Say Something Real
Black Conservatives Often Do More Harm Than Good
By Michelle Bryant
Michelle Bryant
Ok, while I don’t play for the Republican team, and I haven’t seen their general membership notice to Black conservatives, I can imagine what it says. “Help us to secure more Black voters for GOP candidates.” While a simple directive, admittedly it does take a lot of work to move Black voters into the red. Maybe if their policy initiatives weren’t so… what’s the word I’m looking for? Racist. Maybe they would have better outcomes.
As Black republicans are called to act as surrogates in local communities across the nation, a simple truth is emerging. They often do more harm than good, with the Black voters that they are courting. Frequently adopting talking points that peddle fear, stereotypes, misinformation, and white grievance, these self-anointed messengers really don’t understand the assignment. Help us secure more Black voters for GOP candidates.
Black conservative members, of the U.S. House of Representatives, represent primarily white congressional districts. When they are out peddling their political wares, it only stands to reason that they would be advancing the concerns, values, and beliefs of those who put them in political power. More often, their ideology does not reflect the overwhelming interests of Black voters. If you compound a failing message, with overtly offensive rhetoric, you’ve got a recipe for disaster. And Black republicans are poisoning the pot.
Recent comments, by North Carolina’s Black Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, are the latest in a series of verbal missteps and setbacks for the GOP. Instead of inspiring a partisan reallocation of Black voters, Robinson has insulted the intelligence of the descendants of enslaved African-Americans. His suggestion, that we should shift the discussion of reparations payments to the backs of Black voters, is wildly offensive. His rhetoric relieves the white community of any accountability or responsibility for the stolen labor and destroyed lives caused by the institution of American chattel slavery.
In the other Carolina, south that is, U.S. Senator Tim Scott, while in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention, said that America is “not a racist country.” I would provide a detailed history lesson regarding racism in this country, but Republicans ripped out that section of our textbooks. This nation’s disturbing past isn’t a secret and doesn’t require a neurosurgeon to explain it to us. At least, not Ben Carson.
Carson, the former Trump administration U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, criticized those who “denigrate” the county’s founding fathers for enslaving Africans. Carson also implied it was nothing special that Black people were enslaved because other races, and groups were enslaved too. Yeah…was it really the same thing though? Far too many Black conservatives have stepped up to minimize or deny racism, systemic bias, and the marginalization of communities of color. They have acted as mascots of misinformation and misplaced truth. They are a part of the problem. I remember hearing the phrase “Some people can’t do wrong right” and when it comes to Black conservatives, I couldn’t agree more.