Let me start this possibly controversial topic by saying that right now, because the law states that to be eligible to run for president, one must be a "natural born" American, that if incontrovertible proof ever comes up that Obama was born in Kenya, as he claimed when it was politically advantageous for him to do so, then I firmly believe he should be removed from office. However, I personally don't care where he was born; if he was born and raised in Texas but was still the man he is, with the policies and job performance he has, he'd be just as awful.
But in this post, I'm gonna admit something that might sound weird, coming from a conservative. I don't think being born in the United States should be a factor in whether or not you can run for president.
Think about it. What sense does it really make? After all, the presidency remains the only political office you cannot hold if you were born elsewhere than on American soil. Why? What does that have to do with anything?
Take the case of Ted Cruz. Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta because his parents were at the time working in the oil industry. As I gather, they moved back to the US when he was still an infant, and he was raised as an American his entire life. Also, because his mother was an American citizen, he was granted American citizenship from birth. But then, his father is from Cuba. Does this mean he's not "natural born", as birthers have accused Obama of not being, even if he was born in Hawaii?
Well, the fact is, this is ridiculous. Assuming Obama was born in Hawaii, and as far as I'm concerned he was, then he should be eligible for the presidency, the same as how John McCain was born in the American Embassy in Panama, which is only American soil because it's been legally declared such.
The difference is, Ted Cruz was raised in America by Americans (well, his mother, anyway) who taught him to love America. John McCain was raised in America by Americans who taught him to love America (and to love compromise, but that's another story). Barack Obama was raised in Kenya and Indonesia by Communists who hated America and taught him to hate it. I don't care where any of them were born; where they were raised, what country they call home and whether or not they show themselves to love their country; that's all that should matter. Obama may be an American by birth, but he sure isn't by loyalty.
Really, all that this law's remaining on the books has done in recent years is to draw up inconsequential and silly arguments about whether or not so-and-so is legally able to run. Be it Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal, the subject of where they were born or where their parents were born keeps coming up whenever their potential presidential aspirations comes up. The problem is, who cares?
Ted Cruz has proven that he loves this country and is an American at heart. So has Bobby Jindal. Marco Rubio is slowly proving that he is a Cuban at heart and doesn't give a rip about America's immigration laws. That is all that should matter.
Now, Cruz isn't my first choice for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, and to be frank, no one is right now. There are a lot of people I'd love to see in that office, and quite a few others I'm hoping against hope decide not to run or get crushed in early primaries (Chris Christie, for example). But I hate to think that we're still at a point where we care where the candidates were born.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Friday, August 16, 2013
Race: Liberals Justify Anything and Everything
If a conservative is speaking on a political topic, liberals will find some way to make what they say into a statement of racial hatred. They will find one word, or phrase, and decide to conflate that into something racial, even when it's clear that race had nothing to do with it.
There was a website, that's since been taken down, that detailed the words, phrases and ideas that have been declared "racist" by the left since Obama became a household name. The list was both hilarious and frightening to read. Apparently, when conservatives say "peanut butter and jelly", "apartment" or "Chicago", what we're really doing is pandering to our racist base by using "code words" or "dog whistles." Also, using someone's first name is racist. When Newt Gingrich called John King and Juan Williams by their first names during the endless GOP debates during the 2012 primaries, white liberals like Chris Mathews called them racist for it. Yes, for nothing more than calling them "John" or "Juan". As far as I know, any time a politician addresses a member of the press, it's by their first name. But when Newt Gingrich does it and the journalist is black, that's racist.
Whoever the next GOP presidential candidate is, he or she should prepare themselves to be called "racist" at every turn, even if they're running against a white Democrat. They can guard what they say as carefully as they want. They can stay away from phrases like "black cloud" or "black sheep", or anything having to do with color at all, but that won't matter.
The candidate could ad-lib before a speech "Whoo boy, it's hot out today", and somebody, Chris Mathews or Chuck Todd or whoever, will suggest they're making a casual racial slur with their use of "boy". Don't laugh; almost that very thing happened to Mitt Romney. When, during a debate with President Obama, Romney responded to an accusation that his tax plan will raise taxes on low-income Americans to pay for tax cuts for the rich, he made the following statement: "I will not reduce the share paid by high-income individuals. I know that you and your running mate keep saying that, I know it's a popular thing to say with a lot of people, but it's not the case. Look, I have five boys, I’m used to people saying something that's not always true and keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I will believe it. That is not the case. I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans. And number three, I will not, under any circumstances, raise taxes on middle-income families. I will lower taxes on middle-income families." (bold is mine)
Kevin Baker and Chris Hayes both decided that Mitt Romney had just called Barack Obama a "boy". No, I'm not kidding. Now, read that full quote in context. There is simply no way to believably pull a racial subtext from that. There just isn't. Romney was clearly making reference to his sons' attempts to lie their way out of a situation, as young boys are wont to do, and keep repeating the lie, hoping each time they do so that it sounds more convincing. Romney was calling Obama a liar, which Obama is, several times over, but to call this a racist statement is ludicrous. It happened, but it's stupid.
In an ideal world, it would be Baker or Hayes that suffered embarrassment at the comparison, but apparently some people actually believed that Romney was calling Obama a "boy".
Near the end of Michelle Bachman's run for the GOP nomination, she gave an outdoor speech on a rainy afternoon. A tent was set up and she and those who were there to listen to her speech crowded into a tent, already drenched. Bachman, her hair hanging damply around her face, wiped rain from her brow and asked the crowd "Who likes wet people?" This is clearly what she said, and it also makes perfect sense in context.
According to MSNBC, she was asking the crowd "who likes white people", and was clearly making a racist statement. Only in liberal-land where up is down, black is white and the party that has always stood for freedom regardless of skin color is the party of racism.
So, again, to whoever is hoping to run in 2016, be prepared to get called a racist. No matter what you say. But what if it's someone like Allen West? Well, as we saw with Herman Cain, he'll get called an Uncle Tom, race traitor or "house n-----r". He or she will get accused of "tokenism". Again, I'm not making that up.
"Tokenism" is a term for when a mostly white organization of any sort really wishes to display a veneer of diversity, so they hire one black person to join them. If a law firm wants to appear racially mixed even though it's made up entirely of white people, they'll hire one black lawyer, make him or her partner and bingo; they're diverse. Back in the 90's, if a TV series has an all-white cast and someone pointed that out, the producers would fall over themselves trying to find a black actor to fill a role that obviously exists only so they can add the black character (kinda how they do today with ensuring they include a gay character). Two of the more obvious examples that I can think of are The West Wing, which added the role of black attache to the president Charlie Young after a few groups complained that the entire cast was white. He didn't have much to do, but he was there now. The show had nothing to do with race relations but still, people cried racism, so a poorly-thought-out character (whose only purpose on the show was to be subservient) was clumsily added to the cast. The other was a short-lived TV series from the man behind Dawson's Creek. It was called Wasteland and was about six super-attractive adults. Of course it was. All six cast members, three guys and three girls, were white. Complaints about that started before the series even aired, so in a last minute decision, they added a black actor to the cast. One black actor. Now there were seven characters including four men, and since the show was about sex and relationships (of course it was), the black character was more or less left out in the cold. That's because he was nothing but a token. Now, the show was utter crap and unlike Dawson's Creek didn't clog up the airwaves for six years before everyone realized that, but still, it was an obvious case of tokenism.
Of course, you can't really call it "tokenism" if the number of blacks in the organization begins to grow. Off the top of my head I can list the following prominent conservative black political figures, either politicians or commentators; Allen West, Herman Cain, Tim Scott, Mia Love, Clarence Thomas, Condeleeza Rice, Sonja Schmidt, Alfonzo Rachel, Larry Elder, Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, and there are quite a few more. It would be "tokenism" if there was only one or two of them, and they all just parroted whatever the white conservatives said. But listen to what any one of those people I just named have to say about modern politics and race relations and you will hear some pretty interesting and diverse opinions on the subject.
When liberals accuse us of "tokenism" when we point out that black conservative Republicans exist, they increasingly look like they're accusing the TV show The Wire of tokenism. The Wire is a now-cancelled HBO series about the drug trade in Baltimore from all sides of it; cops, lawyers and politicians (the corrupt kind and the more-or-less honest kind), high-level and low-level dealers, stick-up artists, addicts and work-a-day schmoes living in drug-infested neighborhoods. It ran for five seasons and got a ton of critical acclaim, which, I might add was deserved. I would suggest the cast was about 80% black. Of course, the modern GOP is not 80% black but it's far from The West Wing or Wasteland in terms of black representation, and we're hardly just scrounging up a few puppets to look like we care about diversity. Black conservatives are uber-passionate. If we could stir up a tenth of their passion in the current GOP congress, we'd win every election and we'd have swayed the media to our side by now. Black conservatives aren't conservative because they're sucking up to white people. They're conservative because that's what they want to be. Many of them have tried the other side and know how full of shit it is. Alfonzo Rachel even compares liberalism to "the plantation" and he and others call themselves "runaway slaves" who managed to escape the liberal plantation.
Terroja Kincaid, an internet reviewer who is almost equal to Michael Moore in terms of obnoxiousness, once talked about Glenn Beck's special on black conservatives on his youtube channel "The Amazing Atheist" (he's only half right in that title, by the way). If you didn't know, Beck did a special where all his guests were black conservatives and every audience member was also a black conservative. Kincaid was dismissive, saying that the whole thing reminds him of when racist people try to say they're not racist because "some of my best friends are black."
I just don't get the logic here. I guess I do understand how the claim "some of my best friends are black" might inspire eye rolls. The person making the claim might be obviously lying, or deciding that the clerk at their corner store who sells them their cigarettes counts in this claim, or the black people he or she describes as "best friends" may in fact not feel the same about them. I don't make that claim myself, because I'd prefer to say "I'll call anyone a friend unless you do or say something to me or my family that changes that." Personally, I don't care about skin color in and of itself. At all. I work in a diverse office with every skin tone imaginable. My church looks like the United Nations. And I just plain don't care. I make no claim that the fact that I work and worship around people of a vast variety of skin tone makes me not racist. I claim that the fact that I work and worship with them and never give their skin color a second thought does.
But Kincaid's reaction to Beck's special just confirms to me that to a committed leftist, conservatives will always be racist. The argument is entirely circular. Glenn Beck is a racist. Why? Because he is conservative (well, libertarian, but it's good enough for them). Why does that make him racist? Because conservatives are racist. Why? What makes you paint them all with the same brush? Because they love people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. But why do you call Rush Limbaugh a racist? Because he's conservative.
See, I see Glenn Beck sitting in a room with people who are mostly on the same page politically as he is. He's showing everyone how they all get along. He looks at a black conservative and says "I don't care what your skin color is; I like what you've got to say." That's racism now?
Actually, here's racism for you; demanding that all people of a certain ethnicity think, talk, dress, act, work and vote alike, or they're not "authentic". I really don't understand how this hasn't become widely known for the racist idea that it is. Think about it; no longer are you an individual. No longer can you do anything the way you want to. You have to conform to a role, or you're an outcast. And all because you happen to be born with a high melanin content.
Bill Maher can have white person after white person on his show or in his audience. He has black guests as well, but I'd say a majority of his guests have been white, as are a majority of his audience members. But he agrees with the idea of what "authentic" blacks are, so therefore he's not a racist.
But Glenn Beck says "I don't care how you look, dress, behave, or speak. I want to do a special where I show that there really are black people who vote Republican or self-identify as conservative. So if you're black and do either one or both, come one, come all." Apparently, that's racist.
Glenn Beck will never convince people like Terroja Kincaid that he's not racist, though. That's the thing; in the mind of a leftist, once he's declared you a racist, that's what you are. And all the justification he needs to do so is to hear that you're even just slightly right of center.
What Kincaid obviously meant was that the black people in Beck's audience and his black guests didn't count because they're "Uncle Toms". And we're back to the circular argument! Leftist logic dictates that if you are black, you vote Democrat and self-identify as liberal (even if you're really not). Why? Because Republicans are racist.
"But," says the black conservative. "I've studied the Republican platform, and I agree with a good deal of it, almost all of it. I never saw anything racist in it. Why shouldn't I vote Republican?"
Simple, because to do so makes you an Uncle Tom.
"Why?"
Because Republicans will never accept you.
"Are you kidding? I live in a heavily Republican area. Almost everyone I know is a Republican. I've never been judged or ostracized by any of them. In fact, the last person to call me the n-word was a white Democrat who didn't like that I voted for Romney."
He called you that because you hate yourself. Otherwise you wouldn't have voted for Romney.
"What? Obama's taxing the "rich" has crippled my small business. My business only earns 300,000 but I now pay almost 80% of that back in taxes. I can now only keep one other full time staffer other than myself. And thanks to Obamacare, which I can't afford, I also can't provide benefits to himself or me, and now I'm gonna have to pay a fee because I've opted out of Obamacare, so either way I'm looking at my business failing within the next six months. I voted for Romney because between the two of them, his ideas on how to save businesses made more sense. Now I'm stuck with President You-Didn't-Build-That. If I truly hated myself, I would have voted for him!"
You're just a shill for the man.
"What are you talking about!? Obama IS the man! He's president, and his party controls the Senate! If I was looking to shill for someone, it would be the Democrats!"
You have Stockholm syndrome. Republicans hate you. They only pretend to like you because you tell them what they want to hear.
"So...if I start telling YOU what YOU want to hear, I'm no longer an Uncle Tom, even though you're white."
Right. Because I'm a Democrat. I accept you.
"But wait, I thought you'd only except me as an authentic black if I start saying only things you agree with."
True.
"So...how's that any different from Republicans liking the fact that I agree with them?"
They're racists. I'm not.
"Listen, I go to church with a Republican who's farther to the left than I am. He believes in big government as long as the government is religious. I think government should be small and unobtrusive; there to protect me but not there to run my life or anyone else's. He and I disagree fervently about this and other issues. He's also white. But despite his being a white Republican and he and I disagreeing on several issues, we're still friends. In fact, when he and I talk politics, it always stays civil and respectful. As a matter of fact, he and all white Republicans I've ever met treat me better than ANY Democrat, left or right, once they find out I vote Republican."
...They're racists. They only accept you because you call yourself a Republican.
"But you've already admitted that you will only accept me if I start voting for and supporting Democrats. You also claim that you're not a racist."
Right, because I'm a Democrat.
"But if they're racists because, so you claim anyway, that they only accept me because I agree with them politically, why are you NOT a racist if you reject me because we disagree?"
Because, as a Democrat, I allow you to truly be yourself.
"You're not even hearing yourself. You've said repeatedly that you WON'T allow me to be myself and still accept me. I have to start saying things you agree with first."
Once you start agreeing with me, you can be an authentic black.
"How on earth can that be true? You're white! How does agreeing with another white person make me more authentic? Listen, until I told you my political persuasion you were all ready to accept me. You apparently believed I was an authentic black until then. Now you accuse me of being self-loathing, an Uncle Tom with Stockholm syndrome. And all because my political leanings differ from what you, a white person, believe they should be. So now, until I change my political leanings to be more like yours, a white person, you will reject me and see me as "not authentic." And yet you want to call Republicans racist!"
I'm gonna stop the conversation here because it's just gonna go in circles. The core principles are this: Democrats, especially white ones, are always exempt from charges of racism, even when they openly display it, such as ripping on blacks who "escape the plantation". Republicans, on the other hand, are racist no matter what.
I still can't believe the lengths liberals go to to justify this, and they can't even see it!
There was a website, that's since been taken down, that detailed the words, phrases and ideas that have been declared "racist" by the left since Obama became a household name. The list was both hilarious and frightening to read. Apparently, when conservatives say "peanut butter and jelly", "apartment" or "Chicago", what we're really doing is pandering to our racist base by using "code words" or "dog whistles." Also, using someone's first name is racist. When Newt Gingrich called John King and Juan Williams by their first names during the endless GOP debates during the 2012 primaries, white liberals like Chris Mathews called them racist for it. Yes, for nothing more than calling them "John" or "Juan". As far as I know, any time a politician addresses a member of the press, it's by their first name. But when Newt Gingrich does it and the journalist is black, that's racist.
Whoever the next GOP presidential candidate is, he or she should prepare themselves to be called "racist" at every turn, even if they're running against a white Democrat. They can guard what they say as carefully as they want. They can stay away from phrases like "black cloud" or "black sheep", or anything having to do with color at all, but that won't matter.
The candidate could ad-lib before a speech "Whoo boy, it's hot out today", and somebody, Chris Mathews or Chuck Todd or whoever, will suggest they're making a casual racial slur with their use of "boy". Don't laugh; almost that very thing happened to Mitt Romney. When, during a debate with President Obama, Romney responded to an accusation that his tax plan will raise taxes on low-income Americans to pay for tax cuts for the rich, he made the following statement: "I will not reduce the share paid by high-income individuals. I know that you and your running mate keep saying that, I know it's a popular thing to say with a lot of people, but it's not the case. Look, I have five boys, I’m used to people saying something that's not always true and keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I will believe it. That is not the case. I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans. And number three, I will not, under any circumstances, raise taxes on middle-income families. I will lower taxes on middle-income families." (bold is mine)
Kevin Baker and Chris Hayes both decided that Mitt Romney had just called Barack Obama a "boy". No, I'm not kidding. Now, read that full quote in context. There is simply no way to believably pull a racial subtext from that. There just isn't. Romney was clearly making reference to his sons' attempts to lie their way out of a situation, as young boys are wont to do, and keep repeating the lie, hoping each time they do so that it sounds more convincing. Romney was calling Obama a liar, which Obama is, several times over, but to call this a racist statement is ludicrous. It happened, but it's stupid.
In an ideal world, it would be Baker or Hayes that suffered embarrassment at the comparison, but apparently some people actually believed that Romney was calling Obama a "boy".
Near the end of Michelle Bachman's run for the GOP nomination, she gave an outdoor speech on a rainy afternoon. A tent was set up and she and those who were there to listen to her speech crowded into a tent, already drenched. Bachman, her hair hanging damply around her face, wiped rain from her brow and asked the crowd "Who likes wet people?" This is clearly what she said, and it also makes perfect sense in context.
According to MSNBC, she was asking the crowd "who likes white people", and was clearly making a racist statement. Only in liberal-land where up is down, black is white and the party that has always stood for freedom regardless of skin color is the party of racism.
So, again, to whoever is hoping to run in 2016, be prepared to get called a racist. No matter what you say. But what if it's someone like Allen West? Well, as we saw with Herman Cain, he'll get called an Uncle Tom, race traitor or "house n-----r". He or she will get accused of "tokenism". Again, I'm not making that up.
"Tokenism" is a term for when a mostly white organization of any sort really wishes to display a veneer of diversity, so they hire one black person to join them. If a law firm wants to appear racially mixed even though it's made up entirely of white people, they'll hire one black lawyer, make him or her partner and bingo; they're diverse. Back in the 90's, if a TV series has an all-white cast and someone pointed that out, the producers would fall over themselves trying to find a black actor to fill a role that obviously exists only so they can add the black character (kinda how they do today with ensuring they include a gay character). Two of the more obvious examples that I can think of are The West Wing, which added the role of black attache to the president Charlie Young after a few groups complained that the entire cast was white. He didn't have much to do, but he was there now. The show had nothing to do with race relations but still, people cried racism, so a poorly-thought-out character (whose only purpose on the show was to be subservient) was clumsily added to the cast. The other was a short-lived TV series from the man behind Dawson's Creek. It was called Wasteland and was about six super-attractive adults. Of course it was. All six cast members, three guys and three girls, were white. Complaints about that started before the series even aired, so in a last minute decision, they added a black actor to the cast. One black actor. Now there were seven characters including four men, and since the show was about sex and relationships (of course it was), the black character was more or less left out in the cold. That's because he was nothing but a token. Now, the show was utter crap and unlike Dawson's Creek didn't clog up the airwaves for six years before everyone realized that, but still, it was an obvious case of tokenism.
Of course, you can't really call it "tokenism" if the number of blacks in the organization begins to grow. Off the top of my head I can list the following prominent conservative black political figures, either politicians or commentators; Allen West, Herman Cain, Tim Scott, Mia Love, Clarence Thomas, Condeleeza Rice, Sonja Schmidt, Alfonzo Rachel, Larry Elder, Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, and there are quite a few more. It would be "tokenism" if there was only one or two of them, and they all just parroted whatever the white conservatives said. But listen to what any one of those people I just named have to say about modern politics and race relations and you will hear some pretty interesting and diverse opinions on the subject.
When liberals accuse us of "tokenism" when we point out that black conservative Republicans exist, they increasingly look like they're accusing the TV show The Wire of tokenism. The Wire is a now-cancelled HBO series about the drug trade in Baltimore from all sides of it; cops, lawyers and politicians (the corrupt kind and the more-or-less honest kind), high-level and low-level dealers, stick-up artists, addicts and work-a-day schmoes living in drug-infested neighborhoods. It ran for five seasons and got a ton of critical acclaim, which, I might add was deserved. I would suggest the cast was about 80% black. Of course, the modern GOP is not 80% black but it's far from The West Wing or Wasteland in terms of black representation, and we're hardly just scrounging up a few puppets to look like we care about diversity. Black conservatives are uber-passionate. If we could stir up a tenth of their passion in the current GOP congress, we'd win every election and we'd have swayed the media to our side by now. Black conservatives aren't conservative because they're sucking up to white people. They're conservative because that's what they want to be. Many of them have tried the other side and know how full of shit it is. Alfonzo Rachel even compares liberalism to "the plantation" and he and others call themselves "runaway slaves" who managed to escape the liberal plantation.
Terroja Kincaid, an internet reviewer who is almost equal to Michael Moore in terms of obnoxiousness, once talked about Glenn Beck's special on black conservatives on his youtube channel "The Amazing Atheist" (he's only half right in that title, by the way). If you didn't know, Beck did a special where all his guests were black conservatives and every audience member was also a black conservative. Kincaid was dismissive, saying that the whole thing reminds him of when racist people try to say they're not racist because "some of my best friends are black."
I just don't get the logic here. I guess I do understand how the claim "some of my best friends are black" might inspire eye rolls. The person making the claim might be obviously lying, or deciding that the clerk at their corner store who sells them their cigarettes counts in this claim, or the black people he or she describes as "best friends" may in fact not feel the same about them. I don't make that claim myself, because I'd prefer to say "I'll call anyone a friend unless you do or say something to me or my family that changes that." Personally, I don't care about skin color in and of itself. At all. I work in a diverse office with every skin tone imaginable. My church looks like the United Nations. And I just plain don't care. I make no claim that the fact that I work and worship around people of a vast variety of skin tone makes me not racist. I claim that the fact that I work and worship with them and never give their skin color a second thought does.
But Kincaid's reaction to Beck's special just confirms to me that to a committed leftist, conservatives will always be racist. The argument is entirely circular. Glenn Beck is a racist. Why? Because he is conservative (well, libertarian, but it's good enough for them). Why does that make him racist? Because conservatives are racist. Why? What makes you paint them all with the same brush? Because they love people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. But why do you call Rush Limbaugh a racist? Because he's conservative.
See, I see Glenn Beck sitting in a room with people who are mostly on the same page politically as he is. He's showing everyone how they all get along. He looks at a black conservative and says "I don't care what your skin color is; I like what you've got to say." That's racism now?
Actually, here's racism for you; demanding that all people of a certain ethnicity think, talk, dress, act, work and vote alike, or they're not "authentic". I really don't understand how this hasn't become widely known for the racist idea that it is. Think about it; no longer are you an individual. No longer can you do anything the way you want to. You have to conform to a role, or you're an outcast. And all because you happen to be born with a high melanin content.
Bill Maher can have white person after white person on his show or in his audience. He has black guests as well, but I'd say a majority of his guests have been white, as are a majority of his audience members. But he agrees with the idea of what "authentic" blacks are, so therefore he's not a racist.
But Glenn Beck says "I don't care how you look, dress, behave, or speak. I want to do a special where I show that there really are black people who vote Republican or self-identify as conservative. So if you're black and do either one or both, come one, come all." Apparently, that's racist.
Glenn Beck will never convince people like Terroja Kincaid that he's not racist, though. That's the thing; in the mind of a leftist, once he's declared you a racist, that's what you are. And all the justification he needs to do so is to hear that you're even just slightly right of center.
What Kincaid obviously meant was that the black people in Beck's audience and his black guests didn't count because they're "Uncle Toms". And we're back to the circular argument! Leftist logic dictates that if you are black, you vote Democrat and self-identify as liberal (even if you're really not). Why? Because Republicans are racist.
"But," says the black conservative. "I've studied the Republican platform, and I agree with a good deal of it, almost all of it. I never saw anything racist in it. Why shouldn't I vote Republican?"
Simple, because to do so makes you an Uncle Tom.
"Why?"
Because Republicans will never accept you.
"Are you kidding? I live in a heavily Republican area. Almost everyone I know is a Republican. I've never been judged or ostracized by any of them. In fact, the last person to call me the n-word was a white Democrat who didn't like that I voted for Romney."
He called you that because you hate yourself. Otherwise you wouldn't have voted for Romney.
"What? Obama's taxing the "rich" has crippled my small business. My business only earns 300,000 but I now pay almost 80% of that back in taxes. I can now only keep one other full time staffer other than myself. And thanks to Obamacare, which I can't afford, I also can't provide benefits to himself or me, and now I'm gonna have to pay a fee because I've opted out of Obamacare, so either way I'm looking at my business failing within the next six months. I voted for Romney because between the two of them, his ideas on how to save businesses made more sense. Now I'm stuck with President You-Didn't-Build-That. If I truly hated myself, I would have voted for him!"
You're just a shill for the man.
"What are you talking about!? Obama IS the man! He's president, and his party controls the Senate! If I was looking to shill for someone, it would be the Democrats!"
You have Stockholm syndrome. Republicans hate you. They only pretend to like you because you tell them what they want to hear.
"So...if I start telling YOU what YOU want to hear, I'm no longer an Uncle Tom, even though you're white."
Right. Because I'm a Democrat. I accept you.
"But wait, I thought you'd only except me as an authentic black if I start saying only things you agree with."
True.
"So...how's that any different from Republicans liking the fact that I agree with them?"
They're racists. I'm not.
"Listen, I go to church with a Republican who's farther to the left than I am. He believes in big government as long as the government is religious. I think government should be small and unobtrusive; there to protect me but not there to run my life or anyone else's. He and I disagree fervently about this and other issues. He's also white. But despite his being a white Republican and he and I disagreeing on several issues, we're still friends. In fact, when he and I talk politics, it always stays civil and respectful. As a matter of fact, he and all white Republicans I've ever met treat me better than ANY Democrat, left or right, once they find out I vote Republican."
...They're racists. They only accept you because you call yourself a Republican.
"But you've already admitted that you will only accept me if I start voting for and supporting Democrats. You also claim that you're not a racist."
Right, because I'm a Democrat.
"But if they're racists because, so you claim anyway, that they only accept me because I agree with them politically, why are you NOT a racist if you reject me because we disagree?"
Because, as a Democrat, I allow you to truly be yourself.
"You're not even hearing yourself. You've said repeatedly that you WON'T allow me to be myself and still accept me. I have to start saying things you agree with first."
Once you start agreeing with me, you can be an authentic black.
"How on earth can that be true? You're white! How does agreeing with another white person make me more authentic? Listen, until I told you my political persuasion you were all ready to accept me. You apparently believed I was an authentic black until then. Now you accuse me of being self-loathing, an Uncle Tom with Stockholm syndrome. And all because my political leanings differ from what you, a white person, believe they should be. So now, until I change my political leanings to be more like yours, a white person, you will reject me and see me as "not authentic." And yet you want to call Republicans racist!"
I'm gonna stop the conversation here because it's just gonna go in circles. The core principles are this: Democrats, especially white ones, are always exempt from charges of racism, even when they openly display it, such as ripping on blacks who "escape the plantation". Republicans, on the other hand, are racist no matter what.
I still can't believe the lengths liberals go to to justify this, and they can't even see it!
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