A Black Republican Wises Up and Opts Out

The torrent of praise from President Bush, Republican congressional leaders and political pundits for retiring Rep. J.C. Watts, a GOP member from Oklahoma, sharply contrasted with the deafening silence from black Democrats and civil rights leaders. This should hardly surprise.

After his election from a predominantly white district in 1994, he threw down the gauntlet to black Democrats. He defiantly declared he would not join the Congressional Black Caucus.

In one of the keynote addresses at the Republican convention in 1996, Watts also challenged the old-line civil rights leadership. He punched all the conservative hot buttons, championing family values and self-help and hammering welfare and public housing. Watts goaded black Democrats and civil rights leaders a year later when he branded them "race-hustling poverty pimps." It was a low in mudslinging, and the reaction was swift and harsh.

A somewhat chagrined Watts and his Republican mentors rushed to claim that he was not talking about any one leader or point of view. However, anyone remotely familiar with the political battle between liberals and conservatives knew what and whom he meant and what they represented--liberalism and blacks.