Black and White Conservatives and Race
By A. Peter Bailey
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As the 2012 presidential election campaign begins to take shape, it is way past time for we African Americans to carefully scrutinize the very influential Conservative Movement in this country. It is probably the nation’s single most powerful political force, one that has nearly taken complete control of political discourse.
The best way to begin this scrutiny is to pay close attention to observations made by European American William F. Buckley, Jr. and African American George Schuyler, both of whom had dismissive attitudes toward us as a people.
Buckley, who is considered the Godfather of modern American conservatism, made the following observation in a December 30, 1991 issue of his publication, National Review: “Now ethnic sensitivities vary. It doesn’t matter what John Cheever or John O’Hara or John Updike or anybody else writes about them – you cannot really succeed, in America, in riling the WASPs. Their sense of security is as solid as Plymouth Rock, and incidentally as insensate. Blacks, yes, are sensitive, but black lobbies are not powerful enough to punish nonpolitical transgressors against such taboos. (A black book-buyers’ boycott against a novelist would not impoverish.) If the spoken or written offense is egregious enough, as in the case of the joke told [in 1975] to John Dean by Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz, a Cabinet officer gets fired. If a district attorney is named to a federal judgeship and it is revealed that he once made a pot-valiantly genial reference to the Ku Klux Klan, he can be defeated on the floor of the Senate. And no one running for office in a state in which the black population is significant would consider, post 1965, violating the taboo. On the other hand, there is discussion of such questions as relative black intelligence, sexual promiscuity, and upward mobility that still gets a sober hearing in sober surroundings. About the American Indians one can say most things with impunity; about gays, progressively less as, emerging from the closet, they consolidate and give strength to their retaliatory powers.”
The statement was made in a long article, “In search of Anti-Semitism,” in which Buckley responded to criticism of his publication for publishing an article regarded by many as anti-Semitic written by one of his writers. Considering Buckley’s above statement, it’s for certain he would not have felt the need to respond to an anti-black article by one of his writers.
Schuyler a journalist and author who is often cited as the Godfather of Black Conservatism made his observation in his book, Black and Conservative. The first three sentences in the book state that “A black person learns very early that his color is a disadvantage in a world of white folks. This being an unalterable circumstance, one also learns very early to make the most of it. So the lifetime endeavor of the intelligent Negro is how to be reasonably happy though colored….”
Further expressions of Schuyler’s sentiments are reflected by quotes attributed to black conservatives, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (If I ever went to work for the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) or did anything directly connected with blacks, my career would be on irreparably ruined. The monkey would be on my back because I’m black. People meeting me for the first time would automatically dismiss my thinking as second rate.) and economist, Thomas Sowell (Black Students with SAT scores of 1000 should not consider going to any black college because they will be educationally mis-matched).
Fortunately for us, the self-defeating sentiments of Schuyler, Thomas and Sowell were not shared by our 18th, 19th and 20th century ancestors who fought heroically against the proponents of white supremacist/racist terrorism.
Journalist/Lecturer A. Peter Bailey, a former associate editor of Ebony, is currently editor of Vital Issues: The Journal of African American Speeches. He can be reached at 202-716-4560.