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# Posted 12:01 AM by Ariel David Adesnik

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONSERVATISM AND RACISM? According to Bob Herbert, not much. Herbert accuses Bush of cynically using black Americans as props to create a false image of inclusivity for the Republican Party.

Now, I'm going to agree with Herbert that the GOP convention in 2000 was pretty shameless about directing its cameras toward the few black faces in the crowd. But what about Herbert's statement that the GOP has been "relentlessly hostile to the interests of blacks for half a century"?

Has Herbert forgotten which party governed the Solid South and enforced Jim Crow right up through the end of the 1960s? Has Herbert forgotten that it was a Republican president who used armed force to desegregate a southern university?

But forget about the past. The question is, are Republicans hostile to black Americans now? All of the examples Herbert cites of Republican hostility seem to have no racial component. Supporting tax cuts? Not enough job creation? Not enough health care?

Sure, you can make a good case against Republican policy on most of those issues. But the GOP's policy agenda derives from its conservatism, not its antipathy toward black America. Yes, some of these programs hurt poor blacks. But they hurt poor whites just as much.

Playing the race-card is the worst thing Bob Herbert can do to address this issue. Declaring the black agenda and the liberal agenda to be identical is just one more way of damaging American liberalism by making it seem to be a projection of narrow racial interests rather than an inclusive strategy for improving America as a whole.

CORRECTION: Ralph Luker points out that I have confused the desegregation of the University of Mississippi with the desegregation of an all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The former took place while Kennedy was president.

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