First, I think that it is entirely possible to be a Black Conservative without any conflict, if and only if certain precautions are taken and certain mindsets are avoided. However, there is a certain brand of Black Conservatism that is damaging to the former institution in order to support the latter. Reactionary Black Conservatives (RBC) are people that I dislike the most and people I believe, have the least to offer regarding moving the Black Community forward outside of more outright racist. In my personal experience, anyone who makes an attempt to live the mindset of a Liberal Democrat has the potential of becoming a RBC. I think this happens for several reasons but the main reason is that it takes a level of energy to overcome to Inertia of Liberalism. I think that while intellectualism and its pursuits are a preferred force to overcome inertia, they are far less accessible than what can what powers many over the cliff: hate and anger.
While it may be perfectly rational to hate certain things and be angry about other things, left unchecked it can fester then metastasize and become your dominant ideology, without you realizing it. This happened to me in the past when I abandoned the left. I became conservative, latched onto the plentiful hate and eventually became a RBC for a time. It was only after I settled into myself, actually studied a little philosophy and did a self-examination did I realize what had happened and what I needed to change about myself and what I was consuming.
I see RBCs on my Facebook timeline who went down a much darker and deeper path than I, where hate of the left and self-hate commingled in a witches’ brew of ideology, dogma and contrarian fiction. I see what I was and what I could have become. I see famous ones, with their gaggles of non-black supporters, who use them as a source of validation, a security blanket and a tool to prevent discussion and analysis. They are swords and shields. “So and So said this and he is black, therefore” should be prepended to someone of the videos that are shared from certain actors. In future post, I plan this will be elucidated but I think there is an easy test to see what sort of Black Conservative you are dealing with: Look at who makes up their support. The RBCs will almost always be more popular because of the role they play. The more principled Black Conservatives will be called traitors and race baiters and eventually be cast aside as something less Conservative.
One of my goals is to make sure that Black Libertarianism does not have the same relationship to Conservatism has to RBCs. I’ve seen some of the evidence of a similar movement in some of my interactions but I mostly think this is due to the great shadow that Conservatism casts across L/libertarians. It’s important for me personally that Liberty and Libertarianism be something that supports my Blackness and ethnic identity and not something that would cause a false choice. A multifaceted and modular framework is what I believe the movement must be in order for it to survive in any usable form. I believe that is what Black Libertarians (and all Libertarians) must work towards.
That is purpose of this blog. I hope in whatever small way I can, I help make New Liberty.
soulfuliberty 