never join the Party, but because changing people's deeply ingrained attitudes takes more than showing up at a church two weeks before an election. It takes more than getting a few Black ministers to climb onboard your rickety wagon for a bumpy ride down a lonely, desolate road.

Republican leadership just do not understand the arduous, solitary trek one has to make to travel from the Democrat camp in which you were raised to the Republican camp that you were raised to think was Satan's lair. Republican leadership do not understand that to be Black and call yourself Republican is to open yourself to scorn and ridicule from members of your family and community. Republican leaders do not grasp the fact that being Black and becoming a Republican opens you to being a little of an outcast.

Expecting someone to make this journey on nothing more that a single speech at Black church two weeks from election day is sheer lunacy.

Over the years I have tried to get GOP leadership to understand that winning converts requires a steady, sustained, long-term program that really can take as long as a generation to bear fruit. For more than seven decades, the Democrat Party has courted the Black vote. They have demonstrated their commitment to the Black vote at every election, before the election, after the election and when there is no election. If the GOP is to lure Black voters off the Democrat plantation, they have to demonstrate that same commitment.

Unfortunately, Republicans seem to believe they can accomplish this by pandering and throwing a few bones at selected "leaders" in the Black community. They have never grasped the concept of building and nurturing a cadre of new leaders.

A simple project that the GOP can institute that would make inroads into the Black community is a program of training and mentorship of entrepreneurs. Scratch any Black person and underneath you will find an entrepreneur aching to break out.

Republicans are always labeled the party of the rich. It is a label that they are hard-pressed to shed. Republicans are widely regarded as prolific political fundraiser and successful business people. If the GOP truly wants to court the Black vote, go into the Black community and teach them about starting, building, financing and managing a small business. Teach them how to write a winning business plan. Dispatch the fundraising leaders to the community organizations, non-profits, and fraternal organizations and teach them how to make their organization more financially stable. Become a mentor to these groups and guide them to the financial success that will empower them to make great changes in their communities.

I know that it is a long process. I know that it will not immediately pay great dividends. But it has the long term potential of an IRA paying 30-percent annual return. I have floated this idea to GOP leadership. They nod agreeably and then set about the task of finding a sympathetic Black preacher in the next election cycle.

Another small plan is to partner with the Boy Scouts. I recently met a district director who says they are pushing to create inner-city Boy Scout troops. This is an excellent opportunity for the Party to adopt a troop, provide resources to help teach them about America, patriotism, entrepreneurship, self-reliance, hard work, and perseverance. It would be a chance to free a generation from the cynicism, depression, and hopelessness that the Democrat Party relies on to hold its members.

The Republican Party is a party of great resources. A modest effort to deploy these resources in pursuit of the Black vote would pay greater dividends, be more successful and be more beneficial to the country than the current effort to throw open wide the borders in the vain hope of corralling a few of the Hispanic vote. If the GOP really wants to get a larger percentage of the Black vote, or at least be competitive for the Black vote, my plan should be the beginning.