Republicans, do you believe your party isn't racist?

[TJ in Oregon]

Some people in both parties are subtly racist, but the Republican Party as a whole is not racist. The party platform does not a single racist tennant. Class distinction is not the same as racial distinction. For example, I'll bet if I ask a hundred people on the street which Cleveland neighborhood had a higher violent crime rate in 2003 (the most recent year I can find detailed stats on) Glenville or Cudell, about 90% (in both parties) will say Glenville just because it's close to 100% black and Cudell is 80%+ white, even though that's the wrong answer.

Sure there are racist elements in the Republican Party (honestly, I think it ends up directed more at Hispanics than blacks today), but most of the Democrats truthfully don't respond any differently to race than the Republicans do. The very, very liberal city of Cleveland Heights passed a 6PM curfew ordinance last summer after a bunch of black teenagers had a flash mob. I have a very hard time believing they would have reacted so strongly to white teenagers having a flash mob and I'd love to see some stats about how it's enforced broken down by race. The white liberals can call themselves "open-minded" and "tolerant" all they want, when a neighborhood starts to become black, they skedaddle just as fast as the white conservatives do.