Black conservatism on the march? ~ By Ellis Washington

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Ellis Washington

Posted: February 06, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.


Do what you can with what you have and never be satisfied.


~ Booker T. Washington

Prologue

This column analyzes the state of black conservatism in America today. Black conservatism stresses traditionalism, robust patriotism, free-market capitalism and aggressive social conservatism within the context of the black church. Principally, black conservatism emphasizes personal responsibilities, irrelative of socioeconomic class and institutional racism. In the tradition of African-American politics and intellectual life, black conservatives tend to support the self-help/moral philosophy of Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) as contrasted with the activist/progressive philosophy of W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963).

Analysis

For many black conservatives, the singular objective is to bring social redemption and economic success to the black community. Four core concepts of black conservatism are cited in the important book "Black and Right: The Bold New Voice of Black Conservatives in America," editors Stan Faryna, Brad Stetson and Joseph G. Conti. They are:

• The pursuit of educational and professional excellence as a means of advancement within the society;

• Policies that promote safety and security in the community beyond the typical casting of a criminal as a "victim" of societal racism;

• Local economic development through free enterprise rather than looking to the federal government for assistance;

• Empowerment of the individual via self-improvement (virtue), conscience and supernatural grace.

While the actual numbers of black conservatives is difficult to deduce, a useful list of black conservative groups can be found at: Black Conservatism and Who is your favorite Black Conservative?"

In February 2008 I drafted a series of strategies and proposals for affecting a quantifiable black presence in the Republican Party, which was published in WorldNetDaily.com. Later I sent this article to all 50 Republican Political Action Committees in America and to the Republican National Committee. Here are some excerpts:

My main intent is to help the Republican Party return to being the party of Lincoln, the party of the disenfranchised, not by government largess no matter how well-intentioned, but by helping black people to help themselves. In my weekly column on WorldNetDaily, I delineate many strategies that can help the Republican Party recapture the majority black vote they once enjoyed from 1870-1932, after which time blacks left the party en masse in the early 1930s at the urging of W.E.B. Du Bois and the NAACP to vote for FDR.

Black people have voted Democrat at over 90 percent ever since that time. With your help, I want to change that tragic scenario that has so decimated the real and vested interests of black people all over America. …

The response from the RNC and all 50 GOPAC organizations? Absolutely nothing! How can the GOP reclaim the black vote if they don't give a damn about black intellectuals like me?!

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