Issue Number 20 December12, 2002The show's most compelling on-air presence is Armstrong Williams, possibly the most noxious Black personality in broadcasting. He lovingly embraces arch-racist Senator Strom Thurmond, who decades ago gave the servile yet ambitious young Armstrong an internship, as both "friend" and "mentor." Williams has served the interests of apartheid South Africa, wallowed in the largess of every Hard Right foundation and think tank in the land, and reveled in long weekends with white supremacists. Williams' broadcast deals entangle him with the Christian Right's unholiest electronic pulpits. He is the premiere Black political whore in America, and the central fixture on America's Black Forum.
Armstrong Williams' protégé is Niger Innis, rising son of gangster "civil rights" caricature Roy Innis, head of the family business criminally referred to as the Congress of Racial Equality. CORE is a tin cup outstretched to every Hard Right political campaign or cause that finds it convenient - or a sick joke - to hire Black cheerleaders for their cross burning events. As the bearer of such lineage, Niger Innis is a prince among Black political scavengers - he even fancies himself an interpreter of what he believes to be Hip Hop culture's conservative characteristics. Niger Innis advertises his political "consultant" wares on America's Black Forum, in the shadow of Strom Thurmond's protégé, Armstrong Williams.
_____________________________________________________________________________Issue Number 25 January 16, 2003The week began in high anticipation and, for most politically conscious African Americans, great anxiety. George Bush was once again wallowing in Mississippi mud, his U.S. Court of Appeals nomination of Charles Pickering up for a second time before the Senate Judiciary Committee. History seemed about to march backwards on affirmative action, as Bush prepared to throw the weight of his Justice Department behind opponents of diversity at the University of Michigan law school.
Where do Black Republicans stand on these burning issues of day? What counsel will they offer their President? Is there an alternative approach, a more nuanced message, a middle way, some unique contribution that African American Republicans can make to the larger political conversation? The people and the press cried out for the voices of Black Republicanism to make themselves heard.
Spotlights played reflections on Armstrong Williams' bald and shiny head. The Trent Lott affair had been a hustler's godsend, a once in a lifetime opportunity for Williams to appear to play the game of Mau-Mau with his paymasters and clients in the GOP. There was gonna be a showdown, he seemed to promise as he grumbled ominously through the holidays. Vexed and scowling, the gruesome TV talking head demanded that his party "adequately address issues of importance to African-Americans, namely racism and violence," and warned, "Without a forum with which to discuss these concerns, the Republicans will have trouble remaining a long-term, stable governing body."
Williams anointed himself the man of the hour who would pull this forum together whether the white folks in the party wanted it, or not - at least, his tone suggested as much. On Monday, the media assembled.
_______________________________________________________________________ Issue Number 26 - January 23, 2003The unreconstructed racists at the helm of the Republican Party have elevated the most widely despised Black man in the nation as their principle African American political spokesman. Armstrong Williams, the raving reactionary whose opinions are shared by no significant segment of Black America, has positioned himself as the GOP's Director of Black Personnel, the central player in the party's drive to recruit Black candidates for electoral and appointive office. Flanked by about a dozen Black Republicans less known - and, therefore, less reviled - than himself, Armstrong pretended to strong-arm Republican National Chairman Mark Racicot and Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist, demanding that they entrust to his care a large portion of the party's minority recruitment funds and favors. Racicot and Frist, for their part, pretended to be awed and intimidated by the fawning talk show buffoon.
At the end of the day's political theater, the players bowed and congratulated each other on a ruse well done. As we wrote in our January 16 commentary Armstrong Williams' Big Move, "There is a giant money pot in this deal for Williams, whose public relations firm, the Graham Williams Group, co-founded with Oprah boyfriend Stedman Graham, specializes in crafting benign racial images for the institutional Right."
Black Democrats should take no pleasure in Williams' coup. The carefully scripted Racicot-Williams production, starring Strom Thurmond's Black protégé, a mercenary who has "never run for office or led any organization indigenous to the Black community," sets the political bar so low that it can only encourage complacency among white Democrats. The GOP has no monopoly on racism - although, when it comes to minstrelsy, the White Man's Party puts on a far more entertainingly authentic show, the real doo-dah.
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