(ThyBlackMan.com) For Democrats, a black Republican is either a token or a traitor to his race. This type of low-intellect banter, usually reserved for hyper partisan punchlines on MSNBC shows that no one watches, does nothing to further the country or its African American population. In fact, what it does is encourages the ostracization of right-of-center minded blacks from our own community.
It’s borderline racist.
What Francis Wilkinson suggests in his Bloomberg View piece last Thursday was nonsensical. National Review called it a “racially charged screed.” The contention is that Republicans are so racist that they want a black man up front? I’m confused by this assertion of “white pride.”
Worse, Mr. Wilkinson (a white man) dismisses Senator Tim Scott’s (a black man) authentically black story and record. If legitimate observations are worth correlating, what are we to make of the dismissal of Scott’s 13 years of service on the Charleston County Council where he eventually became its Chairman? While we’re studying the topic, what are to make of there being no mention of Scott serving two years in the State House where he served on powerful legislative committees?
Scott has been serving as a pragmatic conservative since before there was ever a Tea Party movement or before Democrats could claim that black Republicans were running in a Obama America. Scott’s electoral history includes a tense special election, a State Senate campaign loss, and besting
former County Council colleague, who happens to be son of legendary U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, Paul Thurmond. When Scott joined the House of Representatives, he served in a leadership position with South Dakota’s Congresswoman, Kristi Noem, acting as a liaison between newly-elected Tea Party Members and Conference leadership.
Was the Tim Scott piece in the Washington Post such a threat that Wilkinson felt the need to argue that the popular, black, southern, conservative, staunchly Republican Senator needed the bar lowered in order to win a primary in South Carolina? Keep in mind that Governor Nikki Haley, America’s first Indian-American woman, beat a very popular Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor and the entire palmetto state establishment on the backs of Sarah Palin, conservative bloggers, and Tea Party movement activists. It was she that appointed him to fulfill seat vacated by Senator Jim DeMint, at his urging and with the support of the House delegation, his only would-be contenders.
Mr. Wilkinson may be surprised to find out that a black conservative was instrumental in organizing the first nationwide “Tax Day Tea Parties” where more than 1 million protesters showed up in more than 81 cities. See, I sat on some of those first calls with concerned mothers and unemployed activists. I chaired the board of the main sponsoring organization, American Liberty Alliance. And it was my firm that built the website where the first tea party lists were housed. There were no Koch checks. I’ve never sought a Fox News contributor contract or sought to make my living by being the black guy in the room. I’m not a damn token.
We blacks are capable of holding differing views on what the appropriate level of taxation is or when we believe the Executive branch has overstepped its bounds or what articles of our faith we’d like to see reflected in social policy. Any suggestion that we as a community need to be monolithic in our politics benefits no one except the modern Democrat Party. Though, as a paid liberal political consultant, Mr. Wilkinson already knew that.
More Republicans, more blacks, heck, more public servants altogether should aspire to follow Senator Scott’s long record of service. We should applaud majority white districts that elect black Members of Congress. And vice versa!
Wilkinson’s real nightmare is about to come true. The U.S. Senate will, again, have more black Senators whom are Republicans than Democrats when T.W. Shannon is elected to represent Oklahoma. Likewise, the House will gain at least one black female in Mia Love our of Utah’s Fourth Congressional District. Both of these black, conservative, proud Republican candidates have long public service records. Shannon is currently serving as the Speaker in the State House and Love is the former Mayor of Saratoga Springs. With black conservatives organizing behind the newly minted Black Conservatives Fund, a political action committee dedicated to combating partisan race-baiting and promoting conservatives of color, Democrats are running low on fuel–tired talking points left over from the Clarence Thomas hearings. Not that they left him alone either.
Interestingly enough, the entire premise behind the piece on Scott fell apart when Bloomberg View discovered that Scott had a filed primary challenger and was forced to issue corrections during the wee hours of Saturday.
Let’s have a war of ideas. Blacks are waiting for that, Mr. Wilkinson.
Staff Writer; Ali A. Akbar
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