"Black conservatives" say they are shunned and called names from other Blacks.
Let's address the latter, first. Rush Limbaugh frequently states that conservatives, in general, are blasted and called names. His term is racistbigotedsexisthomophobes. So why do "Black conservatives" and white conservatives point out the "special case" of Black conservatives being called names?
I've been in a circle of "Black conservatives" and have been called names for disagreeing with them. All the while, I was respectful. By the end, however, most of them started giving me respect because, I think, I was able to present my thoughts in a logical manner.
Now, let's address the former.
To do that, I like to use This example of Glenn Loury's treatment from the LEFT and the RIGHT.
Some choice bits:
He befriended William Bennett and William Kristol, his colleague at the Kennedy School. He sat at President Reagan's table at a White House dinner, and he socialized with Clarence Thomas. (Although the two no longer speak, Loury still keeps a picture in his office of himself with Thomas.)
In 1995, he founded the Center for New Black Leadership with a group of conservative black intellectuals that included his friend Shelby Steele, the essayist.
He was horrified by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein's 1994 book, ''The Bell Curve,'' a social Darwinist tract arguing that black poverty was rooted in inferior intelligence. He was even more appalled by ''The End of Racism,'' the lurid assault on ''black failure'' written by Dinesh D'Souza when he was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Not only did his conservative friends not share his rage; they were taken aback by it and tried, he says, to muzzle him. Commentary, which had welcomed Loury's writing in the past, refused to publish his critique of ''The Bell Curve.'' And though The Weekly Standard ran Loury's caustic review of D'Souza's book, it also published a lengthy response from the author. In 1995, Loury resigned from the American Enterprise Institute over its support of D'Souza.
Finally, this point:
A few days later, Steele phoned him. ''Where do you stand on race?'' Loury says Steele asked him. ''It's as if you're a racial loyalist here. I thought we all agreed.''
''No, Shelby and I didn't agree,'' Loury says now. ''I was always aware that, whatever I thought about race, I'm still black. Shelby's position. . . . '' Loury starts to laugh. ''I was about to say, Shelby's position was that we had to completely transcend race, though I can imagine saying those words, too. But my heart wasn't in them, whereas he really meant it. How could it have been otherwise? His mother was a white woman. His wife is a white woman. When he looked at his own children's racial identity and wondered about an oppressive world that would say to those children, 'Choose sides' -- a dilemma I'd never faced -- Shelby's angle of vision was really quite different from my own. So in all honesty, it was I who betrayed him, not he who betrayed me.'' The two men have not spoken since that conversation.
Is that enough to show that "both sides" do it?
The previous post was mine. Forgot to put in my information.
Posted by: BH at August 13, 2004 09:14 AMLoury is one of the few contemporary Black Conservatives that I'm feeling big-time.
Posted by: P6 at August 13, 2004 10:53 AMShelby Steele had a point on day one. I can still remember the cover of Harpers magazine that broke him onto the scene. Were black people being racist against each other? It was something I never heard before and it struck me as very true.
I have a load of problems with Shelby Steele that owe to his having insufficient levels of black pride, but on an abstract level I wonder if that is an appropriate criticism. I think it is, but only to the extent that the explicit politics of blackfolks is adequately represented in the mainstream. That is to say, we have a role-model problem. Identity is too damned importantd (this is a bad thing) in dealing with how African Americans are dealing with public issues, and all Americans are guilty in contributing to that. Every time Shelby Steele gets props, I get mad at him for hogging time I think should belong to somebody else - his twin brother Claude for example who gave us 'Stereotype Threat'. But I'm not sure that I'm being reasonable.
That's why this who 'being' thing is getting on my nerves. I don't honestly believe that people understand what they are doing - maybe a whole generation never took debate in highschool. We've forgotten that your *self* is not necessarily on the line when you speak up - but all of us get caught up in this 'represent' madness.
Im ranting here but maybe the problem has to do with a black public that is simply not ready to trust. If anybody can be a Tom, what is the price to be paid? I don't think it's so great...
Who can quantify exactly what we lost due to the publishing of The Bell Curve?
Posted by: Cobb at August 13, 2004 03:24 PMWhat resonates with me about Steele is the fact that he's an English professor. He's never published in ANY English journal of note. He's never published a single book in an academic press based on his field. By most definitions of "merit" Steele is lacking. Seriously. And as much as he talks about getting rid of race, I find it interesting that he doesn't write about anything else.
You can say whatever you want about Loury. My problem with HIM is that he's using the exact same "epiphany" argument to describe his "return to the fold" that he used to describe his leaving in the first place. BUT Loury does scholarship. He's got a ream of published articles in strong economic journals.
Posted by: Lester Spence at August 13, 2004 04:32 PMWhat has always bothered me about Shelby Steele is that he specializes in argument by anecdote, with no supporting data. I have always found his brother Claude's work on stereotype threat to be of greater value because he tries to work from an empirical base.
So no, I never found anything of value in Shelby Steele's work.
On the other hand, Glenn Loury is someone I respect, even when I don't agree with him, because he values rigor, and because he is capable of respectfully engaging with those with whom he disagrees.
As for Bro. Cobb's observation that black folk can be racist to each other -- we understand that internalized and projected self-hatred goes way back. It's time for us to get past all of that and remember out parents' admonition that we can disagree without being disagreeable.
Posted by: Kim Pearson at August 14, 2004 10:28 AMWho can quantify exactly what we lost due to the publishing of The Bell Curve?
If I remember correctly, The Bell Curve was used to draft the welfare reform.
It's interesting to note that the best example of welfare reform working, actually wound up costing more money than previous efforts. And it appears that the solution was in line with many of the options that critics of the welfare reform act stated was needed.
Actually, it was his book Losing Ground that affected the 1996 welfare reform act and many of its state-level counterparts. See:
http://www.aei.org/scholars/scholarID.43/scholar.asp.
As for the damage done by the Bell Curve, I think it diverted attention from more productive conversations. The respectful critique afforded the book by the mainstream raised real questions in the minds of many journalists of color -- particularly since those same news outlets were gleefully trashing Africentric writers. These reporters weren't defending writers such as Leonard Jefferies or Frances Cress Wellsing; they were just aware of a double-standard.
Posted by: Kim Pearson at August 14, 2004 03:56 PMI want to thank you Kim & Lester for saying as academics what I've been saying 'academic friends of mine' have been saying for a decade; which is that Steele has no academic credibility. Finally!
Posted by: Cobb at August 17, 2004 02:06 PMThe difference with black conservatives is that they're called racist terms like 'house nigga' or 'Uncle Tom'.
Posted by: Jeremy Pierce at August 20, 2004 05:53 PMThe difference with black conservatives is that they're called racist terms like 'house nigga' or 'Uncle Tom'.
And some Black conservatives call those who "oppose them" as being on the plantation. So the difference is?
Posted by: DarkStar at August 20, 2004 06:38 PM
Today, it is not enough to be simple just liberal or conservative. This nation is so polarized that you must "drink the political kool-aid" in order to considered authentic. That is because dialogue is not the motive of either party but to seizing power.
Posted by: at August 13, 2004 09:12 AMThat and fact that those who scream the loudest usually are those not mentally or factually equipped able to defend their POV.