Black Republicanism:

There is a legit­i­mate debate that has raged qui­et­ly for some­time ‚but now seem to be all out in the open, it has to do with whether or not it is an oxy­moron to be a black Republican. Before we attempt to answer that ques­tion we have to look at the per­cent­age of black peo­ple who vote for the Democratic par­ty, why they do so, and exam­ine whether that means we think mono­lith­i­cal­ly or not. Pundits argue that maybe as many as 99% of black Americans vote for the Democratic Party. The ques­tion then arise as to why such a large per­cent­age of any one group of peo­ple would grav­i­tate to one polit­i­cal par­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly when they have pre­cious lit­tle to show for it? In exam­in­ing the fore­gone one has to ask whether blacks are forced to sup­port the Democratic par­ty because they have nowhere else to go, or is there a defin­i­tive strate­gic advan­tage for them in sup­port­ing the Democrats.

The Democratic Party was once the par­ty viewed as the par­ty opposed to inte­gra­tion, how­ev­er through Civil Rights leg­is­la­tion start­ed under President Kennedy and the instru­men­tal­i­ty of his broth­er Bobby Kennedy, which became law under President Lyndon Johnson has seen blacks move in droves to throw their sup­port to it. Conversely Whites, and in par­tic­u­lar white men ran in droves to the Republicans,obviously look­ing for a place from which to stage their last stand against equal rights , jus­tice, and a fair play­ing field for all. Fifty years lat­er the repub­li­can par­ty still has white male as it’s core base of sup­port­ers. The Democratic par­ty has mor­phed into a par­ty of coali­tions, blacks, gays, les­bians, some lati­no groups, lib­er­als, jews, and a splin­ter of spe­cial inter­est groups. Republicans have demon­strat­ed that they are quite hap­py to be the par­ty of the white male . Former President Bush to his cred­it tried to make the repub­li­can par­ty a place where blacks would be wel­come, how­ev­er fanat­ics on the right have lit­er­al­ly made blacks per­sona non gra­ta (not wel­come) in that par­ty, at the last repub­li­can nation­al con­ven­tion the num­ber of black del­e­gates could be count­ed on one hand with maybe a fin­ger to spare. The sole black mem­ber of con­gress in that par­ty that pre­dates the lunatic tea par­ty was ex foot­ball play­er J C Watts from Oklahoma, and he has since bowed out.

Allen West  Allan Keys Thomas Sowell

Michael SteeleClarence Thomaslar­ry ElderInnisRuben Diaz

JC WattsArmstrong WilliamsTD JakesCondi RiceSheryl UnderwoodLynn Swann

Arrayed above is a pret­ty impres­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of what the face of black repub­li­can­ism looks like in America,I will­ful­ly left out Colin Powell whom I think is the most impres­sive of the lot by far, my deci­sion may have been col­ored by the fact that he is of Jamaican parent­age, or it may be because he came to his sens­es and endorsed can­di­date Obama for President, or both. Ok the truth is I like Colin Powell , he accom­plished much, served under repub­li­cans, but was­n’t behold­en to them to the point he lost his soul. He showed char­ac­ter in endors­ing Barack Obama for pres­i­dent, that I thought showed balls, and a sense of being one’s own per­son. Some argue that Powell was burned by repub­li­cans when they had him address the United Nations detail­ing at length alleged stock­piles of weapons of mass destruc­tion that turned out to be pho­ny as most well think­ing peo­ple knew all along. I saw it dif­fer­ent­ly Powell was the only repub­li­can in the Bush Administration that had any cred­i­bil­i­ty, he was the only mem­ber of that cab­i­net that the world would actu­al­ly lis­ten to giv­en how the world saw the Bush Administration. Who then was bet­ter than the for­mer Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to tell the world of the seri­ous­ness of the threats Saddam Hussein posed alleged­ly to the world? Dick Chaney saw a dou­ble coup in that move, dis­cred­it Powell,and bring him down to size after he had used him to sell the ille­git­i­mate war, Powell knew he got played. 

One of the cen­tral themes that comes from most of those who call them­selves black con­ser­v­a­tives is that some­how there is no racism, or that racism has­n’t pre­vent­ed them from mak­ing it so blacks suf­fer­ing and look­ing for a way for­ward have them­selves to blame. It seem that in order for a black man to make it they have to denounce who they are and some­how pre­tend they are some­one else, there are some who are on University cam­pus­es, as they have been from as far back as when Malcolm and Dr. King were fight­ing for equal­i­ty and Justice for blacks in this country,they can be found as talk­ing heads on cable tele­vi­sion, some claim­ing to be repub­li­can strate­gists, and pro­fes­sors. Everyone has a right to sup­port the par­ty of their choice, blacks who have made it has a right to wear their con­ser­vatism on their sleeve, what they do not have a right to do is to go around the coun­try as Caine is doing dis­parag­ing the pres­i­dent, and mak­ing claims that some­how the pres­i­dent is not black enough. Herman Caine like all oth­er blacks who have made it has ben­e­fit­ed from the sac­ri­fices of those who went before , those who toiled and were bit­ten by Bull O’Connor’s dogs, bat­tered by his water-hoses beat­en sense­less by his goons, and lynched. Caine and oth­ers like him stands on the graves of those who suf­fered and died to make it pos­si­ble for them to stand at all, or even raise their heads to look in the face of the white man, or walk on the same side of the street he is on, or dare look at his woman, while at the same time they dis­re­spect their sac­ri­fice , pre­tend­ing that they would be where they are today with­out those sac­ri­fices. Interestingly enough those who sac­ri­ficed the least are now ben­e­fit­ing the most, Those who occu­pied posi­tions in acad­e­mia, and oth­er posi­tions in sec­ond class American soci­ety were quite con­tent to have things remain the way they were, in fact they were trot­ted out dur­ing the strug­gle to extol the virtues of how great America was , and the won­der­ful lives blacks were liv­ing, Those who dared to chal­lenge the sta­tus quo were deemed to be trou­ble mak­ers and com­mu­nists by the white pow­er struc­ture , usu­al­ly through their black lap dogs.

Where was Herman Caine in the annals of the civ­il rights strug­gle, who ever heard of this lack­ey, he has sat out the strug­gle, yes Caine has every right to brag about his ascen­den­cy , of course it was the stead­fast­ness of his par­ents why both he and his broth­er could attend col­lege and make some­thing of them­selves, what he does not have a right to do is to sug­gest that some­how he has the for­mu­la for black­ness. There have always seem to be a resid­ual hatred on the part of many black Americans when it comes to the achieve­ments of oth­er blacks who do not share their experience,painful as this trait is, it offers those who wish­es us ill a per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to attack us by using cer­tain mem­bers of the black com­mu­ni­ty as proxy. Michael Steele became chair­man of the repub­li­can nation­al com­mit­tee because Obama was elect­ed pres­i­dent, once he won back the house they boot­ed him, Caine is trot­ting around attack­ing the pres­i­dent does any­one real­ly think this man will be elect­ed pres­i­dent on the repub­li­can tick­et? No ! but they get to say all the nasty things they want by hav­ing some­one in black skin say it. Look how well it has turned out for the black com­mu­ni­ty hav­ing Clarence Thomas on the supreme court. 

It is the same self hate that pre­vents the bulk of us from own­ing and suc­ceed­ing in our own busi­ness­es, instead we spend more mon­ey on con­sumer goods than any oth­er eth­nic group in this coun­try. Everyone now mar­kets to us , we buy any­thing, they curse us , they tell us they nev­er cre­at­ed their mer­chan­dize for us , yet we con­tin­ue to buy and con­sume their prod­ucts at a rate that makes them astro­nom­i­cal­ly wealthy , while we have noth­ing to show for all that mon­ey that pass through our hands annu­al­ly. Why? Because we refuse to show love to our own kind. It seem it would kill us to sup­port black busi­ness­es that are not hair salons and bar­ber­shops, the only rea­son we sup­port those two areas of black entre­pun­ear­ship is pri­mar­i­ly because we can­not get that kind of ser­vice elsewhere. 

The prob­lem with being a black repub­li­can is that the repub­li­can par­ty has not done any­thing to sug­gest that it wel­comes blacks into its ranks, con­verse­ly they are absolute­ly hos­tile to blacks and make no apolo­gies for it, con­sid­er a par­ty that is home to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, the tea par­ty, Glen Beck, and the Fox mis-infor­ma­tion crowd, con­sid­er the par­ty that is home to ex-clan grand wiz­ard David Duke. It makes per­fect sense that blacks who have tak­en advan­tage of oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able to them,and have got­ten edu­cat­ed to hold them­selves and oth­ers to high­er stan­dards than some of what obtains but not sole­ly con­fined to the black com­mu­ni­ty. As we have said in these posts President Obama can­not change the job­less num­bers in black-America if young black men con­tin­ue to hang out on street cor­ners with their pants sag­ging way below their back-sides, smok­ing weed, when they ought to be in school. The same is true of young black women who at an astro­nom­i­cal rate, con­tin­ue to have chil­dren out-of-wed­lock with­out any fathers for their off­springs, imme­di­ate­ly plac­ing their chil­dren at a disadvantage. 

There is a pre­vail­ing sense with­in our com­mu­ni­ty at least to my mind, that once we accom­plish some­thing we move dan­ger­ous­ly far away from who we are in order to be noticed , and we stay there until we fall out of favor with those we try to impress, then we come crawl­ing back to the black com­mu­ni­ty look­ing for redemp­tion. Wearing a suit ad occu­py­ing an ele­vat­ed posi­tion in acad­e­mia, and for­get­ting where one come from while pre­tend­ing that all is well with the world , and that all black peo­ple who have not made it as you have are lazy and deserv­ing of their lot in life is haughty, sim­plis­tic ‚and dis­gust­ing­ly phar­isee . It is no dif­fer­ent from some of those who are enter­tain­ers, sports stars rap­pers, and actors who make tons of mon­ey go out and pur­chase the shini­est most expen­sive cars , clothes , and homes and in no time ends up broke and right back where they start­ed, the urge to be seen is the same. In the sev­en­ties eight­ies and nineties an edu­cat­ed black woman could be spot­ted a mile away , her hair was unprocessed , usu­al­ly in a twist of sorts, or had a frizz look, her skirt was long and her atti­tude haughty, it said I went to col­lege. Today the hair­styles have changed some­what , but the anger remains, the men for their part walk around with white wives and align them­selves to the repub­li­can par­ty, even though they are not want­ed real­ly, but are used aus­pi­cious­ly and con­ve­nient­ly when needed. 

The list of black con­ser­v­a­tives is impres­sive and runs the gamut of pro­fes­sions, from Judges to busi­ness peo­ple , from ath­letes to aca­d­e­mics, from the cler­gy to the media there is no short­age of blacks who iden­ti­fy as con­ser­v­a­tives, the truth is blacks have always embraced con­ser­v­a­tive prin­ci­ples, God ‚Country, fam­i­ly, no oth­er eth­nic groups is more reli­gious, or prac­tis­es their reli­gion with more fer­vor, so it is not unusu­al that well to do blacks that are promi­nent­ly exposed would espouse their con­ser­v­a­tive prin­ci­ples, what I do not under­stand is why are they repub­li­cans? Some blacks argue that repub­li­cans end­ed slav­ery, well tech­ni­cal­ly yes,but when the wrap­per is peeled back it seem there was more to abol­ish­ing slav­ery than just moral con­vic­tions. After all the north need­ed soldiers,and Lincoln need­ed to have a greater moral cause for the war oth­er than just keep­ing the union togeth­er, it was imper­a­tive that Europe did not enter the war to pro­tect the ter­ri­to­ry of Louisiana.

As does all Americans have a right to sup­port the par­ty of their choice , so does mem­bers of the black com­mu­ni­ty, it is pre­sump­tu­ous of Herman Caine to tell black America they are brain-washed in vot­ing for democ­rats in the num­bers they do, I could use a lot of adjec­tives to describe Caine , but I will refrain from doing so as he has a right to make an ass of him­self, what he does not have a right to do is to speak for me or any mem­ber of my fam­i­ly, my friends or even my race. Caine is a nov­el­ty , he will dis­cov­er this real soon, the num­bers attrib­uted to him in these ear­ly stages are sim­ply a protest against the slate of repub­li­can can­di­dates whom are at best wishy-washy. Even though the tea par­ty has elect­ed two black mem­bers to the house of rep­re­sen­ta­tives ‚one from in Florida and South Carolina each ‚this does not mean that Herman Caine will be the repub­li­can nom­i­nee for pres­i­dent of these United States, if Caine believes this he is even more stu­pid than I thought.