Armstrong Williams’s latest column has me thinking. His piece is about self-appointed black leaders and groupthink, but it prompted me to reflect on the reasons I became a conservative and started writing about politics.
So-called black leaders prey on fallen human nature and racial tensions. Even before I realized that was the case, I sensed something was wrong with black leadership. Black “leaders” were always angry, always stirring things up, and no matter what was gained, the victories seemed Pyrrhic.
When I was younger and foolish, I fell for it all. Indignation I thought was righteous was unjustified and misguided. If I faltered or failed, I could conveniently blame white people for “oppression” and racism.
Having come of age in 1980s when skin color quotas were in full force, I realized I wasn’t oppressed at all. Through my dark skin, I gained perks! I was still angry (about what?), though, because it felt good. I’d developed a sense of entitlement.
As I matured it dawned on me that I had only one life to live. Something so obvious hit me full on. I was still light-years away from becoming a Christian or a conservative, but I’d developed a distaste for Jesse Jackson and his band of merry men. The emotions their rhetoric evoked were anger, fear and helplessness, and I wanted to be a dignified young woman. Black liberal politics seemed utterly devoid of dignity.
My mind began to evolve away from they-owe-me to I-owe-myself. I slowly tuned out angry, disingenuous and disrespectful loudmouths and turned inward. What do I want out of life? To convince white people that because I’m black, they should treat me a certain way, or because I’m a human being they should treat me a certain way?
I’m simplifying this a bit, but I’m trying to find the catalyst that caused my political change. I didn’t have the benefit of a conservative upbringing. My parents were, and for the most part still are, politically apathetic, although I convinced my mother to vote for George Bush four years ago.
I’m pretty strong in my views (No kidding?), and it takes a lot of evidence and persistent argument to get me to budge. What I do everyday on this blog is present ideas, not change the world. I want to reach the truly undecided, the seekers, the moderates or the fed-up, not liberals masquerading as “Independents” or hard-core black liberals who refer to people like myself as “self-haters.”
Forgive my rambling. I’m preparing to write a why-I-became-a-conservative column as a “debut” for a web site, and I’m thinking out loud. I’ve been asked to write for Pop and Politics, a site run by Farai Chideya, who some of you may be familiar with. I read some of her work back in my liberal days, and I envied her. She was a published writer who seemed to be doing what she enjoyed, and I couldn’t imagine I’d one day do the same.
Anyway, back to Williams. Of course, I agree with everything he says in this column:
The black pseudo leader is a parasite. He nourishes himself on the suffering of others. He exists by satisfying the mob’s voracious appetite for excuses and easy solutions. If there is no easy solution for the complex problems of racism in our country, the black pseudo leader will create one. In a calm baritone he will talk about reparations. Sure, that causes people in the crowd to pump their fists in support. But what does it actually do to affect progress?Racial revenge fantasies do not confront the fact that the tenets of liberalism have failed us by putting us in the mindset that we need handouts in order to be successful. Racial revenge fantasies do not confront the fact that black Americans no longer need the Democrats to broker public policy for them. Racial revenge fantasies do not focus us on political activism because it is consumed with the notion of retribution for past crimes. We need to support choice and market-based reforms that will prepare us to achieve the American dream. Instead, our leaders spend all their time cleaving to century-old crimes and stirring racial tensions because this is how they make a living. That is why we’ve been held back. Every leader that comes forward has his or her own agenda. Like the old saying goes, “easiest way to control the mob is to agree with them.”
This is, of course, empty leadership, and it marks a sad decline. During the heyday of the civil rights movement, our community leaders were not apt to become household names unless they accomplished something great, something galvanizing. Now our leaders know that they can achieve this perch by pumping us full of vitriol about how all the problems we face as a community are the result of other people’s sins. They fill their speeches with the sort of racial rhetoric that shocks people into paying attention. And we have come to confuse the attention they receive with genuine leadership.
Williams is correct in his views. The race hustlers in America are a powerful, insular little cabal consisting of clownish cartoon characters like Al Sharpton, one of its most embarrassing examples. That a man like that actually got to speak on a national stage…
I keep searching for the moment or dramatic event that caused me to drift away from black groupthink. I know that becoming a Christian and seeing the world through spiritual eyes had a lot to do with it. Perhaps I’m closer to the answer than I think.
Addendum: Other questions: Why do I feel the need to even discuss why I became a conservative? Is it so unusual that a black person votes for Republicans?
Although I hate the photo (eyes half-closed — don’t laugh), I’m linking to a story written for CampusReportOnline by college student Meggie Sramek. The article is based on a speech I gave at Conservative University 2004.
