Get the Led Out - The failure of Black Leaders is good for black Americans.

Opinion Journal ^ | 7.26.02 | John McWhorter

[mhking]

How do we reach and break through with these folks? mhking? rdb3? Other black conservative list members? Any ideas?

This falls in line with the conversation we were having yesterday. I'm headed out to handle my "honey do" list right now, but let me give it some thought - this is something that will definitely merit it's own thread or set of threads.

[rdb3]

Thanks for the ping and question, FP.

Believe it or not, this question can be answered in one word: rhetoric.

Think about it, then I'm sure you'll get it.

[Kip Lange]

Aye, rhetoric indeed, but who delivers the rhetoric? That's why I suggested earlier that perhaps we *do* need an MLK Jr. style orator around again...not to address the grievances of segregation and abominable Jim Crow laws, but to address the grievances of Al Sharpton and the abominable Jesse Jackson. ;-)

[rdb3]

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree. Here's why.

We need to totally rewrite, recompile, test, then recompile again this kernel. And we don't have time for a beta build, either. That's just "geek speak" for saying that those ways of old must be eschewed. We needn't debate or even acknowledge Jackson, Sharpton, Bonds, or Mfume. We should ignore them.

Effectively using rhetoric means that knowing the full and complete history in this nation as it pertains to its black citizens is imperative, pointing directly towards the political AND non-political achievements of American blacks. Remember, the only history that the Race Industry points to has to do with politics, and that's all. This rhetoric must include the black struggle for equal treatment under the Constitution, which means we must repair the breach and begin teaching the Constitution again. In fact, this would be good for all Americans since it is not being taught anymore.

This my friend, "flips the script," as we say around the way. This is what I believe needs to be accomplished, and I just gave you the Cliff's Notes version. There's much more to add here, but I'll let this stand for now.

[Kip Lange]

Hrm. No, I take it back, that's a far more reasoned response. I'm too jazzed up from coffee. You're absolutely right. To ignore them is by far the best thing to do (although how can you get these guys *out* of the spotlight they so crave?) The need to put more emphasis on the non-political achievements is a point that's well taken, as is reintroducing the Constitution into the rhetoric. Still, would it not help to have a leader capable of *reading* the next page of the script on a national level? Or do you think it can be achieved completely on a grassroots level, with no national leadership needed at all...perhaps that's the only way to do it?

Definitely add the "much more" when you get a chance. ;-)

--KL

[PhilDragoo]

I'm at the part in Timmerman's Shakedown where "Jack" O'Dell, CPUSA organizer, is flipping off Congress under the umbrella of the American Communist Lawyers Union (ACLU), on his way to becoming one of Jesse Jackson's most trusted lieutenants, steering Jackson to support the policy and objectives of the Soviet Union.

Sherman Skolnick in his reports has anecdotes of the late 'sixties/early 'seventies when Jackson came to Chicago to push people around, with the bad gangbangers as his big brothers.

From studies of the MLK hit it is clear Jackson was in the parking lot of the Lorraine, never on the balcony, so his shirt bearing "the blood of Dr. King" ranks with the Shroud of Turin for miraculous character.

Jackson is the race pimp/gas blimp/comsymp, the self-serving hustler.

He talks black entrepreneurship, but has hogged all the money for himself, leaving his people nothing--in this regard he is like his idols from Arafat to Castro, Chavez to Ghaddafi.

Blacks will prosper with the likes of Professor Walter E. Williams, and falter with the not-reverend Just-Me Jackson.

My first post-graduate job (1970) was in Unity Bank and Trust, 416 Warren Street, Roxbury, Mass, where President Philip J. Snead, six-two, two-and-a-quarter, karate, weightlifting told the other sixty-two blacks and me the white, "Snead don't take no sh!t from nobody, walkin' or ridin', slippin' or slidin'." He put down the [per Audrey and Nita, "crazy n- who tried to rob Mr. Snead's bank"], offered everyone free courses in banking at local colleges, and was stern, decent, dignified, professional and a certifiable bad dude.

Contrasted to my second post-graduate job, 1970 being slow, having hit fifty interviews with companies not hiring, landed a brief but informative gig in the land of government grants: Community Action Against Poverty, a holdover LBJ War on Poverty buy-votes program. Stunt doubles for Superfly parked their Rivieras and strolled in for checks from ignorant U.S. taxpayers.

The sooner blacks renounce the haters from Kweisi Mfume, Louie Farakhan, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Johnny Cochrane, and the sooner they are inspired by what can be gained from the example of Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, the better for them and all America. Add Condoleezza Rice, stunning intellect and achievement, and Colin Powell, who rose to the top of the military and State Department.

Jesse is like Arafat in another way: he teaches lethal racial hatred at the earliest age, in order to exploit race war for his own fascist power.

[mafree]

If a person feels they need a leader race shouldn't matter in the final analysis.

[mafree]

I bring up the anecdote of playing a tennis match at a golf & tennis country club community south of Stone Mountain, filled with 2-story 2500sf brick federal houses with two car garages with Tahoes, Lexuses (Lexi?), and BMW's in the driveways. I would guess the subdivision was 80-90%+ black. These folks are *not* the "downtrodden" that Maxine and Jesse would have you believe they are. Add in the fact that many blacks are devoutly Christian, and we have a large and growing group who ought to be voting for conservatives.

How do we reach and break through with these folks? mhking? rdb3? Other black conservative list members? Any ideas?

If I had THE answer I'd make a cool million or two as a consultant to the RNC (I hope).

Still, I always like to take a bite on posts like these because I do have my theories:

1. Middle and upper class Blacks are always afraid of racism and see the Dummycrats as more likely to protect them from it that the GOP, who they mostly think doesn't really give a dime about Black folks.

2. Some Blacks vote Dem because to them, everyone else around them does, especially older family members.

3. The GOP is mostly invisible in Black life and culture, let alone in Black neighborhoods. The GOP is also scarce in some cities and states as a whole. In some parts of the country a Black person could go their whole life without ever meeting a Republican.

4. The issues that Blacks tend to be conservative about are not important issues and you must remember that to most Blacks, the overriding issue is race.

[rdb3]

#1. Check!

#2. Check!

#3. Check!

#4. Check!

All of these are true. However, these problems are not insurmountable for the GOP. It must learn to change its tactics is all.

[lowbridge]

Ms. Parker can't understand why Republicans are so inept at wooing black voters. The evangelical churches should be central to Republican outreach to blacks, she thinks, given their conservative leanings on many issues. But the GOP all but ignores them. "Democrats campaign on every block and in every church in urban America, yet the Republicans are almost nowhere to be found," she observes.

That's because no Church will lose their non-profit status if they allow Democrats to use their pulpit for political purposes. If they allowed Republicans on the other hand....

[mafree]

I should also add that Black Republicans, the few there often are in many places, don't do enough to persuade other Blacks that Republicanism might just work for them. They are also generally not visible in the Black community. I do know of a few exceptions to that rule however.

[Kip Lange]

All of these are true. However, these problems are not insurmountable for the GOP. It must learn to change its tactics is all.

Alas, the GOP leadership seems to find changing tactics insurmountable...it depresses me.

--KL