Harrison J. Chastang, III

Eight years ago George Bush crashed and burned at a GOP convention that featured few minorities and embraced anti-affirmative action and anti-immigrant policies as a way to blame non-Whites, particularly Blacks and Latins, for the problems of the nation.

Four years ago at the San Diego Republican convention there were still few non-whites and the Dole/Kemp team did their best to ignore the issues of Blacks and Latins. Colin Powell's powerful prime time speech urging the party to do more outreach to Blacks was the only break from the prime time agenda of mostly white conservatives that has been the standard procedure of Republican conventions. While current nominee Gov. George W. Bush is being criticized for embracing key advisors from his father's administration, Bush has made it clear that this is not his father's convention.

Four years ago at the convention in San Diego J.C. Watts, the only Black Republican member of congress was hard to find, but this year Watts was co-chair of the convention and was highly visible at a various receptions and events in Philadelphia. Watts and other top Black Republicans like Colorado Lt. Governor Joe Rodgers were being showcased at GOP receptions that featured Earth, Wind & Fire, the Temptations and boxing champions Joe Frazier and Roy Jones.

Ground zero for African Americans at the GOP convention was the Zanzibar Blue, a Philadelphia jazz club where receptions were held for African-American Republican delegates, elected officials, party members and the press every night of the convention. Philadelphia has one of the largest Black populations in the country and if the average Black Philly resident casually strolled into one of the many Black GOP receptions at Zanzibar there would be few clues to indicate most of the several hundred people in the packed club were Black Republicans.

The large crowd at the Zanzibar was a far cry from the tiny group of Black Republicans at the last convention that was dominated by the likes of Black Republicans like Ward Connerly, conservative talk show host Ken Hamlin and disciples of Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell and other hard core conservative Black Republicans. This year, however, these old school Black Republicans were not to be found, replaced by many Blacks who had joined the party within the last few years like Las Vegas city councilwoman Lynette McDonald, who says she joined the party because of the GOP's philosophy of less government, community based problem solving and personal accountability.

Another Black Republican, Washington DC Republican Committee Executive Director Vickey Wilcher, who's working on the issue of granting D.C. residents the right to vote in Presidential and congressional elections, says she pushing bipartisan issues because while she hopes she can persuade some Blacks to join the GOP, working for D.C. voting rights is an issue that Democrats and Republicans can support.

During the convention Black Republicans were represented in larger numbers and reflected a more moderate perspective, but Black Republicans in Philly made little mention of the party blocking qualified Black Federal judicial appointments, outlawing all abortions, opposing gun control, Affirmative Action and endorsement of the Confederate flag and racist policies of institutions like Bob Jones University.

If anyone at the GOP convention got caught up in the illusion of a Black Utopia within the GOP, the trip back to reality was just a short ride up the Jersey Turnpike to New York City, where the policies of Republican mayor Rudolph Giuliani have angered many Blacks. African-American Republicans like to say they belong to the party because Republicans won't take them for granted; a claim that would be hard to explain to Black New Yorkers angry over Republican mayor Giuliani's refusal to hear valid African-American complaints over charges of New York Police harassment, beatings and shootings of unarmed and innocent Blacks in NYC.

SHARPTON AT THE RNC?

That was the rumor in the massive press area at the First Union Center in southeast Philadelphia, an outpost in the middle of nowhere, far away from protesters who were raising hell downtown about issues such as the death penalty, Mumia Abu Jamal, the environment and police brutality.

Most reporters had no agenda or schedule of when the protests were going to take place so unless they had a contact in the protest community or happened to be at the site of a protest, few reporters knew they were happening and if they did, they would have little help in persuading convention officials to dispatch the shuttle buses --- funneling the press the 14 miles from the hotels downtown to the press center --- to the sites of the protests.

The only way for many reporters to hear the message of the other side would be through the comments of non-Republican activists like Sharpton invited to appear on some of the many talk shows broadcasting live in the massive media center next to the convention arena.

A press conference by Al Sharpton alone at the GOP convention would provide great quotes and sound bytes, but a press conference with Al Sharpton and Armstrong Williams? A reporter's dream on a quiet Tuesday afternoon.

The thousands of reporters milling around the press center speculated what Sharpton, a critic of Republicans, especially Black Republicans was doing at the GOP convention, especially with Armstrong Williams, a conservative Black writer and talk show host who has been equally critical of Black Democrats like Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters. The idea of Sharpton and Williams getting together was equal to the thought of Atlanta Braves pitcher and New York City-hater John Rocker hanging out with a group of guys from your average South Bronx bar.

Williams said that he invited Sharpton to the GOP press conference to dispel the notion that conservative and liberal Africa- Americans can never get together to discuss the issues. "If the Israelis and the Palestinians can sit down at the White House to discuss their differences, to come up with a common solution, why can't and shouldn't Blacks who have different views on social and political issues do the same thing?"

One of the main issues Sharpton and Williams said they wanted to work together on was the issue of racial profiling. Both Sharpton and Williams said that it's unacceptable that a disproportionate number of law-abiding Blacks are designated as potential lawbreakers by agencies ranging from the U.S. Customs Service to local police and state highway patrols and that both parties need to do more in ending racial profiling.

While Sharpton said that the most serious issues of police corruption and brutality has occurred in New Jersey, New York City and Los Angeles, places run by Republican mayors and governors, Sharpton also noted that an unarmed Black man was shot and killed in Philadelphia and another Black man was seriously beaten by police in another part of Philadelphia, a Democratic party stronghold whose mayor is African-American.

Another issue both Sharpton and Willliams wanted to work on was the so-called war on drugs. Sharpton said that, after crack cocaine devastated Black communities around the country, he supported mandatory minimum jail terms as the best way to get the top drug-dealers behind bars.

Sharpton and Willliams say they both now oppose the current drug laws. They said the laws contain loopholes that allow the, mostly white, drug kingpins to receive probation or reduced jail time while Black drug users --- who need counseling and medical help in breaking their addiction to dangerous drugs or whose only crime is having a spouse, significant other or roommate involved in the drug business are sentenced to long jail terms not fitting the crime.

Sharpton and Williams, however, didn't agree on everything.

Williams thought the first night of the convention, which featured singer/rapper Brian McKnight, several Black gospel choirs, film clips of Republican inspired programs serving low income and non-white communities and a host of Black Republican officials and candidates, including former general Colin Powell, showcased the "diversity" of the 21st century GOP and was an example of how the Republicans are serious about including Blacks into the party.

Sharpton blasted the Monday night presentation, saying that the GOP cannot call itself reaching out to Black voters by presenting "a bunch of choreographed speeches and stacking a stage, Broadway-style" with a bunch of Black entertainers and a few people of color and call it diversity. When the GOP is still not willing to include those same people of color in top policy discussions and decisions, Sharpton argued, this presentation was a sham. Sharpton called Governor George W. Bush's theme of "compassionate conservatism" "selected conservatism" because the GOP will support programs for disenfranchised people they agree with but will ignore programs for others truly in need but not part of the GOP agenda.

Sharpton said he hoped Black Republicans would join him at the Democratic convention to pressure Democrats to do more on certain issues that both conventions and parties should deal with. Leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King challenged both Republicans and Democrats, Sharpton asserted. Black leaders, he went on, now should do the same thing because if Black leaders do anything less than that it is like the James Brown song "Talking Loud and Saying Nothing."