� American Wa'benzi | Main | What Negroes? �
December 27, 2002
my big tent
after some confering with some black men i trust, i have decided to drop the name 'monkey whip coalition'. don't ask.
what do jimmy walker and denzel washington have in common? nothing. ok you guessed. how about this: what do tom bradley and colin powell have in common? nothing! right again. ok here's a tough one: what do i have in common with clarence pendleton, alan keyes, j.c. watts, shelby steele, john mcwhorter, larry elder and ward connorly? ahh see. i got you. despite the fact that..
i am a black republican.
the answer is still nothing. now being a black republican is interesting because actually people don't call me black to my face, nor do they call me a republican. they're generally too embarassed, angry or befuddled. which is just as well, i'd rather be called by my name. be that as it may, i haven't sworn allegiance to any 'black leader' or 'republican leader'. so what's the point of being a black republican anyway?
the point is simple. i hate to lose, and i hate not getting my way. i hate not getting my point of view heard out and respected. and i hate those things more than i hate the republican party.
once upon a time i lived in the beach volleyball capital of the world. and despite the fact that the cops just loved to pull me over for the first six months or so until word got around that the black guy in the red bmw does actually live on manhattan avenue, i learned to play and soon mastered the game. i was about as good as you can get without obsessing, both at the two-man sand variety and at the six man hardcourt variety. it wasn't long before my roomie and i were throwing volleyball beach parties. ok. close your eyes. you are at a beach in sunny southern california. there are 100 blackfolks in a crowd having a hell of a good time playing volleyball. you did a double take. that was us. that was 14 years ago, 12 years before dain blanton. not that we had anything to do with dain, but we understand.
our gang was known as gdz productions. gdz stands for 'geographically desireable zipcode'. dig integration? so did we. but we always knew we were the second blacks. who the hell wants to be a first black anything? that's brutal sledding. first blacks never get anything done or have any fun because people are always touching their hair and asking questions about chitterlings. second blacks get to be themselves. (nobody cares about third blacks - first mexicans are catching all the flack)
i'm a spoiled, arrogant, uppity kind of jagoff. so i expect to be a republican. the kind of republican i intend to be owes butkis to the first blacks. (cue analogy flashback). i don't seem to recall denzel thanking jimmy walker from the podium. i look at so-called black republicans today and i see 'dy-no-mite!', and for this i'm supposed to give thanks? i don't think so. i have come to view the mission to achieve black political power through the republican party completely convinced that todays neocons are paving no roads i will long travel. besides, i don't think my feet will fit in their kneeprints.
i am not impressed with today's black neocon pundits. they don't deliver votes, they deliver excoriations and flog anonymous black communities in effigy. that's weenie work. one of these days, somebody smart in the g.o.p. is going to realize these clowns are doing zilch for attracting the old school into the party. the black old school is chockablock with characters like reverend frederick k.c. price. and as pops says, if gw is halfway serious about his faith-based initiative, he's going to find his party introduced to men like this reverend doctor in a few years. (and since i'm talking about denzel, i may as well plug his church too.)
here's my moment of humility. i owe some debt of gratitude to thomas sowell for his writing which was rather enthralling in 1982 when i first encountered it. and i thank ward connerly for being honest with me during his short online stint at the sfgate. other than that, us'ns ain't cousins. but yeah i do like glenn loury. bill bennett, you already know i like.
once i think of some name better than 'cosby show republicans' i will begin amassing recruits into sleeper cells. don't ask.
Posted by mbowen at December 27, 2002 08:54 PM
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