From the Orange Bowl to Washington
Beston, Paul
FROM THE ORANGE BOWL TO WASHINGTON liberals or conservatives." No doubt this is true. But everyone knows that Republicans and Democrats have fundamental differences on values that manifest...
...All along, he kept thinking about what his next move would be...
...In his forty-five years, J. C. Watts has been the first black quarterback of his high school football team in Eufaula...
...Watts caused an uproar when he described the liberal black establishment as "race hustling poverty pimps:' But despite that brave and accurate language, he takes a soft-footed approach to racial preferences...
...The only helping hand you can count on," Buddy Watts said, "is the one at the end of your sleeve...
...His religious faith seems to be responsible for this perspective...
...But now he was running for office as a Republican, and all bets were off...
...Even appointing blacks to top positions—Colin Powell at State, Condoleezza Rice to head the National Security Council—apparently hasn't helped...
...What's more, Bush did demonstrably worse among blacks than did the previous Republican candidate, Bob Dole, despite making far greater efforts to woo them...
...While conjuring the Lord has become a numbing staple of athletic blather, Watts's modesty and sincerity are plain...
...It makes for surprisingly moving reading...
...the first black man to quarterback the Oklahoma Sooners to victory in the Orange Bowl (two years in a row, no less...
...He became the first black police officer in Eufaula in 1969 and was also a minister on Sunday...
...Helen Watts managed the family finances with great ingenuity and taught her son how to wash his own clothes, cook his own meals, and other skills of self-reliance...
...I thought if you were black you had to vote Democrat...
...On other issues fraught with racial politics—like welfare and education reform—he has been immune to their intimidation...
...The future congressman's ideas grew out of his values, and his values came from his parents, J. C. Watts, Sr...
...Most of us are familiar with the numbers—in the last presidential election, blacks gave an astonishing 91 percent of their votes to Al Gore and only 8 percent to George W. Bush...
...Watts writes: "Our values and belief systems have a lot more to do with how we were raised and the life we've lived than whether we are Republicans or Democrats, Paul Beston is a writer in New York City...
...Speculation continues that he will return, possibly for a Senate run in 2004, if Don Nickles retires...
...The party would be sending a message, he told Gingrich, that "we don't believe racism exists?' When it comes to affirmative action, Watts apparently shares in some degree the Left's view that Republicans are insensitive...
...known as Buddy) and Helen Watts, who emerge as the "What scares them [black Democratic leaders] the most is that black people might break out of that racial groupthink and start thinking for themselves...
...On the one hand, he argues for assistance based on economic need, not race...
...It seems a bit out of place in a book that is at its best discussing values through 74 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR • JUNE/JULY 2003 compelling stories...
...Is this book a summing up or a prelude...
...He stood up to his party on affirmative action reform during Newt Gingrich's tenure as House Speaker...
...His thinking here is somewhat muddled...
...Groupthink of any kind was not an issue in the Watts family of Eufaula, Oklahoma...
...While expressing his disagreement with the concept of racial quotas, he decided that the country was not ready to do away with affirmative action altogether...
...But he does write powerfully of the "ideological apartheid" in the black community that regards him as a pariah for his views on poverty and race...
...the first black congressman from the South since Reconstruction...
...and the first black man in Washington's Republican congressional leadership...
...book's most vivid figures...
...A newspaper in Norman, site of his glory days with the Oklahoma Sooners, wrote that Watts was no longer a hero to kids in the state...
...Among other things, What Color Is A Conservative...
...No such scurrilous attacks were made on Dole's character...
...A friend told Watts about a woman who had said she couldn't vote for him because she was a Democrat...
...And what a story it is...
...until his father and coach Barry Switzer convinced him to stick it out...
...After college, he starred in the Canadian Football League for several seasons, but wrestled with ambivalence there as well...
...sets out to challenge this seemingly congenital belief among blacks that they must be Democrats...
...Throughout the book, he ascribes each new step in his life to the Almighty's will for him...
...One of Buddy Watts's favorite sayings was, "If you keep walkin' down a bear trail, eventually you're gonna run into a bear...
...Whatever his thinking, he has consistently demonstrated an ability to understand his limitations, to take stock, and move on...
...Watts surprised many with his decision to retire from Congress in 2002...
...Athletes typically have enormous difficulty doing this...
...Free men, like conservatives, come in all colors...
...on the other, he writes that the Republican Party simply hasn't "laid the foundation" to communicate with Americans about why affirmative action is wrong...
...My Life and My Politics BY J. C. WATTS, JR...
...the woman responded...
...Watts describes appearing on a C-SPAN call-in program not long after the 2000 election, where a black caller dismissed the appointments because Rice and Powell were "not representative of the black community...
...That Watts would become a Republican seems almost inevitable after reading his story...
...As a former University of Oklahoma sports star, he had been well known in the state for years and was a popular public speaker...
...The infamous NAACP ad blaming Bush for the dragging death of James Byrd in Texas seemed, perplexingly enough, to have been motivated by Bush's increased attention to the black vote...
...Politicians don't find it much easier...
...Really...
...It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Watts and others have reached: "What scares them [black Democratic leaders] the most is that black people might break out of that racial groupthink and start thinking for themselves...
...But it is equally likely that Watts has concluded he is not cut out to scale the heights in Washington...
...Watts is no threat to Shelby Steele when it comes to making arguments against racial victimology and the destructive effects of white guilt...
...WITH CHRISS WINSTON HarperCollins/294 pages/$24.95 Reviewed by Paul Beston B eginning his political career by running for a seat on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in 1990, J. C. Watts made a startling discovery: his party label meant more to people than his message...
...J. C. Watts has been both of these, but neither has ever fully defined him...
...Have the race hustlers and poverty pimps gotten to him here...
...But he almost quit Oklahoma after his freshman season, What Color Is A Conservative...
...He announces a three-part "New Conservative Strategy for a Better America" that is long on rhetoric about family renewal, racial harmony, and "new models" of thinking, but short on specifics...
...apparently, he voted for mostly Republican presidential candidates from the 1960s on...
...He was a lifelong Democrat who secretly split tickets when he thought it appropriate...
...The friend reminded the woman that in a general election, she could vote for whomever she wished...
...or maybe he sees one of his father's bears down the end of that path...
...Though his parents grew up in the worst of the Jim Crow era, they never had any illusions about help from high places...
...Once Watts gets down to discussing policy prescriptions, however, the book loses some of its distinction...
...And yet, the author contends, his life has rarely proceeded according to any plan...
...But everyone knows that Republicans and Democrats have fundamental differences on values that manifest themselves in policy...
...J. C.'s father was a laborer, farmer, construction worker, and, when he had saved up enough money to start buying properties, a landlord...
...Though a remarkably successful athlete, Watts was not afflicted with the great athlete's inability to walk away from the game...
...His dream of football stardom came one New Year's Day, when he saw Eufaula hometown hero Luscious Selmon playing for the Sooners on television...
Vol. 36 • June 2003 • No. 3
