Follow Up to “Color vs. Competence”

I received some really great feedback from my last post, but wanted to follow up on a couple of negative comments, as well as acknowledge some excellent commentary from one of my Facebook friends, Joyce. I will start with the negative and then get to Joyce’s comments. One of the comments was that I was trying to “impress white people” by pointing out negative things about Obama and those wonderful folks in the CBC. I will answer this charge by repeating what I have stated directly and repeatedly in my posts over the years, and that is any political commentary or commentary of any other sort flows first and foremost from of my Christian conviction. The only one I seek to “impress” is Jesus Christ in my every action, word, and deed. Given that, politics is a human construction, and with that being said, is necessarily a fallen enterprise. So for anyone wondering out there if my Christian faith means I should take a certain political position, the answer is that Christianity isn’t demanding that I take any particular political position, but if I am following the teachings of the faith correctly, my positions will necessarily reflect my Christian-driven philosophy as well as my deep love for the classical philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero.

The typical negative comments of my writings come from people who know little about politics and even less about Christianity in the sense of its underlying principles. The ones who grate on my nerves the most are those who take an Africa-centric approach of the world, as if it is superior to what they perceive to be the opposite (and wrong) approach: Euro-centrism. They accuse me of taking the latter approach, when I obviously don’t. Personally, I can’t think of anything dumber than a human-oriented approach of any type, so I categorically reject either of these. Yet I must acknowledge that these Africa-centric folks do make some good points about the fact that human civilization began in East Africa, and they tell of the great history of Africa with pride that we all need to know. They also provide great information about the deep stain of slavery on our nation. Just as the Jews will never forget the holocaust, we will never forget 350 years of slavery followed up by a century of systematic discrimination and Jim Crow laws. Where I depart from them is that we are no longer in slavery or Jim Crow, and these Africa-centric types just cannot shake the fact that they are now free people who can promote their ideas in the public forum without any fear of reprisal, knowing that they have constitutionally protected rights. I am thankful that there is no longer anything holding blacks or people of any race from achieving their dreams through hard work and determination. Why some continue to relive the wrongs of the past is simply something I will not take part in, though there are some legitimate injustices that we must continue to fight.

Now this leads me to my independent-minded friend Joyce, whose outstanding comment about blacks and the Tea Party is what I really wanted to share (slightly edited for typos):

“What a lot of people do not realize is that unfortunately, many Black liberals and the masses of Black people for that matter, will go against an organization that they do not understand just because it is predominantly white. If the majority of White people are in it and agree with it, then there must be something wrong with it. There are historical contexts that support this mistrust and suspicion. Institutional racism, the Tuskeegee experiment, Scottsboro Boys – all of these things plus many more, have produced generations of mistrust in the Black community which is not easy to expunge.

Black people hold onto it when judging and deciding whether or not to deal with Whites, and White people dismiss it as a mere event in the past which they are far removed from generationally and have the ‘That’s the past, get over it’ mentality. That attitude is just as wrong. Many of us just do not trust white people with good or conjured up reasons. That is the thinking that still prevails today for many, and Mr. Carson and Maxine Waters are very aware of this and have used it to their advantage.

They know that even if it’s not true, if you broadcast the Tea Party as being racist, Black people will listen and vote accordingly in the opposite direction. That is how the minority vote has been and probably will always be perpetually or the Democratic Party. Now with that said, they do not appeal to all Black people, there are some like myself who can and will think for themselves. I don’t need a central Black leader to tell me how to vote or what to think.

Please consider what I have shared because I think you tend to overlook the sociological & psychological impact of the past in this country for Black people. I agree that Carson and Waters have gone too far and their statements are highly inflammatory. The timing is not a coincidence and mark my words, it is only going to get worse from both sides as we approach November 2012.”

I do agree with Joyce, and it is clear that it will take some time for complete relationship repair between blacks and whites after literally centuries of brutality perpetrated on black people, and the ongoing mistrust that continues today. The point, as Joyce so beautifully outlines, is that people such as Mr. Carson and Maxine Waters are only fanning the flames of hatred, and are bringing nothing to the table in terms of reconciliation. They are both tangibly benefiting from the hard work of blacks and whites, working in hand in hand, who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that they and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus would have the right to speak their minds as duly elected members of Congress. In my view, they bring dishonor to all of those who have worked so hard to guarantee us the freedoms we enjoy today, and their actions only continue to keep blacks focused on being victims that depend on government instead of an empowered people who have every opportunity to make something of themselves, and to align themselves politically with like-minded people regardless of race.