RWB

RWB stands for 'Republican While Black', and so I've come up with an analogy.

I've been thinking a bit about an imaginary fight I have with some cats over at P6 vis a vis snarky remarks about me and my blog. I did finally get over myself and say what I think needed to be said, but during the course of this fight, I happened along a fairly decent analogy about blacks and conservatism.

As you've certainly heard, a lot of black conservatives are called 'self-hating'. When that's not pure haterade or psychobabble, it is a catchphrase for 'against the interests of black people'. Now as problematic as it is to define a static set of interests for all of African America, we can assume that there might be such a thing. Most concretely many of my ideological foes have tossed around a football that says 'only 2% of black America supports President Bush'. If all black conservatism was about was supporting this President, we'd be a sorry bunch indeed, but conservatism is bigger than Bush. Let's not get into set theory; suffice it to say that the circles of interest overlap, but they are not an identity.

How do I live with the fact that most blackfolks are clearly not Republicans or conservatives without feeling somehow less than black? In two ways. Because of these two ways, it's very easy for me. In fact it's much easier to just do it than to explain how. But since I'm a writer I am compelled to anyhow. The first way I think I explained fairly well. It was the pro-black active force. The second way, I don't think I've explained well, it is the non-racial interest force. The first I explained here:

A man with dignity doesn't need to join a club. His membership dignifies the club.

People need to convince me that membership in an American political party cuts off the sound of the drum, because I don't believe it. What I hear, when people complain about the Republicans and African Americans is that joining deafens the sound of the drum, blanches all that was black and irreversibly corrupts the soul. I say these people have the wrong expectations of political parties in general and are probably not quite well stocked enough at home to survive hostility and indifference.

If you don't believe that good triumphs over evil. If you believe that you can be faded. If you think there can be no such thing as a righteous black Republican (or American, or Muslim, or Gay) then I would suggest you go get your Nikki Giovanni on, because deep down you have not won your own revolution.

So that's basically the Ralph Ellison, take-no-prisoners, I-yam-what-I-yam approach. I can't be faded and to hell with anybody who says different.

The second way is the non-racial interest force (I am so tempted to make this a three dimensional analogy by throwing in particle physics terminologies - help me Mahndisa!). I explain it this way...

When I was done with college and started working full time, I didn't have the credit to buy a new car, but I did save money to buy a used car. What made me think of this very analogy was that this afternoon a Mercury Maruader roared past my BMW 740. I thought to myself, what a strange automobile. You'd only buy a Mercury Maruader if you absolutely loved American cars, like they do in Detroit. But back in '86 if you wanted an American Muscle Car, the hottest thing in the factory showroom was a Ford Taurus SHO.  But you know what? I just couldn't bring myself to buying the Ford. I went for a used BMW, a red 2002 with BBS rims instead. That car was just right for me.

I wanted American cars to be better than German cars, but who was I kidding? I didn't hate America because I didn't buy American cars, I was just profoundly disappointed. My joy in driving the BMW outweighed my sadness with the Fords. Of course I took a lot of crap for driving BMWs over the years, and I have occasionally found this or that American car worth driving. As a road warrior, I'm god status with Avis or National or one of them, and I can recall a time when I would refuse to drive anything but a Buick Regal or Skylark. When Pontiac started putting CDs in their car stereos for the first time in the late 90s, I dug those. But in the end, when it came to me and my car, I'm just a BMW kinda guy. No apologies.

To extend this car metaphor, I'm certain someone could demonstrate with unerring efficiency that my choice of automobile puts me way out of joint with blackfolks. There's no doubt, as my wife from Detroit would tell me, that every BMW on America's roads is one less UAW job for her homefolks, where blacks have done very very well for decades in the very soul of Motown. I'm taking food out of the mouths of black union employees for my arrogant tastes.

It's not about waiting for Ford to catch up to BMW. It's about getting in your BMW and driving those roads you know the Fords are going to skid off. 15 years later, I expect the adaptive transmission, the Dynamic Stability Control, the sat-nav.

Now what I've done here is made the choice and said my choice is not only preferable, but superior. You can argue with me about that, but you cannot say that I'm self hating. It's about DO, not BE. And unfortunately, the Democrats and the liberals are not driving in the direction I want to go. I'm in the driver's seat and now I'm a better driver because I was not loyal to the people making cars for the common man. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be a patriot.

I hate analogies. But I think you catch my drift.

People who are not Republicans keep telling me that the GOP is going to eventually reject me. At some point in the not-too-distant future the German soul of my BMW is going to realize there is a black ass on the leather and eject me through the sunroof. They keep telling me that there are no black faces on the BMW commercials, that they didn't have homeboys like me in mind when they designed them. And sure enough, I have been stopped by cops who didn't think it was my car. "Car theives don't know how to operate these sophisticated machines, you were driving with your bright lights on, so I naturally assumed..."

But it is my car. I bought it, and I'm driving it the way I want to.

So let me jump out of analogy hell and say it straight up. This is my country, and I will vote the way it suits me, and I will think politically the way it suits me. And I am not going to feel sorry about the fact or the idea that there are millions of people who are 'supposed' to be the same as me, but have made (or are presumed to have made) different or opposing choices. Nor am I going to concern myself that the millions of people who do make the same choices as I do are not 'supposed' to be the same as me.

More specifically, I stand with the Republican party for my own reasons, reasons I happen to believe are objectively superior reasons, and we are headed in the same direction. You can say what you like about every other Republican, living or dead. You can call me delusional because of what you interpret must be my rationale. But I am very clear about which direction I am headed, and I am convinced that it is the correct and proper direction.

See me at the stoplight? My windows are rolled down, my music is blasting and there's a smile on my face. See ya.