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.

No, leave it to relevance-starved Mitt Romney to be one of the first to put his foot snuggly into mouth.

In an interview, the Utah Republican senator brushed off the prospect of Trump following through and officially nominating Cain: “I doubt that will be a nomination. But if it were a nomination, you can bet [what] the interest rates he would be pushing for. If Herman Cain were on the Fed, you’d know the interest rate would soon be 9-9-9,” Romney said in an interview on Thursday afternoon.

Later Thursday, Trump announced that he had “recommended” Cain for the position, saying that Cain was undergoing a background check and “would be in great shape. I find Herman to be an outstanding person, a truly outstanding individual,” the president said. “I would think he would do very well there.”
— Politico, 4/4/19

Herman Cain is qualified to be on the Federal Reserve Board. He’s been on one before.

In 1994, as head of the National Restaurant Association, he had the opportunity to speak with President Clinton during a nationally televised town hall meeting. Here, Herman challenged the President regarding the impact on businesses if his health care overhaul proposal were passed. President Clinton attempted to assure him and the millions of viewers watching at home that his legislation would not harm American business owners and their employees.

Herman was skeptical. “Quite honestly Mr. President, your calculations are incorrect,” he said. “In the competitive marketplace, it simply doesn’t work that way.” His words echoed across America, and Newsweek named Herman Cain the primary saboteur of Hillarycare.

Through these and other appearances on behalf of the National Restaurant Association, Herman began working with business leaders across all sectors of the American economy. This led to his acceptance of a position on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and he was subsequently elected their chairman. In this role, he analyzed economic conditions in the region and notified the Federal Reserve of how their policies should respond.
— WSB, 4/23/13

Obviously, Mitt Romney doesn’t associate with many black Republicans so knowing anything about one would be a stretch. But this is yet another lesson in being very careful about criticizing someone just because you can; not because you’re informed enough about that person to do so.

Then again, Romney STILL has his sights on what he’s always considered his birthright: the presidency. So we’ll be graced by his presence and pained “wit” (thanks to Utah) for the foreseeable future.

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….