COMMENTARY: RWB

Or Republican While Black, asserts the moderate-conservative Republican blogger: "As you've certainly heard, a lot of black conservatives are called 'self-hating'. When that's not pure haterade or psychobabble, it is a catchphrase for 'against the interests of black people'. Now as problematic as it is to define a static set of interests for all of African America, we can assume that there might be such a thing. Most concretely many of my ideological foes have tossed around a football that says 'only 2% of black America supports President Bush'. If all black conservatism was about was supporting this President, we'd be a sorry bunch indeed, but conservatism is bigger than Bush. Let's not get into set theory; suffice it to say that the circles of interest overlap, but they are not an identity. How do I live with the fact that most blackfolks are clearly not Republicans or conservatives without feeling somehow less than black? In two ways. Because of these two ways, it's very easy for me. In fact it's much easier to just do it than to explain how. But since I'm a writer I am compelled to anyhow. The first way I think I explained fairly well. It was the pro-black active force. The second way, I don't think I've explained well, it is the non-racial interest force.....People need to convince me that membership in an American political party cuts off the sound of the drum, because I don't believe it. What I hear, when people complain about the Republicans and African Americans is that joining deafens the sound of the drum, blanches all that was black and irreversibly corrupts the soul. I say these people have the wrong expectations of political parties in general and are probably not quite well stocked enough at home to survive hostility and indifference."

He continues: "So let me jump out of analogy hell and say it straight up. This is my country, and I will vote the way it suits me, and I will think politically the way it suits me. And I am not going to feel sorry about the fact or the idea that there are millions of people who are 'supposed' to be the same as me, but have made (or are presumed to have made) different or opposing choices. Nor am I going to concern myself that the millions of people who do make the same choices as I do are not 'supposed' to be the same as me. More specifically, I stand with the Republican party for my own reasons, reasons I happen to believe are objectively superior reasons, and we are headed in the same direction. You can say what you like about every other Republican, living or dead. You can call me delusional because of what you interpret must be my rationale. But I am very clear about which direction I am headed, and I am convinced that it is the correct and proper direction."