Before you start naming off the obvious, let’s put this into perspective.

There are many black conservatives who’ve worked, more of less, behind the scenes to promote Republican values. Very few have been formally embraced by the Republican Party because many of us were at it long before the prominence of social media. It was more about the mission of pushing back against the kneejerk all-Republicans-are-racist narrative. We appeared in hostile environments, took on controversial issues, and at times our messaging was much more informative and engaging than your average wonk.

CNN only invite black conservatives on their broadcasts when we speak out of turn, have to be questioned as to our sanity, and ridiculed once the segments end. We are the Fox News backstop against unfounded or made up accusations against the movement and/or the party. We do it more for love of the concept of conservatism that the Republican Party itself.

In many respects, we outperform the party when it comes to the means of creating messages and the fat-and-happy entrenched are naturally threatened by those who do it better.

For example, I dare you to find ONE speaker who so effortlessly and fearlessly explained conservative opposition to gay marriage when the topic was white hot or since….

This was not issued in the mocking, self-promoting tone many of today’s younger mouthpieces would. There were no Facebook likes and Twitter follows to be gained when Alan Keyes spoke in Boston. This wasn’t streamed online. It couldn’t be shared by the hundreds of thousands as to create a back-patting metric that excites today’s nonprofits and cable news interests.

The older group of black conservative activists I knew/know were comfortable with our individual methods of reach. Hardly any of us got rich off our activism but if we could speak somewhere and later be surrounded by a room full of students who never heard black people speaking the way we did and just had to hear more, that’s all we needed to keep us going. We never lied to anyone about who we are, how we got here, and where we wanted to go. All that’s off the table now, as in any movement, there are those who are there more for themselves than the movement.

Unlike “Good Trubah”, there will be no CNN Films documentaries honoring Lloyd, Harry or Herman. At least Mr. Cain got an R.I.P. mention on Fox News and some talk radio shows, once. And as many times as we physically stuck our necks out for the cause, I foresee no formal honors on the conservative side for any of us when our times come and I think we’re okay with that.

Allan, Zo, Star, Alan, Erik, Mychal, Anita, Alveda, Jesse Lee, Larry, Charles, David, Niger, Lynn, C.L., William, and my other black conservative acquaintances will be remembered for more than opening a door. We did it at a time where there was no real market for our sincere points-of-view and there was nothing really to personally gain. We did it because it needed to be done and we had to be damn good at it.

Being consistent can be a real inconvenience.

Anytime the left needs someone to interpret the delicate nuances of an incident in the black community for the world, the media puts out calls for their usual spokespersons: Jesse Jackson and/or Al Sharpton because we all know THEY speak for all of us. While we acknowledge the condescension and racism inherent in that kind of thinking, liberals are not alone.

It’s sad to note that because of decades of being called racists, too many white conservatives are quick to promote the newest shiny thing promoted on social media to prove themselves not, while failing to vet the possible motivations that inspired the shine. I’ve said many times, either here or during interviews, that the black community is the ONLY group in this nation that has superficially-recognized, unelected leaders and too many bleeding hearts that elevate them to that status.

I’ve also said many times that it won’t take a “leader” to bring the blacks out of the progressive prison of the mind. It will take that individual reckoning and subsequent decisions that will determine if a person wants to remain in the proven liberal pit of despair or choose another option and climb out to freedom.

Unfortunately, too many conservatives are no better than liberals in propping up those THEY believe best speak for us.

All it takes to get noticed is repeat something lifted from those who’ve truly suffered as a result of liberal retribution for leaving the “plantation” without authorization, and get elevated to “rock star” status. Many of the newly-elevated were chosen and are being actively promoted by those who see a promotional, thus monetary return for their own entities (nonprofits). For example, look at the conservative nonprofits that claim to be in support of black conservatives and you’ll find well-paid white conservatives running them and unpaid black conservatives being compensated with that “free publicity”. Of course, those white conservatives are the ones who choose who the spokespeople are, regardless of their dubious backgrounds.

Just like liberals.

Like too many online aggregators that find stories real media companies produce, rewrite them and claim to “break” news, these new authorized black conservative spokespersons regurgitate the profound statements of those who were disowned by family members, and in some cases lost livelihoods because they chose not to think as the liberal left demanded they do. These new “black conservative leaders” came from comfortable households and have the luxury of a social media platform to shout out their newfound words of wisdom for those they count on for mutual exploitation.

I do not observe Jackson, Sharpton, Cummings, Lewis, Skip Gates, Maya Angelou, John Lewis, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Don Lemon, Melissa Harris-Perry, Joy Reid or any of the other liberal blacks given a platform to speak with conviction on my behalf. I wasn’t given an opportunity to vote for any one them and their success, given their collective missions, has been a dismal failure if not damaging. They say what their massahs approve and they’ve been afforded comfortable lifestyles as compensation to meet a political end.

See: house nigga

Black conservatives who’ve lost much because of their activism are too numerous to count but their messages have been successfully co-opted: Shelby Steele, Alan Keyes, Herman Cain, Frances Rice, Ward Connerly, Wayne Perriman, Alveda King, Jesse Lee Peterson, Mychal Massie, Roy and Niger Innis, Anita Moncrief, Lynn Swann, Allen West (and many more) and it’s embarrassing that bleeding heart and/or opportunist donor-dollar conservatives have now included Candace Owens (who was a Democrat until very recently and escaped the legendary ghetto of Stamford, Connecticut) and Kanye West in that respected category.

Those now being elevated to black conservative spokesperson status, if we’re to be intellectually consistent, and those elevating them for monetary gain are no different than those on the left.

It’s also clear these nouveau-activists can’t stomach what comes with being a sanctioned leader.

Silencing opposing views. Who does that?

Almost all of the black conservatives mentioned above suffered more than some social media tweaking and never once did it dawn on them to sue to deny the free speech of others, including racist hate speech from so-called progressives. Sad it never occurs to the easily-butt hurt that the easiest way to rid oneself of the Facebook and/or Twitter emotional torment blitzkrieg is turning off the fucking computer.

If we’re to believe that black people can think for themselves, then we don’t need the publicity-seeking telling black people what they should be thinking. If you can’t name an unelected “leader” for any other ethnic group in the United States, maybe there’s a damn good reason for this.

What shall we do with the Negro? I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature’s plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!
— Frederick Douglass

That is, unless you really do think black people can’t think for themselves….

On a Friday evening, days before gay marriage was legalized, Ambassador Alan Keyes went to Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall and shared his impression on how we got here, why, and where we may be headed as a society.

Considering where we find ourselves today, some of his observations in 2004 were quite prophetic.

When a person decides to enter the arena of ideas, I would ask him or her to make a simple decision: either be a pundit or a politician. When one is a pundit and tries to influence the sentiments of others, all he or she has is their word. Politicians have no such impediment. Their primary goal is to be elected by as many people as possible, so past loyalties can and will be sacrificed to meet that objective.

I feel like I’ve been Keyed….

At the risk of alienating myself from the good people who support him, it’s now time I stick by my convictions and cut Alan Keyes and this new baggage loose.

I nervously talked with him briefly in 1996 on the phone when I was making a pitch to produce the radio and television advertisements for his presidential campaign. I had a more lengthy conversation with his chief-of-staff, but later I had to look the other way when he acted the fool trying to crash a televised presidential debate in Atlanta and got arrested. That campaign bid failed, but I remained a loyal fan of his.

I watched in awe as he delivered incredibly moving speeches during the Clinton impeachment rallies in Washington, D.C. I saw him make women cry as he put words together in ways that could only be described as genius, and he was ad-libbing…!

It was that Alan Keyes that gave me the fire in the belly to become active in politics and later a columnist. I knew, as such, I’d have to carefully choose my positions and be ready to stand by them no matter what. To do otherwise risks credibility, which is all a columnist has.

I went to Stanford Law College last February and despite the snickering from some students who hide within the safety of group-think, I defended my thesis against reparations. I wrote a column saying so two years ago and have remained consistent whenever the topic came back into the news. Should I flip on that position, I’ll have to not only explain myself to those who will feel betrayed, but those who didn’t like me in the first place who’ll throw that column right back in my face.

In April 2002, Alan Keyes wrote an anti-reparations column called “Paid in Blood” in which he said:

“Holy Week is a season for reflecting on a great price paid, once and for all, and the life that arose in triumph over sin and evil once that price was paid. And what an unfortunate season, indeed, for some to renew their effort to extort ‘reparations’ for slavery from their fellow citizens.

“Yet, lawsuits have been filed. Those responsible propose to settle the accounts of slavery leaving the Civil War out of the equation – complete and utter nonsense. The price for the sin of slavery has already been paid, in blood.”

Thousands of white people died in an effort to free blacks from the legal industry of slavery. Since then, yes, the road has been rocky, but if the legacy of slavery were still ingrained in society, there would be no Oprah Winfrey or Bill Cosby or Michael Jordan, or me. They only thing separating their stature from mine is that they got seriously paid.

But Keyes adequately made the point; “The price for the sin of slavery has already been paid, in blood.”

Keyes quoted President Abraham Lincoln:

If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said, “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

Before we get too far off course, since we know where Keyes was coming from before, let’s compare that to what he said on August 17, 2004, when in an attempt to suck up to liberals and blacks in Illinois, he suggested that a “tax amnesty” be granted to help black people and called it a “traditionally Republican, conservative and market-oriented approach.”

When asked by a Chicago Tribune reporter who quoted Keyes on his television show when he said, “You want to tell me that what they suffered can actually be repaired with money? You’re going to do the same thing those slaveholders did, put a money price on something that can’t possibly be quantified in that way.” Keyes replied our nation has tried many ways with “the Great Society programs of the sixties” to “the original and proper concept of affirmative action developed under Republican leadership during the Nixon years” and he questions its success.

He added idea of “removing the tax burden from the black community for a generation or two in order to encourage business ownership, create jobs and support the development of strong economic foundations for working families. This has the advantage of letting people help themselves, rather then pouring money into government bureaucracies that displace and discourage their own efforts.”

I would’ve liked to see Alan Keyes state his objection of reparations to the quick-pick-lotto-mentality electorate. I would’ve liked to see if he could have single-handedly turned around that issue and left the Randall Robinson wing neutered. That would be one hell of a legacy. But Alan Keyes became just one more in a group of hacks that will say and do anything to get elected and it is therefore a sad day.

Keyes’ objected to reparations before because it would take money directly from citizens who were not directly involved in the slave trade. He now claims a ‘tax-exemption’ reparation would correct “the historic imbalance that results from the truth that black slaves toiled for generations at a tax rate that was effectively 100 percent.”

He concluded by saying, “My firm goal and ultimate objective is to replace the income tax, and thereby free all Americans from this insidious form of tax slavery. It is well known that this is one of the key priorities of the Keyes campaign.”

I acknowledge I walk on shaky ground when going up against Alan Keyes rhetorically, but this is no place for his spin. In reality, another word for spin is “bullshit.”

Alan Keyes was one of those people who instructed us to stand up for our convictions and be ready to defend them no matter what. When a professor at Stanford called me and fellow black conservatives “misguided” in front of a national television audience, I didn’t retreat. I didn’t qualify. I didn’t tone it down. I didn’t forget what I wrote before in order to-go-along-to-get-along.

I stood my ground and denounced a scheme that would make certain “scholars” and lawyers rich beyond their dreams, and make black people better off temporarily. As I said there and wrote before, once the money’s gone, what’s next? How many times can blacks go back to the well and seek more water? And if you think race relations fluctuate now, just wait until every non-black in this country has to dig deep to right a wrong that happened close to two centuries ago.

In 2002 Keyes wrote, “Our liberty, reborn from the Civil War’s labor, remains imperfect – as we must expect of any mortal thing. Pettifogging lawyers and dishonest scholars will always be able to carp selectively and ignorantly about the warts upon our body politic.

“But the truth of the Civil War is that the terrible price for American slavery has been paid, once for all, by the American people’s deliberate acceptance of their duty to pay it when, in God’s providence, Southern intransigence brought it due.”

So what happened to Alan Keyes? What happened to those “convictions?”

Last May 14th, I went to Faneuil Hall in Boston to record Keyes on the eve of the Gay Marriage law being enacted in Massachusetts. After his speech, I approached his agent and asked if the congressional candidate I was representing could meet Alan. I was asked point blank, “Is he pro-life?” After answering in the affirmative, I realized that this was a qualifier. Keyes seemingly didn’t want to share the same air as someone who didn’t share his convictions.

So how now can Keyes look people in the eye who’ve stuck by him amidst four failed candidacies and television show and expect us to look the other way on this, especially when we dare not cross him when it comes to betraying his “convictions?”

Every black conservative needs to take a time out and slowly remove the knife Alan Keyes has firmly planted in each of our backs. When I go to colleges this fall and try to articulate a different point of view on politics, I’ll have to be prepared when Alan Keyes’ words are thrown in my face. Since Keyes now calls for some kind of payback, my opinion will certainly be taken as a joke when compared to someone of his former stature.

For that reason I will have to distance myself from Alan Keyes for the time being. After writing this, I know I’ll be persona non grata with the Keyes folks, but I do this because that’s what standing on one’s principles means, and I refuse to be spun. What he’s doing is essentially talking down to an audience he must feel is gullible and beneath him. That goes against everything I believe as a black Republican.

I’m sure if he loses in November he may take it all back, since after being rejected by the citizens of Illinois, all he’ll have is what is left of his loyal Republican base.

I understand that politics makes people say and do things they feel uncomfortable with, but I never thought that would apply to “Mr. Convictions” himself.

I never dreamed I would ever be in disagreement with Alan Keyes out of fear he’d lecture me into tears. But this time he’s wrong and he’s damaged a lot of people who’ve been standing by him in this battle of ideas. I may not ever be able to talk with him on the phone again, but so be it.

That is called “conviction.”