An excellent reply...

I got this reply to my first post "Are You a Closet Black Conservative?" from a good friend of mine in Chicago. It is extremely well articulated and thought provoking and I felt compelled to share it. Thanks Jimmie for the response. Your response is an excellent point of learning and education and adds great detail to the conversation.

Jimmie's reply:

My brother's brother on the right, I understand your position and appreciate you and your ideology. However, in trying to understand why my people, the love of my soul, are skewed toward the Liberal party or as you say, "Conservative Brother in the Closet". I think the answer to our Diaspora is in your analogy of the closet. But first, I want one to understand the context in which my position is founded. To understand our current Liberal affiliation we must go back to our founding fathers intent. Please read and reflect for a moment on what our preamble of the Constitution of the United States means to you.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America".

After reading the preamble each of us will hopefully have a similar framework in which we can begin to understand the premise and the failed promise in which we, the majority/average African-American, struggles with daily.

After reading the preamble, and having a thorough understanding of our current economical, social, and racial progress or regress depending on where you look, I always felt a since of relief that I'm a citizen of the United States of America and not living in Africa. However, we know as a people because of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that our founding fathers did not include us in the We. We were slaves; We were property; We were called the N word. The reason that African-Americans are predominately Liberal is that WE are Afraid and because of our fear WE are in the closet.

We understand in this country there is a thin line that separates Blacks from being an African-American or Prisoner / Slave so we are fearful.

The 13th amendment we all know abolished slavery. However, it had limited exceptions, such as those convicted of a CRIME. Why do you think there are a disproportionate number of African-Americans in prison? Why did the 13th amendment establish the link between slavery, servitude, and crime? Were Negro's in prison prior to the abolishment of slavery to justify the link? Did the 13th amendment only abolish a portion of slavery? The answer to these questions is beyond the scope of this Liberal point of view. However, as a Black man aware of the problems we have in our criminal justice system I'm fearful for the link between crime and servitude.
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History tells us that Conservatives pound-for-pound has done more for Blacks than Liberals. Abe Lincoln and 2 of the 3 co-sponsors of the 13th amendment were conservatives. However, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were Liberals, and with the momentum established by Dr. Martin Luther King they signed the Civil rights acts which ended segregation. The civil rights movement united African-Americans and the democratic party so strongly that today the masses view any African-American that cross the line as a Clarence Thomas or a JC Watts which today is to high a price for conservatism.

Solution: I think that Conservatism for African-Americans is forward looking and should be embraced by any person who believes in a conservative ideology. We must not allow anyone to segment us by race, gender, religion, employment, housing, access to the American dream, nor our political affiliation. The only way we can overcome our fear of moving away from the line is to remove the line and just be citizens of America. No more Blacks, Colored, Negro, N…., Afro-American, African-Americans…etc. We know how to embrace and cherish our culture without someone segmenting us with labels.

Until the day comes when we don't have a label, I guest the majority of us will be in the closet because we know there is strength in numbers which permits us to move forward our agenda

Just another brothe r's thoughts