When is a black person not really a person, but merely a "prop"? When the blacks in question are Republicans, and the newspaper is The New York Times. In a stunning "editorial observer" column that goes so far as to liken the Republican convention to a minstrel show -- a comic variety show with performers in blackface -- the Times today writes, "subtract the minority props -- the break dancers and the gospel choir and the beaming schoolchildren -- and what you have is the same ultra-white party that shocked many Americans' sensibilities at the 1992 and 1996 conventions. The deluge of black and Latin faces on display in Philadelphia is deceptive, given that the party's delegates and senior managers are as white as they have ever been. "
The column goes on to say, "The problem for the G.O.P. is how to move from patronizing spectacles like this one, in which blacks and Latinos serve as props, to a state of affairs where minority Americans are both welcomed and actively recruited into the party as full-fledged participants."
Well, we wonder how General Colin Powell, who rose to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Condoleezza Rice, the Bush foreign policy adviser who speaks Russian, has a doctoral degree and was provost of Stanford University, and Rep. J.C. Watts, the Republican from Oklahoma who is co-chairman of the convention, feel about being classified by the Times as "props" or minstrels. Or how George W. Bush's Hispanic nephew feels about it. The Times is accusing the Republicans of being patronizing, but, when you think about it, the newspaper is pretty patronizing itself.
A news analysis elsewhere in today's Times takes up the same issue. The news analysis at least allows that "Neither Ms. Rice nor General Powell was on the dais as window-dressing. Both are eminent figures, whose success in the academic and military worlds speaks volumes about the achievements of black Americans in the last couple of decades." True enough. Hold on, though, the story goes on: "But there was window-dressing as well -- black singers, black choirs, black candidates for lesser offices and black children seated at school desks in the rather contrived backdrop to the speech of the prospective nominee's wife."
The Republicans can't win here. If they didn't have blacks on stage at the convention, they'd be accused of running a racist, all-white convention. If they do have blacks on stage at the convention, they are accused of using them as "props" and "window-dressing."
What's going on here? Simple: it has little to do with race, and lots to do with policy positions. Consider one of George W. Bush's supposed sins against black voters, as portrayed in the Times news analysis: "Mr. Bush has also described Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, dyed-in-the-wool conservatives whose very names are anathema to many blacks -- even though Mr. Thomas is himself black -- as model Supreme Court justices." Ah -- there's Mr. Bush's problem -- he might name a black person like Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. And that would be terrible, because while Mr. Thomas is black, he's not a liberal. Which makes him, by the Times' definition, a "prop" or "window-dressing."
If the Times wanted to actually report on black politics in a way that does more than merely advance its liberal agenda, it might have reported on the new Businessweek poll showing that 78% of African Americans say cutting taxes is "very important" to them, while only 55% of non-Hispanic whites do. Or it might write more about the vast support in the black community for school vouchers. But that might suggest that Mr. Bush's policies actually might prove attractive to black voters, and helpful to black citizens, and that those blacks on stage are there for reasons other than as "props" or "window-dressing."