Via my new blogad patron, Angela Winters (give her a few clicks), I finally had a chance to peruse BlackConservative.net—a clearinghouse for commentary on issues deemed important to black conservatives--and found this block-buster: Black Denial.
As often happens with the onion-pealing nature of Internet commentary, the article is a transmission (by a third party) of a fax of a letter. The origin of the letter is a Seattle-area black Christian minister, Reverend Wayne Perryman and the recipients are Terry McAuliffe, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, with courtesy copies sent to various news and professional organizations. The letter was forwarded back in April of this year. (For the record, the who-sent-what-to-whom recount is unclear here. I sent an email to Rev. Perryman asking him to help. If he does, I’ll post it in an update.)
To sum up things, the letter is a point by harrowing and gruesome point indictment of the Democrat Party for its past crimes against black Americans and its various methods of hindering full participation of same as citizens. (Like the incident depicted in this misleading flyer.) It’s a long, bloody history, to be sure, and the surface is only barely scratched in this letter. (The terrorist acts listed here seem strangely familiar…)
The upshot is that Rev. Perryman thinks that the Democrat Party should tender an apology to black America. I disagree and doubt that it will ever happen, but we’ll get to that in a second.
The text of an article by Alphonso Jackson, recounting the reaction to his speech before the National Baptist Convention is also included here. Mr. Jackson is secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and is also black.
Why They Won’t Do It
For the Democrat Party to offer an apology for its members’ oppression of blacks would be strategically stupid, even though one is most definitely owed. (It isn’t as though the stupidity factor has ever stopped either party from other actions before, but even so.) Since the vast majority of black America either selectively forgets or has never been taught that members of the Democrat Party perpetrated the vast majority of individual and organized efforts to physically, politically, economically and educationally prevent black Americans from taking part in this society as full citizens, dropping a heart-felt “I’m sorry” would only serve to bring to mind the main question that the Democrat Party definitely does not want black Americans to ask: sorry for what?
If a party has a near choke-hold on the votes of a given constituency and that constituency is willing to believe any specious assertion fed to it about the opposing party, what would be the point in dredging up proven, factual crimes of one’s own party?
From the text of Mr. Jackson’s article:
For the past four decades, the Democratic Party has tried to convince us that being black and of modest means is a dead-end road. In that vein, America's "black political leaders" have built their careers on an ideology of black victimization. They tout the belief that if blacks want to succeed in this country, there is only one path: reliance on the government.[SNIP]
The so-called black leaders of this nation have convinced a large portion of the black community that blacks aren't capable of self-advancement. And this "leadership" has brainwashed listeners into believing that the Republican Party is only for whites. That's why there was so little listening going on at the Baptist convention.
The Bush administration is the most diverse in history because the president fills jobs on the basis of a person's capabilities and qualifications, not on the color of his or her skin.
Yet critics on the left find it incomprehensible that any black American could succeed on his or her own through hard work and determination. They say that Education Secretary Rod Paige, Secretary of State Colin Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and myself were merely appointed to garner black votes. Such rhetoric does nothing to support the progress of black Americans, or recognize how far we have come.Considering the present Republican administration's record in finding and hiring the most qualified minorities (not just black) to be found and considering the ugly history of the Democrat party, one would think that the racial breakdown between the two parties would be more even. But, for some, history only goes back for thirty years--the era of the "Big Daddy" Federal government programs, most often sponsored by Democrat legislators--unless one is talking about actual slavery. Somehow the decades between the 1860s and the 1960s have been magically “disappeared,” even though the pertinent history is readily available in dead-tree and electronic sources. (BTW, this is yet another indictment on the quality of education in this country, but guess which party has mostly been in charge of that for the past few decades. Educationally speaking, are today's Democrats attempting to succeed where yesterday's failed?)
When a party has performed such a fine job of brainwashing part of its members, why should it tinker with perfection?
(To be continued: Why They Shouldn't Do It)
