As I’ve written a couple of times before, my father was a rock-ribbed Republican for most of his life. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, at the end of the 1800s, the party of Lincoln was the choice of the vast majority of blacks — North and South — during that era. During my late teens we used to have spirited political debates since I was a left-leaning Democrat while still in high school.
However, once the civil rights movement began in earnest and Republicans like Barry Goldwater hijacked the party, my father had to rethink his commitment to the GOP, later causing him to say, “I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the party left me.”
Indeed, when Republicans attempted to block ’60s civil and voting rights legislation, how any black person of conscience could remain loyal to that party was something that puzzled and vexed my father until his dying day.
But some blacks stayed in the GOP back then and others continue, to this very day, to join. Why?
This is a question more than one white friend has gingerly asked me over the last few months as the presidential race heats up, along with the racist dog-whistle taunts from those on the far-right. I give the best answer I can, which really isn’t very pretty: These so-called blacks put personal gain over gains for the race they supposedly belong to, but wish they didn’t.
You see, one of the biggest misconceptions about race in America is this: Many whites — even some that posit they are fair-minded — truly believe that the majority of blacks, weary of the unfair burden our pigmentation causes us to bear in a bigoted society, wish we were white, or at least something other than black. However, this thinking, no matter how ingrained in whites, is, in the vast majority of cases, wrong.
In the small percentage of cases where blacks actually have successfully been brainwashed into hating themselves — an abnormality, a form of mental sickness if you will, that dates back hundreds of years — they then become enamored with the dominant culture of whiteness, and from there it’s a short hop, skip and a jump for them to turn into Republicans.
Oh, these demented souls lie to themselves and anyone else willing to listen by saying they are being clever by joining a political party where the line is shorter and the payday larger. Where they know their rise to what they perceive as political power is easier since they are viewed by white party leaders as some kind of trophies; as proof of their lack of bigotry.
And as their white masters say to the world, there is no way they can they be racists when they’ve got these handkerchief-headed Negroes bowing, scraping, and bootlicking. These sick souls all the while profess to the world how much they love these racists that denigrate them behind their backs, and oftentimes to their faces.
This, of course, is the most debasing aspect of these sellouts being a traitor to their own skin and kin: The fact that they are not deaf. They have to train themselves not to flinch while pretending they don’t hear the not-so-sly racist comments made by leaders of the Republican Party. They have to master the art of self-delusion — it’s really the “other” Negroes that are being talked about as if they’re less than human, not them.
All these disgustingly demented black folks have to do to be successful and get paid by the GOP is to put any pride aside and suck up to tRump without gagging — while he’s busy sucking up to every skinhead, QAnon and Klan member in the country.
In spite of the fact we real blacks have had to live with the shame of having these self-haters in our midst for what it seems like forever, we still will forgive them and welcome them back into the race with open hearts and arms if only they one day do what my father did — come to their goddamn senses.
One Response to “MANSFIELD: The Shame of the Race”
Kathy Wray Coleman
Interesting analysis Mansfield. Great writing