Last election cycle, conservative black Republicans like Utah Congresswoman Mia Love, columnist and political advisor Armstrong Williams, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, and Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley (whose 2014 book Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder For Blacks To Succeed was on all conservatives’ summer reading list) were all over the media, loudly scolding other blacks for being fools. Where are they now?
Have they all been relegated to the back of the Republican bus?
With the demise of Ben Carson — whose ideas were, in their own way, as wacky as the Republican’s presumptive nominee’s happen to be — there’s not a black of any substance or political standing involved in the 2016 election on the national level from the Republican side. Wackos like Don King, Mike Tyson, Dennis Rodman and that con man-turned-preacher from Cleveland Heights, Darrell Scott, really don’t count.
A scant four years ago conservative blacks were busy making their case that blacks of a more liberal or progressive bent were stuck on the “Democratic plantation,” forever pledging their fealty to a political party that has done little for them over the years. “Why not come over to the Republican camp?” was their penetrating question, and to a degree they were right, at least in the first part.
Over the years, Democrats have done little for disenfranchised blacks and others living on the fringes of prosperity — that’s a given. But what these black conservatives don’t question is “why?”
And the answer is as obvious as it is simple: It’s because conservative Republicans have done everything within their power to block (and failing that, to dismantle) every program Democrats have attempted to put in place to assist struggling families: Everything from funding Headstart programs, to providing health care for all, to expanding the social safety net to insure that no Americans are left to suffer.
Those on the right want to pull up the ladder that leads to a more prosperous life, and then claim that those stuck on the bottom rung are there due to their own slothfulness. They posit that, with grit and effort, every American can be successful, as they cut funding for education.
Their arguments are downright shameful.
Ridley asks (disingenuously), “Why is it that so many efforts by liberals to lift the black underclass not only fail, but often harm the intended beneficiaries?” I’ve already answered his specious question.
But four years ago nothing stopped black conservatives from making their arguments that becoming Republicans was the best move they ever made, and they were right: The line for political ascendancy was shorter since white conservatives like nothing better than trotting out and showing off a black politician like a prize won at a county fair. They could point to these confused blacks with pride and say, “See, even these blacks say that the majority of blacks are wrong in their political thinking, which proves that we’re right, and also that we’re not racists.” Bullshit.
However, in this election cycle things have changed — somewhat dramatically. With the ascendancy of a yellow-haired demagogue who adroitly plays the race card to his own personal advantage, conservative blacks are no longer in fashion; they are no longer needed. In fact, they are almost persona non grata under what once was touted as a big Republican tent.
Trump has decided that he doesn’t need blacks (or Hispanics or Muslims or gays) to win the White House, and he’s effectively pushed all of the aforementioned black conservatives to side, essentially kicking them to the curb. These blacks, who sold their souls to the devil for personal, political or career gain, are now left ass-out, members of a political party that no longer has any use for them. And it serves them all right.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.