*Scroll down for update*
Even when I was still voting for Democrats, I noticed how condescending they and other white liberals tended to be. Trying to appear comfortable around black people, they usually ended up saying something dumb. Being yourself must be difficult when you’re trying to pretend you care about or even know any black people.
White liberals do have this going for them: as long as they’re self-deprecating around blacks, they can get away with saying just about anything, no matter how offensive.
Five years ago, when I first started calling myself a conservative, I wrote an op-ed about the lack of outrage among blacks over a white Maryland state senator calling then Lt. Governor Michael Steele an Uncle Tom during some redistricting controversy. In subsequent years, I noticed that no high profile black political bigmouth or journalist came to the defense of people like Condoleezza Rice when white liberals made offensive race-based comments to or about them.
That’s white Democrats’ privilege. As honorary blacks, they can shuck and jive with the best of them. And as long as they promise to feed more tax dollars into yet more social programs, they’re golden.
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that black CNN reporter Suzanne Malveaux asked Hillary Clinton if she thought she was “black enough” to sustain support from black voters. According to news reports, the crowd of black journalists laughed at the question, realizing instinctually how stupid it was. But that would soon pass as Hillary started talking about something white politicians always talk about around black people: government programs. (Source)
Hillary said the problem of fatherlessness and high crime in the black community is not a “moral crisis but an economic crisis,” which is exactly what liberals of any color like to hear. No, it’s not individual immoral idiots who make babies they end up abandoning or who opt for a life in and out of the criminal justice system. No, it is the economy, and Hill has the fix. Not to worry about living decent, moral lives. That’s for everybody else.
Because of the slackness of too many black men, the government (called “the man” back in the day, meaning white man) has taken over. The government has to take up the family-breakdown slack with all sorts of subsidies. Because too many black kids aren’t living in stable homes, they rarely learn what it means to take care of a family. They end up unmarried parents themselves, repeating the shameful cycle. Because too many black kids live in homes where education is a low priority, the government has to create before- and after-school programs and expand summer school to compensate for lousy, apathetic parenting. Whether or not they’re on welfare, too many blacks see the government as some kind of money-toting savior, and they pass this warped thinking to their children.
That’s why in 2007, post-slavery, post-legal segregation, you’ve got a white idiot adopting an insulting dialect and promising supposedly educated black people more government programs if she’s elected president. That’s why John Kerry spoke before black crowds about Section 8 housing and other nonsense. (At the time, I said if he ever started talking about government aid around me, I’d have to resist the urge to curse him out.) White liberals know blacks, whether Harvard educated or high school drop-outs, love the promise of more government money and unearned benefits and finger pointing.
To top off her blackface speech, Hillary joked around about being in an “interracial marriage,” a reference to a dumb-as-dirt statement by author Toni Morrison about Bill Clinton years ago. She said he was “the first black President” because he “displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas,” and because of his “unpoliced sexuality” (Source)
And Morrison got away with that. But I’m a self-hater and a hater of black people. Yeah, I see what they mean.
Black columnist DeWayne Wickham wrote glowingly about Hillary’s blackface show. It’s quite sickening:
That Hillary Clinton was willing to go into a black church and quote in dialect a verse from James Cleveland’s stirring hymn I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired, and that she’s self-confident enough to joke with black journalists about the racial composition of her marriage, tells me a lot about her.
It says she has a comfort level with blacks that few white politicians enjoy. It suggests that she knows something about what it takes to make black churchgoers stand up and shout. And it shows that she has a good idea of what will cause a group of caustic black columnists to bend over with laughter.
While this shouldn’t be enough to get black voters to choose Clinton over her rivals in the race to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee–especially when one of them, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, is a black man who deserves serious consideration–it ought to get their attention.
Hillary’s adopting a “black” dialect in front of a black audience tells a black man like Wickham that she’s “self-confident.” Pandering to blacks and “joking” about her “black” husband means she’s comfortable with them in a way “that few white politicians enjoy.” I see. Too many black people are satisfied with so little. Embarrassing. It is offensive to me when someone (a politician, specifically) tries to appeal to me based on the color of my skin, whether it be through a patronizing dialect or the lure of government aid, but that’s me. (And it’s what separates most black conservatives I know from most black liberals I know.) For too many black people, it’s the only way to go. And white Democrats, who need black voters, know this.
I honestly don’t know how I’d react if a white person adopted that “black dialect” shucking and jiving or social program pontificating in my presence today. I’d feel very angry, but how would I behave? Would I be able to control my anger in the face of such insults? I hope I never have to find out. I’d hate to lose my religion.
Update (4:20 p.m.): Just heard from a white liberal, who offered this:
What would your white conservative friends offer by way of support for the black community if not government programs? Tough love? Benign neglect?…Why can’t Republicans attract many votes in this community? Could it be the latent racism that you refuse to acknowledge exists but that most black people recognize as part and parcel of the Republican strategy?
First of all, it’s not the government’s job to fix social problems or administer “tough love,” and that’s where people get it twisted.
Second, anyone who’s read more than a single blog post knows I detest when Republicans pull the courting-black-voters scheme. I don’t campaign or write for politicians, and I’m not the least bit interested in trying to persuade blacks or anyone else to vote for Republicans (I’m not a Republican, by the way). I couldn’t care less these days why 90 percent of black voters keep voting for liberals, and Republicans should stop wasting valuable time trying to get the “black vote.”
If you can’t pull in people with race-neutral ideas, don’t bother. If you have to resort to skin color pandering, pack up your stuff and go home. 
Update II (8/15): A black woman writes:
“You said this on your site: ‘If you can’t pull in people with race-neutral ideas, don’t bother. If you have to resort to skin color pandering, pack up your stuff and go home.’
“This is partially true, but I think there is a need for conservatives (not necessarily Republicans) to go out and explain why those race-neutral ideas apply to different minorities too. I’m currently trying to get my university’s Republican chapter to host an open forum where we discuss how abortion, illegal immigration, affirmative action, etc. affect the black community. Outreach doesn’t have to mean creating more government programs (and it certainly shouldn’t for Republicans who *should* be standing on principle). And I say this as a young Black woman who is discovering my potential through conservative ideas for the first time in my life.
“The reality is that many, MANY black youth have never even heard many of the arguments that conservatives make. Thanks to years of liberal education and one sided debates, our gut reaction to the words “Republican” and “Conservative” is that those words describe people who are completely without compassion. It would benefit many of our youth to hear the actual arguments of conservatives, which are better reasoned and more logical 99% of the time.”
