Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul turns to an informal brain trust of African-American leaders to help him navigate the
divide between the Republican Party and the black community,
CNN reported.
The Kentucky senator has labored since about 2013 to educate himself about the concerns and sensitivities of African-Americans, reportedly telling one community activist that year, "I don't understand your world. I'm a white male. I'm trying. Forgive me if I don't understand your pain," according to CNN.
The road, however, has occasionally been bumpy.
Interviewed Tuesday on the Laura Ingraham radio show, Paul said of the Baltimore riots: "There are so many things we can talk about. It's something we talk about not in the immediate aftermath but over time: The breakdown of family structure, the lack of fathers, the lack of sort of a moral code in our society. This isn't just a racial thing; it goes across racial boundaries."
But Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, one of the leaders Paul turns to for advice, didn't take those remarks too well.
"His comments strongly reinforce the skepticism that many in the black community have about the sincerity of his outreach and his understanding of the complexity of inequality in American life," Henderson said.
"Outreach to the black community is important, but a doctrinaire conservative response to Baltimore's unrest is no substitute for a willingness to learn about systemic injustice or to confront the harsh realities of police abuse. I expected more from him," he told CNN.
Paul's quip to Ingraham that he was glad his train did not make a stop in riot-torn Baltimore was likewise not well-received, according to CNN.
A Paul strategist said the senator understood "that people listen and hear things differently. Certain words resonate with different constituencies," CNN reported.
Paul once questioned the Civil Rights Act; now, he supports it. In trying to meld his fiscal conservative and libertarian philosophy to issues of African-American concern, he has zeroed in on reforming the criminal justice system.
Together with New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat, Paul has advocated measures that would erase the criminal records of nonviolent felons, make it easier for them to re-enter the work world, and he would reinstate their right to vote, CNN reported.
He meets regularly, away from the media spotlight, with African-American advisers. He has also sought to broaden his contacts in the black community, reads policy papers suggested by black leaders, and studied the 2012 book "The New Jim Crow" about the disproportionate "mass incarceration" of black males in the U.S.
Paul plans to continue campaigning in the black community.
Elroy Sailor, a senior adviser to Paul, said: "After this election, whether we see huge turnout or not, you will see a change in the way Republicans engage the African-American community. Victory for this campaign is changing the discourse."
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