One Percent of Republican Legislators in the States
and Washington Are African-American or Hispanic
Newspaper Ads Point to 'Retro Republican Reality'
NEW YORK, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The uninformed viewer watching TV
coverage of this week's Republican national convention in New York might come
away thinking that the President's party is built upon a solid commitment to
inclusion of racial minorities. Once again, as it does every four years, the
Republican Party is trying to portray itself as a "big tent," with room for
every American.
But a new book about America's political divisions notes that the 99
percent of all Republican legislators across the country and in Congress are
white. The national Republican Party, whose base is in the South, the Plains
and the Mountain states, looks to white men as its power base and source of
leadership. Even when Republican states have significant minority
populations, the elected Republican representatives rarely are drawn from
those communities.
The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America, a new look at political
divisions in America by educator-entrepreneur Dr. John Sperling, calls those
states "Retro America," and notes: "Its whiteness and maleness are mirrored in
the Republican Party."
Of 3,643 Republicans serving in the state legislatures, only 44 are
minorities, or 1.2 percent. In the Congress, with 274 of the 535 elected
senators and representatives Republican, only five are minorities -- three
Cuban Americans from Florida, a Mexican American from Texas and a Native
American senator originally elected as a Democrat.
"President Bush's home state leads the way. Texas, with a minority
population of 47 percent, has 106 Republicans in the state legislature, but
there are 0 blacks and 0 Hispanics among them," Sperling writes. "No major
corporation doing business with the government could be so white without being
subject to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) action!"
An advertisement appearing in the New York Times and Washington Post this
week describes this "Retro Republican Reality." For more information and to
download chapters of the Sperling book, go to http://www.retrovsmetro.org.
Print editions of The Great Divide are on sale exclusively at
amazon.com/greatdivide.
SOURCE Polipoint Press
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Related links:
http://www.retrovsmetro.org
CONTACT:
Jessica Smith or Brendan McCarthy of Fenton
Communications, +1-202-822-5200, for Polipoint Press
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