The Black Republican

I was describing to Steve just this morning (okay, yesterday morning...) how there are some people of the opposing political philosophy with whom I feel no real aggravation. It's actually closer to exasperation, and that's a big difference in my book. For these particular people, their perspective coupled with their essential goodness causes them (IMHO) to misunderstand that my contrary perspective does not mean I'm essentially evil (or at least "inherently wrong"). I believe in these people and their honest and well-meaning conviction of their positions. My hope and love for them rides on the belief that they are caught in a doctrine that has lied to them and misled them about me and what I believe, and that there's always hope I can work with them and occasionally sway them to agree with my side of an issue. This also causes my mind such grief that I almost think I could bend spoons with my despair.

But tonight I see that there is a corollary to this phenomenon, and despite 1-1/2 years of blogging, I'm suprised that this is the first time I truly understand this. There are other people - people who adhere to a philosophy very similar to my own - who cannot bring themselves to believe that I am on their side. Or perhaps, for reasons of their own, they just cannot allow themselves to be affiliated with a name I wear with unabashed pride, as a sign of that philosophy we share. While the first phenomenon I described is akin to exasperation, this one is closer to unrequited love: you can see the goodness in each other, and care for each other, but the other side isn't quite capable or willing to qualify it in the same way you are. That's more than puzzling - it hurts sometimes, and there's not much you can do about it.

Ambra Nykol brings this into focus where my outreach to the black community is concerned.

I grew up in a home with Christian Democrat parents. I couldn't even explain that one to you if I tried (and I will). However, when asked at one point by my high school history teacher about my family's political affiliation, without hesitation, I answered, "We tend to vote for Democrats because although we are against many of the things for which Democrats stand, we think the racial issues supercede the morality issues." At the time I don't think I understood what I was saying, but even now, I couldn't agree with that statement less.

Yet Ambra's piece is the first installment of a promised multi-post series called, "Why I Am Not a Republican". After reading this, I'm sure there's a 12-place setting of silverware somewhere that's just gotten twisted all to hell.

A wise man, caught in a time when he had a terrifying difference of opinion with his politcal rivals, once tried to reach out to them and show them that the ideals they shared far outweighed the differences that separated them.

We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Abraham Lincoln uttered these words during his first innagural address in an attempt to cross a far greater political divide than the one that separates me from black conservatives like Ambra today. That some in my party may have used tactics in the past forty years that were more than criminal is indefensible. But that the Republican Party itself should be prejudged for the actions of this minority over the tireless effort of the majority in the preceeding 100 years is incomprehensible to me.

This impression feeds off itself, causing our party to become more and more white. This is not proof in itself that Republicans are racist. Yet we continue to be portrayed as such, and this causes most of us to become disillusioned to the hope of ever being proved otherwise. That blacks who realize they don't share the radical socialist philosophies of today's Democratic Party have a hard time passing the gut-check and becoming Republicans isn't surprising for the exact same reason, but in reverse.

Honest Abe said it himself, "We are not enemies, but friends." We share many values and our party was the political home for many blacks for almost a century - for most blacks for most of that century. You don't have to be satisfied with the half a loaf the Democrats promise and never deliver. Prominent Republicans like Powell, Rice, Paige, Thomas, and Elder can tell you you have no more to fear from us than from them.

On the contrary, the longer we resist balancing out this equation, the greater the chance you will get nothing from the allegiance they've come to expect from you. And the longer we resist balancing out this equation, the less those despirited Republicans will expect they'll need to listen to black voices during debate. The longer it takes for the two of us to embrace our common heritage and our common future, the greater racism will fester on both sides.

UPDATE: Y'know, I read over this, and I get the distinct impression I might just be stepping over a line, especially with all these "you's" and "we's". I'm sounding especially preachy, perhaps.

Then again, another quote comes to mind:

Wait, hold on here. Is this a barbershop? Is this a barbershop? If we can't talk straight in a barbershop, then where can we talk straight? We can't talk straight nowhere else. You know, this ain't nothin' but healthy conversation, that's all.

A friend once complained that she didn't like two pictures of Mr. Lincoln on the masthead. Eddie's just given me a better idea for one of them.

UPDATE II: Ambra seems to have confused even herself in the process of writing her posts. The quote above has already been corrected, but with the morning light I see I went off in a direction that isn't exactly derivative of her post. I guess in some instances I'm talking to the Democrats she is talking about, and in others I'm talking to the conservatives like her who haven't yet decided what comes after being a former Democrat.

Well, in any event I got a barberpole out of it. And I'm anxiously awaiting the next installment.