The GOP website currently has several images of African-Americans, from Denzel Washington to Frederick Douglass. Seems like an effort to revamp the Republican image, making it into a more inclusive party, one that accepts both urban conservatives and establishment Republicans. Is that so?
As I like to tell audiences all across the country – this is no longer your mama and your daddy’s Republican party. It’s now yours. It must find a way to reach you and touch you everyday so that you always know this is home.
You have been reported as saying that the Republicans have not done a very good job of giving blacks a reason for voting Republican. How have you changed that?
One, by actually running African-Americans as Republicans, whether it’s for the state legislature or for the United States Congress. By elevating their opportunity and their identity within the party. When you join a club, you join an organization. Why do you join? Well, because philosophically you’ve got something in common. Also you join because, hey, there’s some folks up in there who look like me, that come from my neighborhood maybe, that at least shop where I shop. And so that kind of image is important.
I’ve banned the word outreach at the RNC. Why? Because outreach has come to represent to me and to a lot of Republicans and African-Americans who wanted to look at the party as just a photo op, a nice cocktail party.
Many African-Americans perceive the Tea Party as hostile to the black community. What are your thoughts?
I just think that’s the wrong perception. I think that’s quite frankly been perpetrated by some in the media because they like the storyline. They like the tension, and it’s unfortunate and it’s just plain wrong. I’ve been to a number of Tea Party events and I’ve met with a number of African- American Tea Party members.
What is this movement asking for? They’re saying, we don’t want the government to take more of our money than we earn. I think black people appreciate that when they get their paycheck every two weeks. So I think that a lot of the noise around the Tea Party movement emanates from those who are not about supporting an agenda that talks about freedom, that talks about using the Constitution to safeguard those freedoms and talks about a government that needs to be put in check.
I mean, why do we always assume that when we see black people their natural equivalency is federal government or government bureaucracy? Those aren’t the folks I know. The African-Americans I know are entrepreneurs. They’re out there trying to carve out a pathway for themselves. So why not align with them and affiliate with those groups and those institutions that make that very argument on your behalf?
Are you saying Barack Obama’s tax policies hurt African-American entrepreneurs and professionals?
It strips away the one thing that you value more than anything else as an entrepreneur – control. The government has decided that it now has a better health care plan than you and your employees are going to have to be on it in some way. Otherwise you’re going to have to pay a fee or a fine or a tax. That’s a killer. And quite frankly, this is the other aspect of some of the policies that African-Americans need to be concerned about.
The president put project labor agreements back in place on federal contracts. What does that mean to a black entrepreneur? It means that you can’t compete for those contracts because you’re not unionized. Ninety percent of black-owned small businesses are non-union.
I guess the moral of the story is: when you look at politics, you cannot look at it through one lens. You cannot listen to it through one sound bite. You have to open up your eyes and your ears to what’s really going on and who is ultimately acting in your best interest.
America is changing, becoming more brown and, some would say, more liberal, openly gay and feminist. Is the Republican Party changing to adapt to this?
We better. We better recognize the unique diversity of this country, the unique opportunities that are brought by a whole host of people with different lifestyles, different cultures, different experiences, that are defining – not redefining, but defining – America in this century, just as our forefathers and mothers defined America over 230 years ago. This new generation will have their opportunity, just as immigrants who came here at the turn of the last century had their opportunity.
So as you see the browning of America, as you see the expansion of America, as you see America growing into its new self, its newer self, I want the Republican party and its principles to be very much a part of that story so that we can capture that moment and be relevant to a new generation.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
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