The Nov. 25 article "Dems fail again in state-office bid by black candidate" implies two flawed assumptions.
The first is that, for some reason, the Democratic Party and is inherently more worthy of black votes. History tells us the opposite. It was Abraham Lincoln, our first Republican president, who abolished slavery. It was Democrats, in Southern statehouses, who passed poll taxes and Jim Crow laws to keep blacks subjugated. It was a Democratic governor who blocked black students from school in Little Rock in 1957, and it was Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican president, who sent in federal troops to secure integration of the school. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was presented on the floor of the U.S. Senate, it was filibustered by 17 Democrats and one Republican. A review of presidential appointments of blacks is also favorable to Republicans.
The second assumption is that Democrats should vote for candidates based on the color of their skin rather than the quality of their character. That is racism. What elections have shown is that the citizens of Ohio are above that. They vote for candidates who are competent, qualified and whose values are in tune with the majority. So far, black Republican candidates have done that better than black Democrat candidates.Conrad Lindes, Middleburg Heights