I've been asking and answering questions in my head in advance of several interviews and panels I've been invited to. The toughest question I imagined being asked was "What's the hardest thing about being a black man?" My answer was convoluted and still is, but I found in it an interesting argument.
The basis of my response to this question was rooted in the fact that I don't second-guess black people any longer. I began this pledge back in 1992 after having read Gwaltney. I don't unconditionally love or suspect them. I simply pay attention, which is evidently too much to ask. Why? Because there's nothing hard about being a black man except answering such questions. I am what I am and comfortable in my skin, so the very question presumes that I can't be, that I need something extra. I don't.
So I presume that nobody needs anything extra. Nobody black that is. But since we deal with the question, we have to have answers, and that continually needling question makes black people think that perhaps (other) black people do need something extra. Sounds like double-talk I know, bear with me.
Now take this question:
Why is that that "Black conservatives" and conservatives in general, in denouncing "Black leadership", never promote the people and organizations like those listed here, as being "Black leaders" or being representative of the Black community or the strengths of the Black community?
Here's my black conservative answer:
If you take it as a given that the Civil Rights Movement was a success, then you must consequently believe that the only leaders black people need are those they elect in the context of democracy. There are no political leaders, there are only political representatives. They are either doing the right thing with your tax dollars, or not. Pay no attention to anyone else.
What other direction are blackfolks to go except in the direction of the mainstream of America? Do we require a separate national agenda? A separate nation? Is assimilation wrong? What do blackfolks lose by ceasing to oppose the mainstream of America, and if that something is real, is it really black? In short, are we looking to take a separate piece of America, or the share the wealth?
I have as a Republican, embraced the politics of social power with every expectation that the battles for human rights and civil rights have already been won and are unlikely ever to become necessary again in my lifetime. I don't think it is a particularly big gamble either. But certainly others must feel differently. I am taking an affirmative stance on the future, and this is not based on unseen evidence but of the facts of American life and black progress in it. It's a bet I don't hedge, because it's my future and my children's future.
I feel the hedge in a lot of begged questions about black politics and presumptions about the existentials. It annoys me. I think it should annoy you to.
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