I continue to be amazed at the rocks that get thrown at black conservative heads that were picked up from strange places. All the while people who are throwing them, think they came from our backyards.
Just today I got three thrown at me but the rock thrower did me the courtesy of giving me their names. Mona Charen, Peter Kirsanow and Dinesh DSouza. The strange thing is that before today I've never heard of two of those folks. As I write this, I have only done the most cursory websearch on the first two, basically to see how their names are properly spelled. Other than that, their positions and statements are a complete mystery to me. DSouza, I know. And so I responded.
As for D'Souza, the only person whom blackfolks pay attention who even says anything like him is Shelby Steele. Nobody has paid any attention to D'Sou[z]a since his book 11 years ago. Still, it behooves us to ask exactly what he was saying and if it has any merit. To the extent that I have considered my own attitude about marginalizing the significance of racism on black progress, I think it's worth a review.
So here's my controversial challenge, which I'll write up at Cobb. Let's simply work his title into a pledge - call it 'The End of Racism As An Excuse'. Which is to say nothing more than this. Africans in America are not defeated by white supremacy, nor do they expect any condescending whitefolks to help them out of the problems of racism. From now on it's all about Black Power and not white conciliation. If you are a white racist, expect to get knocked over by strong blacks who have been getting stronger for 400 years. Nothing in our political agenda will be about asking for your favors, for your niceness, for your love, for your care, for your protection or for assuation of your guilt.
I was feeling a little bit froggy and jumped all over it. As I was writing, my inner Chuck D started pumping his fist and as I continued he got smacked aside by my inner Ludacris who threatened to bogard the entire name of this essay. But I really need to chill on that and play this more logically. After all, that's what I'm asking my critics to do.
The solution, it seems to me, lies in all of us being a lot more clear about whom we agree with and why. Not that it's ever going to kill the noise, but it will help people see a bit more clearly. I had to do some editing over at Wikipedia today on the Black Conservatism entry. As you can clearly see, a lot of it has been written by someone who is not. I've rounded a lot of the edges where it really needs whole sections chopped out because the tone of the whole thing is 'This is the history of hate against black conservatives... here we try to explain why it's logical', which is just wrong, wrong, wrong. I blame Colin Powell, by the way. If he would have run in 2000, America would be a much different place.
This is the kind of thing that people forget. The blizzard of hate against Trent Lott or George W. Bush obscures exactly what it is the black Republicans and conservatives stand for. We get cursed out for what we put up with, and we do put up with a lot, but we don't often get enough credit for what we do get right, which is all we really want. But who do I mean 'we'?
What I can say is what we're saying in the Conservative Brotherhood, but only because I have my RSS thang working. And I still don't think anyone has shown me where Walter Williams has misspoke, nor Glenn Loury. I think we appropriate Booker T. Washington quite well, speaking of whom, I am very likely to celebrate in Chicago this June with new allies at The New Coalition. These are the people I think black conservatives ought to rally around, then again, I'm a particular kind of black conservative.
So the task that lies before us is to get a better grasp of our differences and our similarities, not only within the black conservative wing, but across all of the issues that confron Americans and all of the major positions that thinktankers and legislators are actually acting upon. Tall order. Big project. Long time. Worth it.
In the meantime, I'm going to try to help by getting a few more polls going on. Help me out if you will.
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