By Mary Morley
A member of the Salt Lake County Council spoke to BYU students Tuesday night about the status of the minority community in politics.
Winston Wilkinson, a recently elected Republican member of the SLCC, qualified his statements by listing his own experience as a minority.
“I”m three times a minority — black, Mormon and Republican,” he said.
Winston, who has been involved with politics for more than 40 years, said the Bush administration is doing a better job of showing compassion to women and minorities than past Republican administrations.
“President Bush is saying all the right things and surrounding himself with capable black Americans,” Wilkinson said.
However, past elections have shown that a majority of black voters seem to identify more with the Democratic Party.
This identification with Democrats and the influence of the liberal media have lead to many prominent black Republicans being perceived as “Uncle Toms” by the black community, he said.
Wilkinson said this is true even though the Republican Party and the black community both place importance on family values and religion.
Wilkinson said he believes Republicans can gain trust from the minority community, but it will take time.
Quoting Malcom X, Wilkinson said, “All you need is truth and time.”
Wilkinson was invited to speak by the BYU College Republicans as part of the celebration of Black History month, said club president Diana McArthur, 20, a junior from Columbia, S.C., majoring in economics.
Amy Palmer, 18, a freshman from Birmingham, Ala., with an open major, said she enjoyed the speech because minority politics isn”t something she thinks about a lot so it was interesting to hear different viewpoints.
