I've had a blog post on this topic bouncing around inside my head for months. I've tried to understand why, despite the failure, over decades, roughly half a century, of Democratic leadership in largely Black cities across America, why Black Americans simply seem to refuse to come to the other side. It's as if the votes are automatically for Democrats, come hell or high water. Why?
In the last year or two I have listened with great interest to the voices of a good number of Black conservatives. I take in the message and then look to the GOP, and I do NOT see, with noteworthy exceptions, an effort to cultivate and grow the phenomena of the Black conservative in our country. Sure, Candace Owens is great. I love her. Really, I do. And I really dig David Webb, Larry Elder, and other voices who the mainstream of the GOP seems to embrace. But from social media, there are many more who are conservative, but they, to me, seem unwelcomed in the GOP. Why?
Well, first and foremost, the GOP is run and controlled by an establishment. The same establishment that fought a sometimes seen, sometimes unseen war against outsider Donald Trump, is just as closed minder to Black conservatives who may have ideas that are different from what the power loves and the power has. Just like they undermined Trump daily, they have no interest in new voices with new ideas. The establishment GOP already has its financial masters, and those masters want the control they bought and paid for. To let new voices, whether it's Trump or Black America, have a say in the direction of the country might undermine the desires of the money and the power. Can't have that! Expand the tent to let millions of Black conservatives inside? Nope. Conform and fit into the old tent, like Candace does, or get the hell out of here.
Then you've got your "purity test" Republicans. The my way or the highway crowd. The ideologues. Black Americans come from a different place, have a different culture, and have different experiences. Oftentimes, these differences manifest in different opinions, opinions NOT welcome by the purity test crowd. You think what!!!! Conservatives don't think that way. You're out. You failed our purity test.
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| Black satellite radio commentator Sonnie Johnson opened my eyes to my own lack of understanding of Black conservatism. Others have come along to add to the insights she gave to me. Listen and you will hear. |
Now, here comes the biggest. And I realize I was guilty of same. If nothing else, please walk away from this blog with this thought. I took Martin Luther King, Jr. literally and embraced with all my heart the thought that we would NOT judge Blacks by the color of their skin, but rather, that each of us is to be measured by the content of our character. To me this meant the goal was and is a colorblind society. "When I see you, I see a good person, not a good Black person." It couldn't be more wrong! There is a huge difference between judging ones worth based on skin color and appreciating and respecting someone for what they are. Black people are proud of their blackness. They don't want us to ignore it or deny it. They want us to respect them, love them, and accept them as they are for what and who they are: people proud of their race... proud to be black. Colorblind misses the mark entirely.
And lastly, as I wrap up, there is an issue of tension and racism, a very real racial friction. I don't know how we get past that. The guy who drove into people in the parade in Wisconsin isn't who Black people are. The racist piece of shit who shot up the supermarket in Buffalo isn't who White people are. Too often people's first instinct when something like this happens is sadly, to want to know what color the perpetrator was, what color were the victims were. And in there, in that thought process, there's a reinforcement, a delineation... "I knew it! I knew it was a White/Black guy! Motherfuckers are always doing this to us!" Whataboutism is the counter, "The news didn't make as big a deal when the Black guy ran the people over." It's chicken or the egg and it will never solve a thing. It is another turn in a deadly spiral. Can we ever pull out? I don't know, but I hope so. There are race baiters of both colors and from both sides of the political aisle who make a living by keeping us at each other's throats, as is also the case with many other issues. Yes, some of them are in the GOP.
There are many Black Americans who are far more conservative than the solid voting block might lead us to believe. But if we're not open to hear their voices, if we're not willing to make room in our tent, and if we're not willing to try and understand them, different experience, culture and all, they'll never vote any other way. And if we can't silence the voices of race baiters, or at least learn to ignore them, are we even trying?
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