How the GOP can reclaim the African-American vote.

For a half-century now, the Republican Party has been forced to go into elections with a great disadvantage, they have lost a great number of black voters to the Democrats. But there is a way they can win them back, and it is so simple I’m surprised it hasn’t occurred to them yet.

Conservatives need to give the black community what it wants and what it needs. A great deal of this is economic; more community development, more social services, jobs, schools, urban renewal. But this is hard, the Democrats have tried it and not been too successful, either because it is too expensive, because it has received stiff opposition from Republicans, or because they (the Dems) have simply mismanaged it. Conservatives are not generally inclined to solve problems by spending tax dollars, for reasons of both economy and ideology. But there is a way! They can take advantage of recent growing concerns in the black community about the relations of that community with the police. Lets face it, the Democrats seemed to have dropped the ball on this issue, they have left a big opportunity for the opposition to pick up and run with it.

Black citizens have valid concerns about their relationship to the police. First, there is a crime problem in the crime community. Liberals and Conservatives may have different reasons why it exists, but there can be no denying it does exist. Black folks will be the first to tell you they are very concerned about it. They are terrorized by drugs, gangs, guns, domestic violence, and street crime. Whites may be paranoid about this crime, but its blacks who are primarily the victims. And to a very great extent, blacks feel that predominantly white police forces simply don’t
feel that addressing this crime is very high on their list of priorities.

Secondly, as recent events have demonstrated, white police activity in African-American neighborhoods has been heavy-handed and unfair. The cops rely on techniques that more resemble those of an occupying army than a friendly neighborhood cop on the beat. The innocent are often needlessly harassed, petty offenders are issued the harshest treatment and sentences and unjust shootings and mistreatment of citizens by police often go uninvestigated and unpunished. If the citizens feel they are oppressed by an occupying army, the police feel they are being sent into a high crime battle zone, where every hand is turned against them, ambushes are everywhere and where their honest efforts and sacrifices are despised and rejected and they are disrespected and insulted. These two points of view both have some justification, and abuses on one side just provoke further abuses by the other.

Here is where Republicans can step in and break this cycle, to their political advantage. GOP local governments can set up and promote community police forces, made up of community members, so that law enforcement can be handled by the people who live in those communities. This dovetails nicely with Conservative ideas about local control and government. There’s a lot of ways this could be done, and they could all be tried until one or more that works emerges.

Here is one suggestion. Deputize local youth. Issue them with guns, badges and uniforms, put them under the leadership and supervision of experienced black officers on the police force,and involve local church and community leaders in developing tactics and strategy. The people would feel they were being protected and served by their own, not by storm troopers from outside. It would also provide an additional source of income for the community in the form of the deputy salaries. Cops would know the people on their beat, making it harder for gangs to operate, and the new constables would be right on top of everything going down on the streets where they live. Conservatives can be assured the system would cost little, perhaps even less than the current police model because few exotic weapons, training, and precinct duties would be involved and deputy salaries (without benefits or union contracts) would be minimal. And if crime went down, the need for cops would also. It would certainly break the cycle of hate and mistrust currently gripping-community police relations.

If the system works, it could be expanded to other communities. Those deputies who distinguished themselves could be given formal police training and made into real cops, providing a new and honorable career path for young black men. If the system succeeds, it can be extended to other minority communities, such as the Latino barrio. And the new “community peace forces” could be a valuable tool in dealing with civil unrest in those communities, not just street crime.

The black community would no longer see the Republican Party as an enemy, but as an ally, and African-Americans would identify with Republicans politically. And of course, those communities that benefited from these new arrangements would certainly support the political policies of the party that introduced them.

PS I can’t take full credit for this idea. I was first exposed to it in the film “Clockwork Orange”, where Alex’s former gang members are the ones who capture him and bring him to justice.