The fanciful idea of living in a colorblind society is one of the greatest impediments to sophisticated discussions about race in America. If there is going to be a soothing of racial tensions in American society, there first has to be an understanding that race -- albeit a social construct based on some biological realities -- exists and matters, and it is not just a vestigial figment of centuries-old white racism.
The message conservatives need to be advancing is that race matters vis-à-vis specific issues. By championing the fallacy of colorblindness, the conservative's authority to discuss race in the public sphere is inadvertently ceded to liberals.
Okeem also suggests that conservatives should not wage war against the notion of people regarding themselves as "African-Americans" or "Asian-Americans."
One of the main ways in which the colorblind theory is manifested is through the diligent effort to fight against the manufactured foe of hyphenated Americanism. Rather than simply refuting liberal lies about race head-on, conservatives have lamely adopted the weird belief that somehow dropping the many prefixes of "American" is the magical panacea that ends the reality of racial animosity.
The real conflict is against race-baiting liberals; it is not against an innocuous hyphen. Whether or not people choose to put "Asian," "African," or "Latino" in front of "American" does not change the reality that these communities not only exist, but that they overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.
Moreover, the war against hyphenated Americanism falls into the politically correct trap of running what I call a "dictionary dictatorship," which is the Orwellian prohibition of words -- in this case, words that cannot be used to describe oneself if one desires to be considered "authentically American." This is the left's insidious game that Republicans are playing in the name of improving race relations.
Fighting against hyphenated Americanism also seems inherently problematic inasmuch as it conveys a notion that genial interracial relations are impossible unless all racial and cultural differences are childishly ignored. These racial differences are trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it is the conservative unwillingness to acknowledge these differences -- meshed with a demagogic liberal message -- that creates the artificial appearance of grandiosity.
The sad reality is that the fruitless war against hyphenated Americanism -- unwisely fought by conservatives -- breeds anti-Americanism, as liberals use this as a tool to convince minorities that conservatives are uncultured crazies who wish to scrub society of every last suggestion of ethnic diversity.
It is a profoundly depressing myth in America that the only way race relations can be improved is by pretending that race does not exist. Race does exist and matter, but who is convincingly articulating the conservative side of the story on important racial issues on the national stage? Furthermore, who is shattering the intellectual manacles that liberals have locked on the minds of minorities with their sophistical bromides?
(Answer: Nobody, because conservatives are too preoccupied with politically correct pleas for colorblindness and pugilistically engaging the boogeyman of hyphenated Americanism.)
While freedom of speech is probably my most dear natural right recognized by the US Constitution, I'm loathe to support a parade of Far Right Black bobble heads who only echo what distant programmers dictate.
Original thought isn't a crime nor the secular equivalent of sin. The Obama election sent Far Right bobble heads of all colors into overdrive.
He's beatable without blowing dust off the White Citizens Council handbook labeled, " Defaming ' Uppity ' Negroes. "
Attacks on his religion; family and accusations that he's running stealth reparations disguised as Recession recovery serve to send moderate members of the majority electorate surging his way again in 2012.
Instead of trying to prove how paleo-conservative one can sound, why not critique Obama from the perspective of a community member who isn't prostrate before him and raises oh-so-difficult questions that only Black dissenters can pose?
Mr. Enzi's right. Running around screaming about how much Obama sucks--even if one legitimately believes that he sucks--does nothing to change minds that need to be changed.
No doubt there are double standards when it comes to judging Republicans, but conservatives are not blameless in the process either. It isn’t just a matter of flubbing their words — many conservatives are either unaware of the pervasiveness of racial discrimination prior to the enactment of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s, or they choose, like Barbour, to engage in selective memory.
To put the era in perspective, Abby Thernstrom, in her seminal study of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Whose Votes Count?, notes that fewer than 7 percent of voting-age blacks were registered in Mississippi prior to federal registrars being sent in after the Act was passed; by 1967, the number of registered blacks had jumped to 60 percent. And it is hard to imagine that Barbour wasn’t at least aware of the murder of three civil-rights activists in 1964 in Meridian, Mississippi, just 140 miles from his hometown of Yazoo City, not to mention the segregation that permeated every facet of public life. Haley and I graduated high school the same year, and even though I was living in Denver at the time, I was very much aware of what was going on in Mississippi. To ignore this history requires an act of will.
I just can't believe Gov. Barbour learned nothing from Trent Lott.
This week, party switching once again dominated Georgia politics. However, some view Ashley Bell's move from the Democratic to Republican Party as the most significant switch of them all. Bell, a Hall County Commissioner, is African-American.
Bell made it official this week. But the Gainesville native says he's always been conservative.
"As I saw the party become more liberal, I became less involved in the Democratic Party," said Bell.
Bell held Democratic leadership positions on the state and national level. But he stopped actively participating two years ago when he was elected to the Hall County Commission. In that position, Bell says his fiscally conservative approach clashed with Democrats.
"I had to make the decision that if I'm going to be arguing with Democrats at some point I realized I might as well do it as a Republican," said Bell.
Bell admits his switch raised eye brows in both parties because he's black.
"Some folks in the Democratic Party are more upset with me about switching because of my race and I think some people in the Republican Party may be more excited about me switching because of my race," said Bell.
Best of luck to Ashley Bell--he's guaranteed to keep the American political conversation interesting.
A great clip from the Los Angeles Times. As I've argued before, conservatives would make great headway with urban voters if they started focusing more on environmental-justice issues.
