Recurrent nightmares come to notice as opportunities for new dreams. The shocking occurrence of a dramatic election victory followed, not by the resignation of the hapless leader of Senate Democrats but, rather, by the resignation of Majority Leader Lott typifies such a conjunction.

Familiar commentary misses the point when it resurrects the fear of America’s segregationist past, for what is at stake is the recurrent nightmare of ineradicable racism whatever form it takes.

There is a reason for this malentendu: namely, the conservative mistake of responding to race dogmatism with race atheism. By race atheism I mean the attitude that, since race should not matter, it should be treated as if it does not matter. The prevailing conservative view is that of race atheism and the corollary assumption that race dogmatism will disappear if it is ignored loudly enough. The real problem in the Republican Party is not the supposed corrupting influence of segregationists but the real and determined willfulness of the race atheists who seek above all to avoid the embarrassment of race in policy discussions.

The idea is not a new one: race is the apparently intractable American dilemma. From the moment slavery receded as an issue race emerged as the elephant in the living room. Nor has anyone heretofore settled upon a constructive, helpful, and meaningful approach to dealing with it. But that dismal past performance need not preclude the possibility of a fundamental change in approach. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the Republican Party at this moment is poised upon just such a dramatic fork in the road.

If past performance guides President Bush and his Party leaders, they will become reticent to broach issues remotely touching upon questions of race. They will not abandon previously enunciated principles (such as opposition to affirmative action), but they will noticeably de-emphasize those same principles. That is because the race atheists mistakenly believe that America can attain the fullness of the expression of its principles independently of solving the problem race. They are mistaken, and doubly so. For the main reason race retains its salience is not because the race dogmatists retain credibility (who could believe the fabricator of the Tawna Brawley fraud, the notorious scam artist, Jesse Jackson, or the political extremism of the "James Byrd ad"?), but rather because the race atheists have refused to lance this boil on the body politic.

What can be done? Once and for all the Republican Party needs to embrace its heritage, which lies not in Fourth of July genuflections to Abraham Lincoln but rather in the open embrace of the Reconstruction slur, "Black Republicans." When President Bush is able to say, without equivocation, "I am a Black Republican, and my Party is the Party of Black Republicans," then we will know that America is ready to move on. Nor is it necessary that American blacks must become Republicans for that to be meaningful. What is rather needed is the willingness to live up to the full breadth of those principles that led the Democrat opposition of 1864 and afterwards to call Republicans "Black Republicans."

What does it mean, practically, for the President to declare that he is a "Black Republican?" Simply put, it means to pursue an aggressive strategy of calling upon American blacks in the positions of highest visibility and highest influence—not to deal with "black issues" but precisely to deal with the life and death issues of American democracy. Rice and Powell constitute the beginning of that process (as Reagan demonstrated) but it is far from complete. Envision the empty rhetoric of the diversity merchants ("an Administration that looks like America") and conceive of a no less aggressive effort, not to model "diversity" but to vindicate the one claim that American blacks uniformly continue to press: the claim to full citizenship.

Full citizenship means not lining up for paternalistic handouts, but far rather being recognized as ready and willing to contribute to the country’s salvation; capable of healing its economy, waging its wars, defending its principles, and leading its councils. This can only result from a deliberate effort to fill appointive and elective offices with such citizens, on the principle that the nation’s health demands it. No appeal to an organized constituency is intended. The bloc vote reached its apogee in the near-election of Al Gore. It can do no more harm than that, and eventually will come to resemble more and more the Jewish bloc vote. The Republican Party that will kill race dogmatism in this manner, whether it attracts black votes or not, will finally have realized its promise to deliver salvation for America.

William B. Allen a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program in Public Policy and Administration at Michigan State University.