If the Tea Party favorite self-destructs, African Americans on the right will pay the price.
Don’t tell anyone, but I’m envious of black conservatives.
They can see America through a visor that was clouded for me many years ago. To them, this is a nation of opportunity for anyone who is willing to work hard enough. I believe that, too, but experience has taught me that such a concept must be spoken with a wink, or written with an asterisk.
On the surface they are right, that this is the wealthiest, most prosperous society in the history of civilization and that we’re damn lucky to be in a nation where at least our social position is fluid and potentially mobile — a nation where we can pretty much do as we please if we conform to certain rules … and racism is only in your head.
After the things I’ve witnessed and experienced, I can’t take that position. But I envy the ability to be so blasé about race in America, as if closing one’s eyes eliminates the problem.
On the other hand, we’ve got people like Herman Cain, an idealist who thinks that the unemployed are in their situations because they just don’t try hard enough, that blacks are “brainwashed into not being open-minded” about conservative positions and that racism doesn’t hold blacks back (using himself as an example), and who believes that God told him to run for president, sort of like the way God told Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt.
And stuff like that is pretty much where the envy stops.
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SOURCE: The Root
Madison Gray
BCNN1 WP 