Of course Dre is hardly a barometer of African-American political behavior-millionaire rappers represent a small voting bloc-but a lot of blacks, according to recent national polls, share his ambivalence. While whites adore Powell-roughly 70 percent view him favorably-blacks seem warm but wary. His approval ratings among them have been 20 points lower. Newt Gingrich has gushed, but Jesse Jackson has grumbled. “We do know that very right-wing white people can trust him,” Jackson recently told The New Yorker. “Whites always want to create the black of their choice as our leaden” Yet African-Americans ranging from Dre to 57-year-old Hattie Green of Compton, Calif., also admire what Powell has accomplished. “I like it when white folks have to give a black his due,” she says. Why is the most plausible black presidential candidate ever stirring such conflicting emotions among blacks?
For one, the very fact that whites love Powell has some blacks worried. Some know little about him and therefore fear he’ll turn out to be like Clarence Thomas, who got significant black support when he was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court but is now viewed with hostility. Others figure Powell isn’t “black enough” in his speech (he rarely uses a preacherly style) or worry that his career has been too dependent on the kindness of Republicans. Tia Walke, a 19-year-old college student in Virginia Beach, Va., says simply, “He’s a white guy in a black person’s body.”
Powell is most often compared to Dwight Eisenhower, but the better analogy may be Booker T. Washington. The founder of the Tuskegee Institute mingled with, and was loved by, Southern whites as well as Northern industrialists like Andrew Carnegie. At the turn of the century, he emphasized hardwork and urged blacks to form small businesses, but was reluctant to fight publicly for civil rights. For years, Washington was out of favor among black college students who viewed him as too accommodating to the white establishment. But “in these conservative times, he’s come back as a positive,” says Russell Adams, chair of Afro-American studies at Howard University.
Powell may be able to tap into this latent black conservatism. Most of Powell’s “Republican” themes-and his army back-ground-play quite well in the African-American community, particularly among the older and more middle-class people most likely to vote. A Powell presidency, says Dewitt Martin, president of the Butler Street YMCA in Atlanta, “would bring back this whole philosophy of hard work equals success. He’d get the drug boys out of the ‘hood.”
The key is that Powell must establish trust by showing he’s proud of his blackness and in touch with the poor. Powell’s first public statements helped. He spoke unabashedly about how he personally had been helped by affirmative action. He described his humiliation at segregated lunch counters, and called George Bush’s Willie Horton ad racist.
If he keeps this up and breaks through the initial hesitancy, he’s likely to benefit from a surge in black support. One Democratic activist put it this way: “As a black woman, I would have a very difficult time telling my son why I voted for a white man over an equally qualified black man.” If Powell runs as an independent, he could get 40 percent of the black vote–enough to shatter the last Democratic stronghold. Bill Lynch, a strategist for former New York mayor David Dinkins, thinks the general “gets hotter and hotter [with blacks] every day.” Even partisan Democrats like Rep. Kweisi Mfume have said they’d support a Powell candidacy, and the general was warmly received last Saturday at the Congressional Black Caucus gala. But as he gains altitude, Powell’s balancing act will only become harder. The more he does to attract blacks, the more he risks losing white Republicans. Powell has always been known as a conciliator, someone who can bring people together. The politics of race will test that like nothing else.
