(ThyBlackMan.com) One of my pet peeves involves a class of Negroes who have convinced themselves that their status as “Conservatives” translates into superior insight regarding the path to racial reconciliation or uplift. If I did not know any better, I would be convinced that “black Conservatives” have discovered the Holy Grail to improving the Race. Let me be clear regarding my perspective of “black Conservatives”, I believe that their entire perspective is flawed at a fundamental level that will never be understood until they re-evaluate how our ancestors were able to “make a way out of no way.”
My myriad problems with “black Conservatives” are far too lengthy to discuss in this space. In fact, I do not need to go beyond my initial issue with this populace to prove my point. The most prominent issue that I have with “black Conservatives” is that they have based their fallacious arguments on top of a misreading of history that reveals much about their entrenched bias’, if not blatant hatred, of non-elitist blacks who have yet to rise above poor and working-class status.
In their efforts to explain prevailing socioeconomic inequities between the Races, “black Conservatives” have laid an unjustified claim to several variables that have always stood at the center of black life. Ironically, “black Conservatives” reveal their teeming hatred and disdain for fellow blacks by denying that the very principles they currently hang their hats on are foreign to our kind. The following items sit at the center of “black conservatives” identity.
- Financial Restraint
- Possession of a moral compass/code
- An Entrepreneurial Spirit
- Fiscal Responsibility
- Political and Civic Engagement
- A Prioritization and Accentuation of Education
I am confident that you will understand my bewilderment with the assertion that these qualities are the exclusive domain of “black Conservatives.” I have no one in my social circles — none of my close friends or associates are “black Conservatives” —- who was not groomed to adhere to these rules by previous generations of 
blacks. Although my grandmothers did “day work” for whites in their homes or businesses, a lifetime of experience watching middle-class and rich whites had taught them the path to success in America.
It is this reality that makes me cringe when I encounter “black Conservatives” seek to advance a fallacious narrative that totally ignores the institutional racism that shadowed our ancestors hopes, dreams, and plans at every turn, while also propping themselves up as having found the formula for unprecedented socioeconomic success that prior generations could only dream of. My status as an African-American Studies Professor who has spent decades studying our people convinces me that none of the terrain that “black Conservatives” believe has been conceded to them is warranted. Put simply, their playbook of social responsibility, fiscal responsibility, and political/civic engagement is not only nothing new but in actuality fixtures in every black liberation formula.
Consider for a moment that if inclusion into that elitist society called black conservatism were dependent on one’s belief in the previously discussed qualities, black elites would be shocked to find figures such as Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, Booker T. Washington, myself, and Claude Anderson in their midst. Unbeknownst to “black Conservatives”, each of the above individuals possess some level of faith in “conservative” qualities. Even a cursory examination of the stony road African-Americans have trod proves that even the most marginalized segments of our community have placed their faith in what could be termed traditional avenues of self and group improvement such as economic frugality, political engagement, and an uncommon focus on educational endeavors. Put simply, these qualities that “black Conservatives” believe make them so unique are relatively common among Black America regardless of geography, time period, educational level, or socioeconomic status.
I shake my head at the realization that high-brow “black Conservatives” who possess degrees from elite white universities lack a basic understanding of from whence they come. “Black Conservatives” elitism reveals their foremost shortcoming; an inability to understand their own story. It is this gaping hole that begets their flawed perspective of Black America that begets an arrogance which separates them from the majority of Black America that begets their resounding repudiation of their own people; an unfortunate occurrence which is being matched by the vast majority of Black America.
Although I no longer expect “black Conservatives” to recognize that figures such as Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, and Claude Anderson have managed to extend self-help traditions without disparaging their indigenous community via hate-filled language and racist mischaracterizations. Until so-called “black Conservatives” disengage from a daunting disbelief in their own and realize that their “success” is not solely due to their individual actions, there is no hope for them; they will remain the scourge of our community.
It is ironic that “black Conservatives” have been bequeathed a rich heritage of socially responsible individualism from ancestors who if they were still alive would be maligned by the inheritors of their racial uplift playbook due to their economic poverty. In many ways, so-called “black Conservatives” must be considered ungrateful children who desperately seek to prove that they are self-made “super Blacks” who were never aided during their life’s path by anyone or anything.
In the face of these realities, all that I can do is address “black Conservatives” by borrowing the words of some unknown black lady, “Chile please go on with that mess.”
Staff Writer; Dr. James Thomas Jones III
Official website; http://www.ManhoodRaceCulture.com
One may also connect with this brother via Twitter; DrJamestJones.