Check out this interesting article in The New York Times (h/t Jacobson at Legal Insurrection). The article by Jennifer Steinhauer is titled "Black Hopefuls Pick This Year in G.O.P. Races."
From the article:
"Among the many reverberations of President Obama’s election, here is one he probably never anticipated: at least 32 African-Americans are running for Congress this year as Republicans, the biggest surge since Reconstruction, according to party officials.
[...]
"But now black Republicans are running across the country — from a largely white swath of beach communities in Florida to the suburbs of Phoenix, where an African-American candidate has raised more money than all but two of his nine (white) Republican competitors in the primary.
[...]
"State and national party officials say that this year’s cast of black Republicans is far more experienced than the more fringy players of yore, and include elected officials, former military personnel and candidates who have run before.
"Mr. Parker is the mayor of Paradise Valley, Ariz. Ryan Frazier is a councilman in Aurora, Colo., one of four at-large members who represent the whole city. And Tim Scott is the only black Republican elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives since Reconstruction.
"'These are not just people pulled out of the hole,' said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a black conservative group. That is 'the nice thing about being on this side of history,' he said."
The article makes sure to give Obama a great deal of credit for this development suggesting that his election to president can be used as proof to Republicans that a black man can be elected. And since Obama is considered to be doing such a great job in the constituencies that these men and women wish to represent, that should give them a great boost in their campaigns... right? The fact that the majority of these black candidates did not crawl out of a hole, as Mr. Timothy F. Johnson points out, and came largely from elected positions seems overlooked by Steinhauer.
Still, it is heartening to see this. Black Americans are one of the most tightly regulated groups of any major American demographic (racial or otherwise), constricted by racial peer pressures, self-destructive demands for "authenticity," and the devaluation of individuality for the sake of "community."
While Jacobson correctly notes this as a blow against the Democrats' "race card" strategy, I think the real importance of this is that more and American Blacks are publicly breaking from the black establishment. Even though prominent men such as Shelby Steele, John McWhorter, Ward Connerly, Michael Steele, Thomas Sowell, and Clarence Thomas have been raked over the coals by liberal whites (with suspicious glee) and the black community for years, we're now seeing a surging of conservative Black Americans running for office. Could this be the beginning of a large-scale rejection of peer-pressure conformity? Could this be a rejection of the failed policies hailed under a false clarion call for community?
One can hope.
The Fed’s Back-Door Bubble
1 hour ago
"Could this be the beginning of a large-scale rejection of peer-pressure conformity?"
ReplyDeleteIt only needs a tipping point.
The Democrats would really be starting to sweat--if they hadn't locked themselves into their soundproof echo-chamber.
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ReplyDeleteAnother link to Asian porn... *sigh* Guess they didn't read my directive to stop doing posting those. Oh well...
ReplyDeleteThe left doesn't look at what is happening, they just believe what they are told ... even when their own eyes and reason tell them otherwise. It's pathetic. I think we could have an entirely black GOP, and the left would still say the GOP is a racist party . . . and the Obots and koolaid slurping Stepford zombies would not only repeat it but actually believe it.
ReplyDelete@ Fuzzy
ReplyDeleteMaybe. But I think it's more likely that the White Left would re-adapt themselves and push racist dogmas (witness the way Cubans are treated by the media and the Left-- Humberto Fontavo had an interesting piece on that in [I think] Big Journalism where he had a sweet, little political cartoon of Uncle Sam pushing Cubans out to sea on a raft).
The white Leftist viewpoint is essentially racist toward American Blacks and condesceningly reduces them to the status of mascots. While this "feel-good bigotry" is certainly annoying, what is most discouraging to me is the way the American Black community has accepted this-- despite the fact that their lot and neighborhood conditions have not improved significantly in the last 50 years except when people have achieved and left.
Perhaps that is changing. Perhaps there is getting to be greater self-reliance and greater distrust of the "community" lie. And that's what I'm hopeful about.