Conservative
Type 40
Welcome aboard, Mr. Davis. Glad to have you!
Artur Davis: Interview: Why Blacks Will Come to the GOP
Artur Davis: Interview: Why Blacks Will Come to the GOP
I got behind Barack Obama early and enthusiastically for two very simple reasons. First, I really believed that Barack Obama being elected would change race in this country....Second of all, I believed that the president was going to be a centrist figure who would steer the Democratic Party in that kind of direction.
Well, that didn't happen. The opposite happened. The country's become more racially polarized. Race is probably more of a barrier today than it was four years ago, and the party has moved in a leftward direction that is far less inclusive ideologically than it used to be. Those things diminished my enthusiasm over time. So, like many people who get the opposite of what they vote for, they ultimately begin to be sympathetic to the other side and hear other arguments.
One thing is happening in the Republican Party that the Democratic Party can't say: African Americans who don't live in African-American communities are having a chance to serve their country at the political level. That includes Allen West in a white district in Florida; Tim Scott in a white district in South Carolina; and Mia Love, a 36-year-old black woman running for Congress in a Utah district that has virtually no black people.
These individuals are going to be examples of people of color holding office, having a chance to serve their country, without their race disqualifying them. As younger African Americans see that these people are having a chance to participate in the debate in this country, even though most people in their communities don't look like them or share their backgrounds, I think that's going to become a point of attraction for a lot of African Americans under 35.
Many younger African Americans want to be Americans who have a chance to thrive based on their ability. That's going to be the biggest selling point for the Republican Party in the next 10 years, and that's going to get the interest of a lot of younger African Americans