On Black Conservatives and Logjams

This one, from a question posed by one of my regulars, Tafaraji –

I don’t know bt, are there too many ego’s among black Conservatives? Do they have any real GOAL, other than to simply be different than the rest of us?

They could create a movement within the Republican party that would finally run racist out to sea, permanently. Giving them no cover.

Black Conservative Media Appearance is Far Out of Proportion to Actual Numbers

One of the reasons I started posting over at Skinny’s was to get an understanding of the black conservatives.

Interesting exercise. The black conservatives seem to be divided into roughly 4 groups, two of which get most of the press and are unquestionably on the money train, Tomming for dollars.

Starting from the bottom feeders you have your certifiable nut cases.

Alan Keyes, Rev Mack Daddy, and the ever present (at least on the WWW) wannabe – the Porch Simian. I think for these guys the overwhelming desperate desire to be recognized and respected has driven them stark raving bonkers. They each have flaws, either of intellect, people skills, or ability to communicate which won’t ever let them be important as leaders in the black community. They would desperately like to be seen as the next Martin Luther King, but fail at one or more critical skills, and in some cases several. As such, they have turned their hatred against the black community – and vitrol against other black people who have succeeded though a combination of greater skills and luck. Their hatred towards Obama is visceral, and based on envy. While they may indeed get paid for what they do, the driving force isn’t the money – it’s the haterade. Uncle Tommie Clarence, with some of the stuff he’s said about striking back at his detractors, dances right on the edge of this group  in my opinion.

The second group are the professional race pimps.

They are individually, and as a group entirely captive of the racialist right – and operate as wholly owned subsidiaries. Back check the financial on Uncles Tommie Sowell, Walter Williams, Jesse Lee Peterson, Project 21 et al, or any of the group being presented as the black conservative intelligentsia, and you find their paychecks and existence are wholly dependent on white, conservative borderline supremacist Foundations. They say exactly what they are paid to say, frequently simply parroting the white conservative racist “party line”. They have sold out in every single sense of the word. Condoleeza Rice most recently joined this group in taking a fellowship at the Hoover Institute, one of three major “think tanks” including the Manhattan Institute, and American Enterprise Institute who at least partially specialize in providing racial cover through their cadre of hired Lawn Jockeys. It works like this, a white conservative says what he really means, which far too often turns out to be something racist – and this cadre of reliable black hired Toms is trotted out to provide plausible denial. A white conservative publishes a racist screed, often based on racial psuedo-science which doesn’t pass the sniff test in any real academic institution or think tank – and these folks are trotted out in the media to defend it.

The Third group are what I’ll call the “Uphill Republicans” which are a legitimate group of folks with different viewpoints –

There seem to be several factions within this group, and while some of them may be shaking the Republican Money Tree (which is no different than black Democrats shaking the Democrat Money tree, or any other group for that matter) – the reason they are there has nothing to do with supporting white conservative racism. Because of the actions of the first two groups, this group has a bunker mentality akin to Custer at the Little Big Horn. Any action of group solidarity evinced as defending their distasteful black conservative brethren, winds up with them being tarred, often unfairly, with the same brush. As a group, they have been unable, or in some cases unwilling to make a full break with the sinister side of the black conservatism (and I won’t call it a movement, because black conservatism as a whole is too small – and shows serious signs of shrinking instead of growing as Republicans become more racialist).

You have the traditional black Republicans like Colin Powell.  Remember, that the two people most responsible for blacks leaving the Republican Party were Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon. Goldwater’s “Principled conservatism” and opposition to Civil Rights caused a mass shift, finalized by Nixon’s Southern Strategy. As the Nixon tapes prove, while Nixon personally was a racist, he was more concerned with his legacy that to pursue any racist policy. Things in the Democrat Party of the 60’s were tough, with blacks sitting alongside unrepentant Southern Segregationalists. What kept black folks in the Democrat Party was the hope for change. Ditto with the Powell Republicans, who are more likely to support the policies of a Jack Kemp than a Ronald Raygun. They often have to hold their nose, but their loyalty is cemented by a deep belief in the core Republican principles, which their Party has largely abandoned.

The next segment are Christian Conservatives. While some of them are attracted by niche issues such as abortion, others are attracted by the concepts of Social Conservatism.

The third segment is what I’ll call the “Racism Absolvers”, which when being evinced by the black conservative race pimps isn’t much different than the  Holocaust Deniers. Essentially “Racism Deniers”. This group feels that with the elimination of state sanctioned overt racism by the Civil Rights Acts, and the progress the country has made in the past 40 years, that racism isn’t the key issue – education and economic progress are. The difference between these guys and the black conservative race pimps lies in the conversation of “What do you propose to do about it?” and the complex question of “Is there still racism, and does it play a role?” To the first, the pimps will offer no answer typically rolling off an even longer list of perceived black depredations, and to the second the pimps answer categorically “No”. The “Absolver” is going to talk about Vouchers and Charter Schools, raising test scores, or economic education and to the second question “Yes, but it isn’t an overriding issue”. Depending on your view of things – the “Abolver” may be wrong that his solutions will produce the desired results (on in some cases produce even more draconian unintended consequences), but this isn’t generally a group of people with their hand out. Despite my name for them, this is a legitimate group with deeply held beliefs.

Now – to knowledge there isn’t anyplace on the WWW where the Legitimate groups can talk (if I was to say there aren’t race pimps on the left side of the rock, I’d be lying). The closest used to the the old Dell Gines site. Most black conservative sites ban black liberals (that bunker syndrome). The race pimp sites such as LeShawn and Acting White cater fully and almost exclusively to white racist conservatives, and outright ban Liberals – black or white.

So much for conservative support of the 1st Amendment.

White racist conservatives (which to be clear here isn’t all white conservatives, although it is a significant fraction) obviously don’t want that conversation to happen, and thus you have (purportedly) black folks on the WWW seeking to disrupt that conversation in the black blogsphere.

The “5 Conservative Sisters”, and their lesser brethren throw about $100 million a year at this, in no small part to keep the racial pot stirred through cable television such as Faux News and to a lesser extent CNN, several dozen websites and fake “news” organizations like WorldNetDaily – and of course, talking heads and disembodied ranting voices over the radio.

So that’s the reality as I see it.

Oh! When I first published this I forgot the 4th group – the wannabes, Michael Steele’s “Hip Hop Republicans”, who as a group are seriously late to the party. Generally this is a group of folks who don’t socially fit, either in the black or white world that is America – but especially not in the black world. They take their disaffection out in becoming Republican, which, if any consolation, is at least a small bit more healthy than their white teenage counterparts opening up on their fellow students with a gun committing mass murder. They also tend to lack the educational achievements of their forerunners, or the race pimps – and tend to lack the polish. Their politics go to the extremist, aligning themselves with wild eyed crazies such as militias, Tea Baggers, Birthers, and Deathers (we were all young once, right?). They typically will vocalize that they are “Independents’ as cover, but pretty firmly toe the conservative line – down to the last period and comma.

They have missed the “Gravy Train” because over the next 3 years, like it or not, America is going to have that series of conversations about race, which will ultimately define a new American reality. Short of a secession and another Civil War, that reality doesn’t include the sort of racial politics played by the right (or some on the left for that matter).