This letter that appeared on Black Electorate.COM, to me hits it almost squarely on the head.
This is just a SMALL section of the open letter that really resonated with me.
The immediate challenge for the Black conservative is to find a way to make their ideology and partisan relationship serve the Black community at least as much as it serves the White Conservative establishment and the bank account of a relatively small group of opinion leaders who have commercialized their expression of conservative thought in a growing communications niche and business model. The Black conservative, if sincere, in my view, must do so in a way that does not misrepresent the Black community to those outside of it.The Black conservative opinion leader has to balance the power and influence they have, largely derived from a platform provided them by Whites, with finding a way to engage the Black community in a meaningful dialogue that results in positive change on the ground. Many Black conservatives fall into the trap of painting an unrealistic picture of the community overstating the influence that political liberalism has on Blacks and exaggerating the potential that political conservatism has to "save" the Black community. It appears, too often to me, that Black opinion leaders on the right revel too much in the one-variable approach of explaining to overwhelmingly White audiences what is wrong with the Black community rather than building bridges or expanding their influence within Black America. This does not mean that the truth should not be told. It should. But I think, in a way that establishes it, not just in the minds of White listeners and readers, but within the community around which the discussion revolves - Black America. I have often found it peculiar that many Black conservative writers and talk show hosts seem to believe that they are changing Black America by almost exclusively communicating in media outlets majority controlled and read by White Americans.
And this one...
To me it is simple, a Black conservative should care more passionately about what is going on in the Black community than what is happening at the Heritage Foundation, Republican Party, CATO Institute, or Conservative talk-radio. And they should be mindful that they do not further the Black inferiority-White supremacy complex in how they personally relate to their non-Black peers, when the subject is money and intellectual ideas.
This isn't a 100% agreement on my part, but I get where Cedric Muhammad is coming from.
Big hat tip to Angela Winters.
Muhammad does refer to a monolithic "black community" that exists nowhere but in his head. But at the same time we know there are black counter-publics--spaces where black people talk about, and to black people about the things that have an impact on their lives.
Think about barbershops, beauty salons, and BET to paraphrase a friend of mine.
To the extent that neither black conservatives NOR black radicals speak in the counter-publics with ANY regularity, his critique is on point. If conservatism and liberalism are neither black nor white, then we would expect folks in Project 21 to have some mixture of black and white sponsors...and we would also expect them to speak in both black and white public spheres.
But we don't.
Furthermore if conservatism and liberalism are neither black nor white then we would expect black conservatives to engage in color blind conservative critiques.
But we don't get this either.
So yeah, Muhammad has this mythical black community in his head. This idea is not just wrong, but it is both impractical and wrongheaded strategically.
The baby shouldn't be thrown out with the bathwater though.
Posted by: Lester Spence at December 16, 2004 11:56 AMThe problem for many so-called 'Black conservatives' is that they've embraced two political constructs that are in conflict. This is obviously not to equate political/ideological conservativism with Whiteness, but we'd be reckless not to acknowledge much of the historical moorings of American ideological conservatism is based on the franchise of 'White' privilege. I'd add that wealth-based entitlement makes up the remaining part of conservative politics. In tandem, the two agendas exclude 'Black' and non-wealthy persons by design.
Thus, the Deroy Murdocks and other alleged Black conservatives function as tokens within our political context preaching to (largely) the status quo; a loosely organized clique of carney barkers, jackals and 'yes' men. As most Blacks remain disproportionately unrepresented and economically disenfranchised, it's no mystery why what passes as Black conservatism has little currency in the Black subculture.
What strikes me as odd, is that most Black people are in fact conservative in behavior; far more so than their 'White' counterparts. We're generally risk-adverse, anti-intellectual and agrarian in thought. Even stranger is our collective allegiance to American institutions (particularly gov't) that have traditionally been manipulated against our interests. I view this an an aesthetic and differentiate such behavioral moderation from the socio-economic agendas that buttress ideology.
I submit there's a silent majority of Blacks that have effectively adopted the politics of pragmatism for the sake of economic expedience that only looks like what's commonly accepted as political conservatism. I'm sure there are a number of reasons that will explain their apathy as well as why ideological conservatives suffer a disconnect with these citizens. This overlooked dynamic explains why Robert Woodson and Tony Brown -- to name two Black Republicans -- resonate with the Black mainstream far better than Walter Williams and Larry Elder while receiving a fraction of the attention from mainstream media.
Again, this author is stuck in describing the black community as this fixed and misunderstood single entity that is beyond the grasp of 'white' and conservative opinionmaking, and that's just self-serving.
True, but stop and think a minute. Don't conservatives also use this fixed single entity model when blasting away at aspects of the Black community?
Liberals see a Black community as down trodden and mostly poor. Conservatives see a Black community poor because of self-inflicted wounds.
Neither model really fits, now does it?
How often do conservatives, Black or white, discuss the class warfare within the Black community? How often do white liberals discuss the class warfare?
Any discussion of Black class warfare comes from the Black left.
Is that a misunderstanding by conservatives?
Don't you hear white conservatives saying "I don't understand why Blacks vote Democrat" or some such. Isn't that a misunderstanding?
And if the views of some Blacks about conservatives exist, to a large extent, isn't that on conservatives?
And who is it that keeps assuming that "Black leaders" forge the thought of most within the Black community?
This overlooked dynamic explains why Robert Woodson and Tony Brown -- to name two Black Republicans -- resonate with the Black mainstream far better than Walter Williams and Larry Elder while receiving a fraction of the attention from mainstream media.
BAM!!!!
There it is.
But I'd also add the conservative media.
Still, MIB you're proposing that (we) react to a supposedly fixed white conservative politic. There will always be white conservatives, but their agenda won't always be fixed, or necessarily anti-black. It makes no sense to be moored to the historical. That's like saying that because the American economy used to be based largely on agrarian slave labor, blacks now and forever should not be farmers in this country, or should not play in the American economy, period.
At some point you have to determine where the cause and effect are of the damage or disadvantages the people you seek to serve is actually coming from, and it's not coming from conservative rhetoric, no matter how disrepectful or dismissive it may be.
The question should more be, what is black nationalism telling us that we should be doing in this generation. If you could get that cohort together and working on something, they are going to face their enemies and problems one way or another. Chiding reactionary flacks is a sideshow.
Posted by: cobb at December 16, 2004 10:18 PM
You see the problem with this argument is that it sees in black and white, and conservative vs liberal disagreements exist outside of that sphere and cannot be nicely racialized. So where the author sees 'white' media, black conservatives are just seeing opinion that coincides with their worldview.
Again, this author is stuck in describing the black community as this fixed and misunderstood single entity that is beyond the grasp of 'white' and conservative opinionmaking, and that's just self-serving.
Unless and until this cat gets it through his thick skull that conservative doesn't equal white, then he's always going to have a problem with black conservatives, no matter what they do, until a majority of blacks say 'I'm conservative'
Like I said before, this is part of the reason I'm not a 'Black Republican' any longer. I'm simply a Republican. I have several reasons why the extra burden is actually superfluous, not the least of which is black people who know nothing of conservatism or the republican party telling blacks who do what they ought to be doing.
I get rather sick of this turning of a coincidence into a conspiracy, then again, that's what is to be expected of ignorance. There is no material white interest in conservatism - it doesn't come out of black pockets, just misplaced black pride.
Posted by: Cobb at December 16, 2004 11:17 AM