parkerstar This is so freakin’ cynical it makes me want to spit. Laura Richardson was elected to Congress with the support of the majority of African-American Democrat Party voters in California’s District 37. So the Republican Party thinks it can just slap a female African-American face—Star Parker—on its ticket and get enough votes in the 37th District to displace the incumbent?

I’m not denying Laura’s weakness as a candidate. To be sure, she has made some mistakes. But let’s look at Star’s platform:  

 

 [ Repealing Obamacare ]

African American adults have higher rates of health problems among both lower and higher income groups.

Star claims that government dependency is a disease that is “gripping” the African-American community, but even at higher-income levels African-Americans remain uninsured at rates higher than that of the majority population.

Conservatives try to paint this disparity of outcomes as the result of individual choices but there is clear evidence that A) The health care system status quo was broken; B) Its brokenness disproportionately resulted in negative outcomes for African-Americans.

Healthcare reform has a significant chance of producing positive outcomes for African-Americans. If Star gets any traction on this issue it will be out of pure Black ignorance.

 [ Turning the tide against the stimulus package ]

African-Americans needed a stimulus package more than the majority population.

Analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office supports the President’s assertion that the Stimulus Package averted another Great Depression. The CBO reported that the stimulus package helped to end the recession and created or saved at least two million jobs.

This is particularly significant to African-Americans. A report by the Kirwan Institute states that the group “United for a Fair Economy found that although the U.S. has been in a recession for more than a year, people of color have been in a recession for nearly five years, and have entered a depression during the current economic crisis. Between 2000 and 2007, median black family incomes dropped 1.0 percent for all families the overall decline is the first in a business cycle of this length since WWII. African American homeownership gains were reversed after 2004; they have reverted to 2000 levels.” African-American unemployment right now is 20 percent. The African-American problem with the stimulus package is not that it was too big, but that it was not big enough. Again, if Star gets any traction out of this issue it will be out of pure ignorance.

 [ Turning back the tide of high-cost no return welfare programs ]

To what welfare programs is Star referring?

Is she talking about the biggie, Social Security, which takes up 20 percent of the federal budget? Does Star consider keeping old people off the street and out of poverty a “no-return”? Star can’t possibly be talking about Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — which will together account for 21 percent of the federal budget in 2010. Star declares that she wants to repeal “Obamacare.” Star must know that with health care reform repealed the need for Medicare, which provides health coverage to around 46 million people who are over the age of 65 or have disabilities, will remain high. I imagine the same for CHIP, which offers health care coverage to poor minors. Maybe Star considers giving health care coverage to people can’t access it otherwise to be one of those programs that have “trapped the economically disadvantaged and broken up their families.”

This standard Republican Party platform has significant “barriers to entry” in a strongly Democratic 37th district. Maybe that is why the party higher-ups decided a sweet Black female face was the one most appropriate to carry this bitter banner.

During the last election cycle the GOP tried the same thing at the national level. McCain insulted every thinking independent woman by attempting to hold up Sarah Palin as a foil to the positive coverage Hillary Clinton was getting as the first female with a viable chance of becoming president of the United States. After Obama won the primary, African-American Michael Steele was elected head of the Republican Party in a too-little, too-late “me-too” bid. You see how those worked out.

I understand that this is politics as usual for both parties. I am Black and I am female and Laura Richardson did not get my vote because she was not liberal enough. So I would not give Star Parker a second look. But I’m offended that the GOP thinks I’m so gullible as to actually consider voting for a candidate whose platform is decidedly against what the majority of Black Female-Americans consider to be in their best interests just because the candidate running that platform is a Black-Female-American.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Star Parker, Republican nominee for California’s 37th Congressional District, will host a community Town Hall meeting Monday, October 4th, at theLong Beach Petroleum Club, located at 3636 Linden Avenue in Long Beach. The Town Hall will be held from 7:00pm to 9:00pm.