Elder: Democrats' Hypocrisy On Race -- When Will People Wake Up?

Here we go again.

A Republican official, this time a member of the Orange County, Calif., GOP central committee, stands accused of -- racism!

Her crime?

She forwarded, to a circle of friends, an email depicting an image of a family of chimpanzees, with the superimposed face of President Barack Obama over the baby chimp's face. The caption read, "Now you know why no birth certificate." The national media soon picked up the story with the implicit "GOP-is-bigoted" story line.

Given her position as a central committee member, America's ugly history of demeaning images of blacks and the Democratic Party's unfair but calculated characterization of the Republican Party as racist, the official exercised poor taste and bad judgment. She has apologized. But many demand her resignation.

This is a teachable moment.

The Democratic Party has lost the "white vote" in every presidential election since 1964. Democrats attribute this to white racism. Yet in 2008, when a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll asked whether voters would refuse to vote for a qualified black for president, only 3 percent of Republicans said "yes." More Democrats -- at 4 percent -- than Republicans admitted refusing to vote for a qualified black for president. Republican presidents have appointed more blacks to positions of authority than have Democrats. Of the black members of the House of Representatives, the only ones from majority white districts are Republicans.


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