Comments by Newt Gingrich and other GOP presidential candidates about black people, food stamps and getting a job are stoking concerns among some blacks that the political discourse is returning to the days of “Southern strategy” politics, when blacks were used as scapegoats to attract white votes. Gingrich received a thunderous standing ovation during a debate Monday night when he said he would continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, get a better job and someday own the job. It’s unclear if that strategy will work on an electorate now used to seeing blacks in high-ranking positions. Charles P. Henry, head of African-American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said he sees such language “as a retreat to the sort of bread-and-butter rallying of those who we might call racist.”
Denver Post wire services
