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Hell Is a Real Place: Zimbabwe: Anyone in America Give a Damn? (Nat Hentoff, October 11th, 2002, Village Voice)

Why, in this country, are there only whispers, if that, from most civil rights activists and organizations, the clergy of all colors that finally awoke to the slavery and mass rapes in Sudan, editorial writers, women's rights groups, and such trombones of the people as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton?

In Congress, Donald Payne of New Jersey is involved, as he has been for many years about slavery in Sudan, but what of his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus and the white human rights champions on both sides of the aisle?

Though folks like Ron Rosenbaum seem to have trouble believing it, conservatives truly think that the form of government and the policies they advocate will make the lives of all people better--black, white, brown, yellow, etc.. While it is true that the GOP has failed in the past to court black voters and has been willing to use racial animus--in ways subtle and overt--where it served their political interest, it is also true that when conservatives, like George W. Bush, have tried to make nice with blacks, their effort has been repaid with racialist hatred, as witness the NAACP's ad comparing Mr. Bush to those who dragged James Byrd to his death in Jasper, Texas. There is a big difference between ignoring blacks and choosing not to be attacked when you make an effort to reach out to them. Republicans have, perhaps unwisely, chosen to pursue their ideas, confident that blacks will benefit, without bothering to try to bring blacks on board the effort. This has worked brilliantly on issues like Welfare Reform, which has disproportionately helped blacks, though the GOP will never get any credit for it. So be it, enough to have done well.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 12, 2002 12:31 PM