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Yes, Who’s In the ‘Dark,’ the Black Community, or Dr. Ben Carson?

April 7, 2013 by  
Filed under News, Opinion, Politics, Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) Many conservatives – including a few Black accommodationists – are saying that Black people are being bamboozled into voting nearly exclusively for the Democratic Party. This is clearly a republican talking point, either that, or they believe that Black people are so stupid that we can be convinced to vote for people who have left no stone unturned to deprive us of our right to vote, and who repeatedly try to portray us as lazy criminals and dope fiends who are content to vote for anyone who will allow us to spend our lives on welfare. When put in that way it makes one wonder, what Black people could possibly be thinking? How could we not want to vote for a group people who portray us in that way?
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It seems to me, however, that a more pertinent question is how any Black person in America could proudly, or even quietly, declare themselves a conservative, or even think of voting for a Republican – any Republican? 
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After all, the Republican Party has clearly demonstrated themselves to be the domestic enemy of the United States, with their policies, their governmental obstructionism, and with their seeming determination to hold America hostage to accommodate their corporate cronies. They’re,DrBenCarson literally, trying to punish America for electing President Obama under the pretext of addressing a national crisis that they created, just like every other economic crisis that the nation has experienced over the past one hundred years (The GOP: A One Hundred Year Record of Swindling the American People ).
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In addition, anyone Black person with even a casual understanding of the English language would recognize that “conservative,” by it very definition, means that they’re dedicated to “conserving” the values and traditions of the past. That alone represents a malevolent agenda for all Black people. Thus, any Black man who supports that agenda is either dumb, or self-serving. Period.
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But I have a theory about those who do cave in to become Black conservatives. I think they suffer from a form of “Stockholm Syndrome.” The Stockholm Syndrome is a psychiatric concept named to describe the psychological response of hostages who were locked in a bank vault for five days during a robbery in Stockholm, Sweden between August 23rd and 28th of 1973.

Some of the hostages were so traumatized during the ordeal that they began to confuse relief from blatant abuse with an act of kindness. As a result, they began to empathize with their captors. Many became so attached to their captors, if fact, that they refused assistance and even defended the criminals after they were released. We saw the very same effect in Patty Hearst after she was kidnaped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, and also in Black collaborators during slavery – “Dim niggas talkin’ bout burnin’ our house down, Massa.”
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The Stockholm Syndrome is consistent with what I’ve suggested many times before – that since Black people are the product of the very same racist environment as White people, many Black people of weaker character have become just as racist towards other Black people as any mouth-foaming, sheet-wearing, White bigot, as any Black person who has ever worked for the United States Postal Service will eagerly attest. In addition, the epidemic of Black-on-Black crime in our inner cities, and the lack of darker skinned Black women in entertainment videos will also attest to this fact.
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Over the years many Black people have been conditioned to believe that having “arrived” means that you live as far away from other Black people as you can get, without leaving the county, and that you assume as many White attributes as you can accommodate without bleaching your skin – and some have even gone so far as to do that. But a small minority of Black people feel that the ultimate evidence that they’ve arrived is to assume conservative values – values that are renown for looking upon Black people, and the Black culture in general, with disdain.
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And then there are those Black people who go conservative, at the expense of the Black community, for personal gain. In his article, “My Republican Party has Abandoned Me,” Black Republican activist, Raynard Jackson, says the following:
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“For many years, I have approached the party and its supporters about underwriting programs to bring together Blacks who are Republican or lean Republican so we can weave them into every facet of the party structure. The answer is always, no! But, twice this year some of these same people have approached me about funding for some election year tricks that they (White Republicans) have conjured up and simply need a Black face to execute the plan. On these two separate occasions, these funders were willing to spend upwards of $20 million to have me organize a national campaign to identify Blacks who would be critical of President Obama.”
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Black people understand these facts intuitively, so no matter how many Herman Cains or Dr. Ben Carsons the Republican Party trots out, they’ll never obtain the Black vote. In fact, trotting out such people only serve to stoke the flame of our animosity even further, because it is clear that the GOP is not only trying to insult our intelligence, but they’re manipulating the very least among us to try to achieve that goal.

Staff Writer; Eric L. Wattree
 
More thought provoking articles feel free to visit; The Wattree Chronicle.
 
 

Comments

22 Responses to “Yes, Who’s In the ‘Dark,’ the Black Community, or Dr. Ben Carson?”
  1. observer says:

    @Marcus Vessey I feel the totality of your last comment which has merit.

  2. Eric L. Wattree says:

    Terrance,

    You’re right on the money. As long as we sit on our asses and wait for someone to come along and save us, we’re going to be sitting on our asses in poverty and despair. We’re not children. We’re much too old to be sittin’ around waiting for daddy to get home.

  3. Eric L. Wattree says:

    Hassan,
    .
    Am I a prophet, or what? I predicted that you were get a comment like the one from Marcus when I said the following:
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    “You latest comment has already got me thinking about future articles – and by the way, look out, because I’m sure someone is going to purposely misinterpret your comments above as “advocating the advantages of ‘knowing our place.’” You can count on it.”
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    Your meaning was very clear to me – that’s what I meant in my article about following truth wherever it leads instead to trying to bend and distort truth to make it fit comfortably into one’s political ideology.
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    I think your meaning was, the horrible and unjust circumstances of times served to forge a more formidable, responsible, and cohesive Black community. Back then, Black people had to have character just to survive. In essence, our adversity made us more rather than less, and I agree.
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    While Black people have much more freedom today than we did back then, many of don’t know how to handle our new-found freedom, and we’ve gone hog-wild. We’ve turned in on ourselves, and we’ve taken on the job of Black abuse that used to be relegated to the Klan – and we’re much more effective at it than the Klan ever was.
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    Until the Black community begins to open its eyes and begin to recognize the fact that you’ve brought out, we’ll never find the dignity, respect, and self-esteem that we claim we’re seeking. That’s exactly why I’m so hard on people like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West. That’s also why I was able to predict the response that you were going to get from your comment. We tend to LOOK for reasons to denigrate one another.

  4. This is what I was talking about in another article. We did have some successes when we were segregated. So why don’t we take the best of those times and apply them to now. With the money and resources we have now, we can solve the problems in our community. The only thing missing is unity we had back then. For information on how to do this click on my name.

    Black Unity means financial independence and happiness

  5. hassan_aziz says:

    Marcus,
    I am not questioning what took place in this country or its scared history. But with that said, I am not over the age of 60. Focus on the last half of what I wrote. I had valid questions. About educational achievements, familial support with in the black community, safety, and economy and no, I am not an advocate of slavery nor do I think it was good in any way.
    I have also come across black educators that went through the segregated system and preferred it. I was just communicating what I was told. Don’t cherry pick information, study it objectively in its entirety, if you do that I think you will get what I was trying to say.

  6. Eric L. Wattree says:

    Marcus,

    I just reviewed what I posted. That was a typo. It’s should have read, “Most Blacks were Republicans IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE CIVIL WAR AND THROUGH THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT.”

    There were two waves of migration by Black people from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party – One during the Great Depression, and then another during the civil Rights Era. Martin Luther King. Jr. was a Republican. I point this out in an article currently pending. It reads as follows:

    “But it is true that most Black people used to be Republicans immediately after the Civil War up through the Civil Rights Era – Martin Luther King was a Republican. But the Republican Party was different back then. They represented the business community of the North, and the Democrats, or Dixiecrats, represented the farmers of the South. That was one of the reasons for the Civil War. The Civil War wasn’t actually about freeing the slaves; it was actually a dispute between the big business Republicans of the North, and the Southern Democrats that represented the farming interests. Black people just happened to benefit from the dispute, and during the industrial revolution big business could use the additional manpower.
    .
    “But during the Great Depression the two parties began to change their alliances dramatically. After Democrat president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, turned on big business to help the poor and middle class with his “New Deal” for the American people during the Great Depression, working-class people began to gravitate to the Democratic Party. Then during the Civil Rights Era of the sixties when John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson began to support Black civil rights, Black people migrated to the Democratic Party, and southern racists began to move to the Republican Party. So, essentially, a complete shift took place in party alliances.”

  7. Marcus Vessey says:

    Hazan, it is ridiculous to ‘question the validity of the argument’ of the bad old days. There is a reason MANY Black folks lost their lives to pursue the end of segregation (note I didn’t say integration). So unless you are reasoning backwards that folks threw their lives away, risked their lives to eliminate something that was supposedly “a good thing for them” then we have to look at the reality of the situation.

    The reality of segregation was the inability of Blacks to be mobile in every facet of life. Remember, under segregation they burned down Black Wallstreet with little recourse. This was the nature of segregation, the capacity to isolate and restrict opportunity and access to a wide variety of networks and resources that lead to POWER.

    Eric, you timeline was off on the shift to the Republican party by the majority of Blacks FYI. It happened predominantly under the Roosevelt administration when he created the greatest social safety net the nation had ever seen. The irony is that I would argue Blacks didn’t leave the Republican party, the part left Blacks.

  8. Eric L. Wattree says:

    Thank you, Hassan,

    I’ve just completed another piece that doesn’t address all of the issues that you’ve raised in your last comment, but I do try to clarify issues that led to misunderstandings that some of our previous exchanges.

    You latest comment has already got me thinking about future articles – and by the way, look out, because I’m sure someone is going to purposely misinterpret your comments above as “advocating the advantages of ‘knowing our place.'” You can count on it.

    My grandmother, who live to be 96 years old, used to tell me such stories. She once told me about an old White woman who caught her walking to school in the snow with her shoes off. She said you would have thought that old woman was her mother by the way she scolded her, wrapped her up and warmed her feet. She then personally took her to school in a carriage, and told her that if she every saw her do that again she was going to wipe her butt.

    But I guess hearing those kinds of stories helped me to forge my philosophy regarding race. As far as I’m concerned there are only two kinds of people – good ones, and bad ones. That’s how I segregate people, though it might not always sound that way.

  9. sankofa says:

    Sigh…folly tricks and re-lie-gion. Two things we folks need to be weary of getting into a fight over. Truth is consistent despite opinions…yet when the finger point to the moon, the masses watches the finger instead of the moon.

  10. hassan_aziz says:

    Neither party has done anything for black people because it is not in their best interest to. We have to do for ourselves. We also have to realize there is no political system here, we are run by a global corporatocracy that does not care for white, black, brown, or any other ethnic, racial or social differences that we may have. The same political and power elite talk openly about how much better the world would be if there were 90% less of us. John P. Holdren (Obama’s science czar) openly talks about forced abortion, sterilization through food, drinking water, and vaccines in his book Ecoscience, also, while everyone was discussing equal rights for the Sodomites, our current president secretly signed in the “Monsanto Protection Act” when while running stating on numerous occasions the public had the right to know what they were eating and where it came from.

    The reason why people (including myself) have problems with many government agencies like the FDA is that they are run by corporate insiders many of whom were former Monsanto employees. Clarence Thomas was a former Monsanto attorney, Eric Holder was a former attorney for Goldman Sachs, and it’s all a game. I am sure that the Republican Party has their “redneck contingency” but really, the majority of white folk are not sitting around planning our demise, many have the same problems within their communities and families just like we do, and are trying to get by. So in essence regardless of your race, as Americans we all share the same common enemy, and neither party will rescue us.

    Eric, in your articles and in your replies I notice you make a lot of referrals to the past (the bad old days if you will), I question the reality of the argument to myself at times from my own experiences that I have had communicating with our elders about what really went on back then. I keep the company of many of our elders that were born in the 1920’s and 1930’s, not many still around but they are out there, I almost always ask them about what it was like during segregation, and how rough it must have been to survive during a time when the country as a whole was openly segregated and racist. Almost all of them have told me it is much harder now, and they felt people got along better back then. I was told on more than one occasion that “we knew who we were back then, we had our own schools, our own communities, and our own police officers.” A college professor that I had from the segregated south that went to a segregated school for most of her life said that she preferred the segregated school system over the integrated system.

    I know of another black man that grew up in South Florida in the infamous over town area of Miami. He told me he had more white friends back then than he does today, and how white folks and black folks got along better. He also told me he blamed a big part of the plight against black people against well-meaning white liberals that robbed blacks of their communities, and culture. He was also active in the civil rights movement, and is disgusted like I am in many ways with our people. Why is it that during Jim Crow, and segregated institutions that blacks finished high school at a higher rate, and went on to higher learning. Why is it that during such racism did black families stay together, and men stuck around to take care of their children, and illegitimacy was under 20%, mind you all this was with tremendous social adversity.

    In closing, I read the apology that you posted from the other article, and yes, it did get heated between you and I, but like you had mentioned we are both passionate about our view points, but want the same things. Although unnecessary I accept it, and extend my apology to you if I have offended you.

  11. Eric L. Wattree says:

    James,

    In a word, no.

    The modern Republican is a coalition between big business, or fiscal conservatives, and social conservatives, or the American bigot. Even though these two factions don’t even like each other, they have one thing in common – they both have a vested interest on holding Black people down.

    Big business has a vested interest in not only lowering the standard of living of Black people, but the entire American Middle class, in order to be more competitive in the global market against countries who pay their workers less a week, than the average middle-class American spends on lunch per day. And the great American bigot simply hates Black people, and think we should be relegated to shining his shoes.

    History of the Republican Party
    .
    Most Black people used to be Republicans immediately after the Civil Rights Era – Martin Luther King was a Republican. But the Republican Party was different back then. They represented the business community of the North, and the Democrats, or Dixiecrats, represented the farmers of the South. That was one of the reasons for the Civil War; it was actually a dispute between the big business Republicans of the North, and the Southern Democrats that represented the farming interests. Black people just happened to benefit from the dispute, and big business could use the manpower.
    .
    But during the Great Depression the two parties began to change their alliances after Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, turned on big business to help the average worker. Thereafter, working-class people began to gravitate to the Democratic Party. Then during the Civil Rights Era of the sixties when John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson began to support Black civil rights, Black people began to move to the Democratic Party and southern racists began to move to the Republican Party. So that’s how the parties became the way they are today.
    .
    That’s what’s so interesting about what’s currently going on in the Republican Party. Once again, there’s a dispute between the interest of fiscal conservatives, big business, who benefit from a more practical approach to social policies, and social conservatives, the social bigots. But this time the dispute is going on within the Republican Party. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.

    But again, any Black person who thinks that Black people can find a comfortable fit in that situation is a fool. The social conservative hates Black people, and the fiscal hates the entire poor and middle class, Black and White. You heard Mitt Romney talking to his homies – he thinks nearly half of the American people are scum – again, Black and White.

  12. One thing that always bothered me as black folks, we constantly battle with proving we’re not all the same, especially not what’s portrayed on television. We come from a variety of backgrounds, and our unique upbringings shape our beliefs, including political beliefs. If that’s the case, why do we ALL have to be Democrat (or even Independent)? The Democratic party was once pro-slavery with obviously no to very little African American support. The shift began in the 1940s with FDR’s New Deal. AAs have been generally pro-Democraft ever since. If AAs can change the face of the Democratic party, can’t the same be said for the Republican party?

  13. Marcus Vessey says:

    Hoodgirl, I am not. Thanks for the reference, I will look her up and see if I can connect with her through my work.

  14. Eric L. Wattree says:

    Decarte,

    I’m not advocating one party over another – I’m not even a Democrat. I write articles critical of Obama as well (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2011/04/beneath-spin-eric-l.html). I’m clearly and unequivocally standing up AGAINST the Republican Party, just like I would the Nazi Party.
    .
    Ask yourself, when was the last time a party had to, LITERALLY, HIDE their last president and vice president during an election? I can’t think of another time in our history, but the Republican Party had to do it twice – in both the 2008 and 2012 elections – and with good reason. Bush and Cheney spent their entire eight year reign enriching their cronies and didn’t do one solitary thing to help the American people. And that’s been the Republican record for nearly ONE HUNDRED YEARS. The GOP has a clear and irrefutable one hundred record of swindling the American people, which I clearly lay out in the following link. (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2010/10/gop-one-hundred-year-record-of.html).
    .
    So the fact is, we don’t have a choice in this country. Our only choice is between the Bogey Man and the Devil, and my position is, anyone who decides to choose the Devil is a fool. Period.

  15. hoodgirl says:

    Marcus Vessey, Are you familiar with Nina E. Olson? She is the Head of the U.S. National Taxpayer Advocate. She and I share the same mission which is EMPOWERMENT of low to moderate income families. She has also provided me with information resulting in IRS resolutions favorable to these families.

    Nina writes a report and delivers it directly to Congress often times outlining how fiscal policy is passed then signed into law by Democratic Presidents that espouse the best interests of low to moderate income families even though these taxpayers may not benefit from these laws.

    Nina’s reports to Congress called “Subcommittee on Oversight, Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives” can be viewed by anyone via the internet. I have been a Tax Practitioner for over 18 years and take the position that anyone seeking financial security will not be hindered by these laws.

    I work with low to moderate income taxpayers daily and have only been able to assist them with attaining financial security when they have made a conscious decision to value work, earn income, grow income and control income which in my opinion has nothing to do with the Color of A Man’s Skin but the Content of His Character.

    I also take the position that those of us with extensive backgrounds in business should definitely employ our talents in our community because we have worked on Wall Street, in Bank Supervision and have written policies and procedures that have successfully run the nation’s biggest Banks so we know first hand how capitalism works as opposed to a theory that has never been practiced.

    I look forward to reading your report on the WEALTH GAP.

  16. @ Marcus

    You hit the nail on the head with that comment. But instead of going back and forth with who is right, why don’t we support something that supports us doing for ourselves? This is where the real solution lies, not outside our community, but within our community. Click on my name for the solution.

    Black Unity means financial independence and happiness

  17. decarte says:

    Two words: Brain Washed. Anytime someone can unequivocally advocate for one group or idea over another or all others is brain washed. Mankind is corrupt, and therefore anything that mankind produces is corrupt. To advocate for one corrupt party over another is to side with corruption. When you side with corruption you become in effect…wholly corrupt, unable to see the flaws in your own reasoning because your reasoning has been fully submerged in “one” pool of thought. Can you save a man that is partially corrupt..maybe, but can you save a man that is wholly corrupt…No, but with God all things are possible.

    Your writings are descending into anarchistic ramblings that lack no depth or clarity of thought.

    ~Peace~

  18. Eric L. Wattree says:

    Marcus,

    I rest my case.

  19. Marcus Vessey says:

    Eric, that is simply an irrational position when we live in a capitalist hegemony and a two party democratic republic based system of government. You presume that the president has the ultimate power to determine how the country moves and this simply is not true. Both parties are complicit in the oppression of Blacks, the rise of the wealth gap, the dominance of corporatism, and maintaining and quasi-imperialistic approach to global politics. This is simply undeniable to a RATIONAL observer.

    I am not arguing FOR Republicans nor conservatives. What I am arguing against is your irrational position that lacks perspective. When it comes particularly to the Black condition, both parties are guilty of different forms of paternalistic implicit oppression. This to is undeniable as well when you look at our condition under either party when they have political dominance.

    Some day I will post an article I wrote on the wealth gap. In this article I analyzed who had control of each house in congress and the white house. What I observed is that the decline in the Black/White wage gap was essentially the same no matter who had control. Common theory by folks like you is that the liberal side, which is presumably more friendly to Black folks, will do more to eliminate Black inequity en mass. But the data simply doesn’t bear this out.

    It is not about the party you are in bro, but the color of your skin. That is why a focus on Black power supersedes the support of Republican or Democratic party allegiance.

  20. Eric L. Wattree says:

    Marcus,

    I’m simply speaking the truth, and since the GOP just happens to currently be the domestic enemy of the United States, of course it sounds partisan, because to be nonpartisan would constitute colluding with the enemy.
    .
    Now, am I engaging in a hyperbolic rant? I don’t think so. Let me prove it:
    .
    1). Who was the last Republican president who didn’t drag America under a bus?
    .
    2). Name one good thing that the GOP has done for America in the last 30 years.
    .
    I’ll be anxiously awaiting your response.

  21. Marcus Vessey says:

    Clearly written by a liberal apologists. Eric, I keep coming back to the fact that you argue that you are a pragmatic intellectual, but yet your pieces are rarely ever that. If I pulled up a list of left wing talking points, you would hit each one with 9 out of 10 pieces that you write.

    Now, I don’t have a problem if you want to be the reverse Fox News, but at least be up front about it bro.

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