(ThyBlackMan.com) Many Americans have been hesitant to take the Covid-19 vaccine shot for various reasons; this hesitancy has been especially acute within the Black community.
Most of this hesitancy within the Black community is well founded. Many of our experiences with the federal government has been painful, to say the least.
We can start with slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments from the 1930’s, etc.
The federal government has never recovered or rehabilitated their relationship with the Black community in any meaningful manner.
In a similar manner, the Republican Party and the conservative movement has never recovered nor rehabilitated its relationship with the Black community.
Just like the Black community is hesitant to take the Covid shot, Blacks are similarly hesitant to vote for and support the Republican Party and the conservative movement.
The Republican Party was founded as the party that was against slavery and was for total equality for the Black community.
Over time, the party renounced its long-established relationship with the Black community in the 60s and has never tried to repair the damage in any meaningful way to this day.
Before the party turned its back on us, they had empowered Blacks with supreme credibility within the Black community and the Republican Party as a bridge to the Black community.
The faces of the Black Republicans back then were luminaries from the Nixon administration like Bob Brown and Art Fletcher. We had attorneys like William T. Coleman; U.S. Senators like Ed Brooke; baseball Hall of Famer like Jackie Robinson; and entertainers like Sammie Davis, Jr.
These Blacks had supreme respect within the Black community as well as within the party.
We have gone from serious people like those listed above to buffoons like Candance Owens, Diamond & Silk, and CJ Pearson.
None of these characters have any connection to the Black community. They are mere entertainment for the white community! They, in all probability, have no idea who any of the above listed credible Black Republicans are.
They have become the face of Black Republicans because they make our party’s leaders feel comfortable; not because they have any standing within the Black community.
They appeal to whites within the party but repulse the Black community at the same time because of the idiotic and hyperbolic things coming out of their mouth!
Liberal media is happy to have them on their airways and profile them in their publications because they know they are mere media whores who are simply drawn to the red light of a TV camera. They have absolutely no institutional knowledge of the party or the conservative movement; they are not well read; and they have no connection to the Black community.
Liberal media hold them up to be in the mainstream of the thinking among Black Republicans, when nothing could be further from the truth. Liberals successfully seek to embarrass them in the most public of ways so that no one in the Black community takes them seriously.
Exhibit A is Pearson’s appearance last week on radical liberal Marc Hill’s TV show. Pearson’s arrogance is extremely off putting and his lack of depth is embarrassing. He is the prototype of a Black Republican the party wants to brand to be the bridge to the Black community.
Because these are the faces the party promotes, Blacks are hesitant to engage or become part of the Republican Party, even though Blacks by and large agree with conservative principles.
Notice that you rarely see “credible” Black Republicans in liberal media. This is by design because liberals don’t want to show and promote serious Black Republicans on their platforms. This doesn’t fit the liberal media’s narrative of portraying Black Republicans as “Uncle Toms” and being totally detached from the Black community.
Because Republicans are not serious about substantively engaging with the Black community they constantly choose buffoons within the Black community to be their face of the Black community.
The federal government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to address the vaccine hesitancy within the Black community by creating a media campaign targeting the Black community with credible Black validators; but the Republican Party refuses to spend a fraction of this amount to overcome the hesitancy of the Black community to engage with them; and they definitely don’t have any credible Black validators.
The very Blacks they promote are antithetical to solving the problem the party has with the Black community.
If the party were to ever get serious about their relationship with the Black community, they must reengage with people like Ron Langston, Jennifer Carroll, Sean Moss, James White, Allegra McCullough, Ashley Taylor, Courtney Malveaux, David Wilson, Bob Woodson, just to name a few.
These are “real” Black Republicans who have credibility within the Black community. These are Blacks who will tell the party what they need to hear, not what they want to hear!
My biggest fear is when all is said and done, there will be more said than done.
As one who makes his living doing strategic communications and public relations, I see no credible plan of action when it comes to the Black community.
I have worked with some of the biggest names in sports, business, entertainment, politics, and music. I have written their speeches and editorials.
I have put together crisis management plans to help them get through public scandals.
There is no one of note in the Republican Party who has the skill set to understand the nexus of public relations and strategic communication when it comes to the Black community. We have a major branding problem within the Black community and until the party comes to understand this issue, policy means absolutely nothing.
Having Blacks around you is not the same thing as having the “right” Blacks around you!!!
Staff Writer; Raynard Jackson
This talented brother is a Pulitzer Award nominated columnist and founder and chairman of Black Americans for a Better Future (BAFBF), a federally registered 527 Super PAC established to get more Blacks involved in the Republican Party. BAFBF focuses on the Black entrepreneur. For more information about BAFBF, visit www.bafbf.org. You can follow Raynard on Twitter; Raynard1223.