Republicans mocked for brag that ‘record’ 40 candidates are Black

The Republican Party is being mocked for touting its supposedly “record” diversity numbers during Black History Month, with commentators arguing that GOP has a woeful present-day record of reaching Black people — and is ignoring past eras when it did better.

On Sunday, the party proclaimed on Twitter, “We currently have a record number of Black Republicans running for office and winning at all levels. Over 40 Black Republicans are running in GOP primaries for both local and federal office. #BlackHistoryMonth.”

The effort soon came in for mockery from Democrats and historians alike.

Lawyer and Democratic congressional candidate Qasim Rashid argued that between local, state, and federal officers, there are more than 500,000 potential positions aspiring Republican candidates could be seeking — suggesting 40-plus future Black GOP-ers was a negligible percentage.

“40 Black Republicans running in 519,682 offices is .007%. Imagine bragging about this during Black History Month,” Mr Rashid said.

“There are about 470 House and Senate seats up for grabs and there are over 7300 state legislator seats total in the US, many of which are elected in even years like 2022,” added Willamette University history professor Seth Cotlar. “That doesn’t count other ‘local’ elected positions. So, 40 you say? In the whole country?”

Others, like University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck, noted that after the Civil War, 16 African Americans served in Congress and more than 600 in state office as Republicans.

“They can’t even get their own history right,” Mr Vladeck said.

What’s more, added NPR host Peter Sagal, is that given the spate of recent “critical race theory” bills that seek to limit the teaching of the history of US racism, young people might not be able to learn about the many Southern states which once had these Black representatives — and how that period of political power came to an end with the dismantling of Reconstruction.

“In 1868, Black freedmen made up a majority in the SC legislature’s lower house,” Mr Sagal said. “Teaching what happened to them and why is now illegal in many states.”

The Democrats’ support of the civil rights movement, and GOP’s decades-long opposition to it, has helped make the Republican party of 2022 overwhelmingly white.

There is just one Black Republican senator and two Black US representatives in Congress.

And their constituency is just as homogeneous. Around the country, the GOP is about 83 per cent white, and includes a majority of non-college educated white people and rural Southerners, while Black, Asian, and Latinx people make up over 40 per cent of the Democratic party.