"I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open the Door, I'll Get it Myself)." – James Brown

“In the colonies the truth stood naked but the citizens of the mother country preferred it with clothes on.” – Jean-Paul Sartre, introduction to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth

I double-dog dare anyone to solve the mystery of the Negro Conservative.

The dictionaries define conservatism as “the tendency to maintain the existing order and to resist change;” conservative is “favoring preservation of the existing order.” Why would an African American, whose historical experience and contemporary status are largely shaped by racism and discrimination in every facet of social, political, and economic intercourse, want to “preserve the existing order” and “resist change”?

To be clear, I am not referring to African Americans like my parents who were strict in their values about self-respect, work, faith, family, community, discipline, and manners (“Sit down, Junior, and quit acting a fool.”) Laziness, or “loafing,” was close to a sin before the Almighty God.

Self-help at both the individual and community levels was the gold standard. So was justice. Since when are these values “conservative”? Since the right-wing think tanks and media machine reconfigured its code words to obscure racist intentions. Since it upgraded its language and operating system to give cover to the same old disgraceful practices of disenfranchisement.  Since old (young, too), entrenched, Manifest Destiny right-wingers crafted a grand strategy to return America to “the good ole days.” Remember them?

As a part of its relentless propaganda campaign to demonize African Americans, the right-wing has hijacked the values of my parents and their contemporaries as its exclusive playbook. And if “the problem” with African Americans is rooted in the lack of “conservative values,” then that logically dismisses all of the traditional black complaints.

In the conservative mentality, it makes sense that after centuries of slavery and discrimination, affirmative action is “reverse discrimination.” The Voting Rights Act is “political affirmative action,” and the plague on the nation’s house is not an absence of voting rights, but voter fraud committed by blacks. Fair employment policies are “politically correct” straitjackets choking the life out of businesses, and Trojan horses for the dreaded “multiculturalism.” And safety net policies represent New Deal socialism, big government hand-outs, and a sense of entitlement by people who are recklessly devoid of “personal responsibility.”

What is most egregious is that the right-wing has recruited a new generation of Negroes to communicate its propaganda and give “legitimacy” to messages that otherwise would be recognized as obvious poison to the needs and interests of African Americans.

The New York Times recently reported that the Republican Party is grooming a crop of eager Negro Republicans to run for governor or the U.S. Senate in 2006 in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, which is a part of a larger scheme to take a chunk of the black vote from the trifling Democrats.

Deeper still, Bush’s faith-based initiative has furnished a cash-driven enticement to a growing network of black preachers parroting the “conservative” message, and attacking the credibility of progressive black leadership as well. The package is completed and the bow is tied by the out-of-the-blue appearance of a truck load of right-wing black media commentators, from Armstrong Williams to Joe Watkins. The list is long, and growing.

If you depend on the visibility of Negro conservative commentators to measure African American public opinion, you could only conclude that Black America had gone “Right.” The only demographic of media commentators growing faster than black right-wingers is the surreal saturation of blonde Eva Brauns.

To be frank, Negro conservatives have always been with us, starting with old Tom on the plantation (“Massa, we sick?”). To be fair, some have been honest in having a different approach to the road to freedom; Booker T. Washington comes to mind. Others have been charlatans. (I won’t call any names here, you know who they are.) Others have just been inexplicable; Zora Neale Hurston comes to mind. Pardon me, but it must also be said that even though I have not met a black person over 40 who didn’t “march with Dr. Kang,” I remember the black preachers and churches that ran away from him. I remember scary Negroes saying Dr. King should “just oughta hush and go somewhere and sit down.”

And certainly it is understandable that blacks embraced the Party of Lincoln after Emancipation, as the Democrats and Dixiecrats mounted a campaign of disenfranchisement and terror against African Americans for decades following the Civil War and into the early 20^th century, including a fierce resistance to desegregation and anti-lynching legislation.

Even during the sixties – and perhaps before – there has always been a schism between those blacks that measured progress and social change only by the extent to which blacks were included in American life (“The Big House”), and those who pushed for structural change beyond mere inclusion. 

So, the seeds of an honest ideological and strategic disagreement are deeply planted in our history. (They tell me that Booker T. Washington and W.E.B DuBois are still arguing.) That is a debate that needs a new summons. Bill Lucy’s recent call for a return to “Gary” is right on time, and offers an opportunity for leadership accountability and honest, vigorous debate about vision, strategy, message, and integrity.

Let the Negro conservatives come to “Gary” and let’s explore the merits. Let’s have an honest discussion about 21^st century America and the best strategy for African Americans. But later for the disingenuous and asinine rhetoric hatched in Republican think tanks by white right-wingers. Later for the prophylacytic messaging and absurd role-playing.

Let’s take the historic baton and solve the mystery of the Negro conservative. Is it a legitimate political course connected to the realities of African American challenges? Is it mere mathematics of putting our troops in both parties and all camps? Is it like simply choosing which team you want to play on? Is it just being tired of sitting on the bench? Is it only about getting paid? Is it what America really is, take it or leave it? Is it the T-word? Is it akin to the Stockholm Syndrome? Do we really want a class of Duvaliers, Savimbis, and Mobutos in America?

Is it possible to be a Negro conservative when American conservatism is inextricably tied to racism, the obstruction of every single step of black progress, and the dichotomous syndrome of black inferiority and white supremacy?  Is it a butt-neckit contradiction? Is it real or is it Memorex? Let’s see. To paraphrase your president, “bring it on.”

Meet me in “Gary” and let’s talk. But come honest; come real. And if it gets your motor running, take a page from the story about the cherry tree and George Washington, with his wig wearing self.

Charles Cinque Fulwood is a writer and communications strategist living in Washington, DC.

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