Marie and Sebastian Stroughter of African American Conservatives and Kevin Jackson of The Blacksphere have collaborated to form the Black Conservative Census, urging conservatives who happen to be black to “stand up and be counted.” Of course, this is in response to the Big Media-driven notion that racism is indicated in the facts that most black Americans are liberal Democrats and that most of those who protest in/sympathize with the Tea Party movement are white.
An absurd notion, is it not? As my friends Mike and Sonja T. mentioned, if all-white groups over two in number were automatically racist, they became an official racist mob when their first-born entered the fray. (They have four. I'm scared!)
Deeming a group 'racist' which labels itself by race/ethnicity or incidentally consists of mostly one race isn’t an idea exclusive to Big Media, however. I recall that, back in 2005, when Jay Tea of Wizbang! was kind enough to publicize the efforts of another black conservative online alliance--the Conservative Brotherhood--a lot of assumptions were made regarding the nature of that group; assumptions which existed solely because we billed ourselves as a 'black' group. Many of us who belong to CB waded into the comments section and tried to dispel erroneous notions about the group, some of which were astonishingly stupid and racist themselves.
As it often goes, however, when people are on the side of the angels, one of the most eloquent defenders of the concept which produced the Conservative Brotherhood was Jeremy Pierce—the husband of one of CB’s members, Samantha. Jeremy is white.
The point of the CB is so more black people will be exposed to their ideas, because those are the people whom these ideas will most directly affect and the ones most commonly ignoring the CB members as Uncle Toms who are in Whitey's pocket.
(…)
It's a matter of connecting with those who have similar views from the same background, a group who tends to be ostracized and marginalized merely for being both black and conservative.
(…)
As they [band together], they haven't isolated [themselves]. They've just taken note of each other and become allies, with a central location that links to all of them. Then someone comes along and calls them racist, and others say it's immoral and against conservative principles. Why? Because they care about race. If we say it's racist or immoral in some other way to care about race, then we're not going to care about race, and that's going to feed into all the problems that come when you ignore the real racial problems in this country. That's catering to institutional and residual racism. It's thus part of the complex social forces that perpetuate racial problems. It's thus racism.
One of the ways in which discord and distrust have been sown for years by racists of all colors and persuasions is by accepting as valid the perception in which any group which formed on the basis of ethnicity is automatically racist, especially if the group is white—no if, ands or buts. So it is that Wizbang! guests applied the same standard to a black group--ignoring the nuance inherent in the adjective ‘conservative’ and ignoring the CB members' displayed words and actions up to that point in time. These people decided to see something sinister (no pun intended) in anything labeled black or composed mostly of black people.
(It doesn’t feel too good, does it, fellow Tea Partiers? And now you know why I posted the message about my affiliation with the social network, The Professional Black Writer.)
It’s the flip side of identity politics. It replaces thinking. And in acknowledgment that some people don't want to think these concepts through, Jackson and the Stroughters have provided a not-black affiliation field for the census. Understandable.
Admittedly, however, President Obama’s racialism—indicated both before and after his election—has made mere “pride” in one’s heritage even more suspect. That racialism started on the very day of the election and has been officially condoned by the Obama Justice Department. The Obama Administration has planted and continues to plant the seeds of mistrust and discord among American brethren. Simply put, it has painted a target on each of our backs.
I assert that it’s up to all of us to think things through and to recognize the administration's strategy for what it is—a means to destroy the United States of America—and not to buy into the mutually-assured destruction this president offers.
