When Black Conservatives Fight

Two dudes causing all the commotion

A Woman Plans. $1000 needed.

The Photoshop below is causing a lot of chatter in one of the conservative circles - most are black - I frequent.

Amusement. Outrage. Approval. Accusations of betrayal. The responses run the gamut.

But I think the comparison, while imperfect, is valid, with the indictment by the Grand Jury in Fulton County, Georgia being the least significant “coincidence.”

• Both spied on by the FBI using … ahem … trumped-up allegations

• Both viewed as a threat to Democrat Party power structure(s)

Many of the black conservatives who are angered by the Photoshop pairing are displaying a level of Carcass Worship that floors me.

Those who are reacting emotionally are using racial terms towards those who approve of the picture. Examples:

• Buck-dancing

• Step-n-fetch-it

• Tap-dancing

My maternal grandfather, John E. Thomas (r), was an actual tap dancer. And he was cooler than you. Better looking, too.

These types of terms - meant as insults from one black person to another - indicate that a given black person holds his/her opinions solely for the approval of white onlookers. Black conservatives have been catching this kind of flak from black liberals for a long time. But it’s revealing to watch as black conservatives toss these shame grenades at other black conservatives.

It demonstrates that the fear of being inferior runs deep among many of us, even conservatives; so deep that we can’t even see the irony in using these terms as weapons against each other.

Other black conservatives who are offended by the comparison are calling the Christianity of those who approve of it into question. Really.

For the record, Martin Luther King Jr. was not Jesus the Christ, nor is Donald J. Trump. Both are/were just flawed human beings who tried to make things better in our country.

Still others see the Photoshopped picture as a tool of manipulation.

They [white conservatives] are exploiting black people, who half the time they claim don't exist. They are the exact same as Democrats using black people's pain for their political gain.

Well, a person can only be the tool of another on a volunteer basis. One way to make yourself vulnerable to being a tool is to allow emotions to take over your rational thinking. This juxtaposition is indeed intended to sway emotions, but we don’t have to stay there, do we?

One thing that I began to think about as I read the various responses: the role of MLK.

We black Americans have a tendency to regard Dr. King as ours. Many of us have older relatives who had a portrait of him hanging on their living room wall right next to Jesus (yes, I know). (Side note: sometimes portraits of JFK and RFK would be hanging on the other side.)

On the contrary, MLK and his legacy belong to all Americans. His famed Dream was one of the full flowerings of the ideas planted by the Founding Fathers.

To quote myself:

[W]ith those concrete principles in hand, black Americans were able to point to them and say to other Americans, “live up to your -- to our -- principles.”

I know that the finger-pointing will not be stopped by anything I say, though. What I’d like you to do, dear readers, is to watch and learn from this little dust-up. You may not care about this, but you will care about something much bigger. Those are coming up.

Probably today.