One of the links off Alas, A Blog that I found interesting was Standpoint Theory, The "Voice of Color," and "Uncle Toms": Positioning Conservative Minorities at The Debate Link.
Basically cool, though seriously more complicated than necessary...probably because race requires certain gestures in the public debate:
I do believe that the standpoint of a speaker (including, in areas related to racism and racial issues, their race) is relevant to how we evaluate the speech. However, I am disconcerted at the tendency of some on the left to only trumpet certain stories while deriding others--namely, the opinions of minority conservatives.
One wonders if Mr. Schraub is disconcerted at the tendency of some on the right to only trumpet stories by minority conservatives while deriding the opinions of minority progressives?
In this case, the political alignments are key. The "minority" is the adjective, which modifies the reaction to the progressive or conservative. So complain about both or neither, because it's a single phenomenon.
At any rate, I take Conservatives of whatever hue equally seriously...and I really have no beef with a Black guy being a Republican. I have beef when people misrepresent the Republican Party's history and/or platform to Black folks. I have beef when people misrepresent Black folks' history and/or platform to white folks. I have beef when people misrepresent themselves as the voice of a significant fragment of the community. But the worst I ever said about Dr. Rice personally is that she's a loyal employee.
I feel the Republican Party does have race issues, gender issues. I'm just very careful to talk about them as a seperate issue from the people they recruit because of those issues.
Next post will be about some trouble Darkstar is starting.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Furl
Google
Yahoo
To answer your question:
To answer your question: While I don't have a problem with either liberals or conservatives noting the stories of their "own" minorities, I am troubled when either group tries to frame their story as somehow authentic or superior to the opposing one. So yes, when Republicans try and act as if only their speakers are "objectively" examining minority issues, I get pissed. As I wrote in here:
It's equal-opportunity offense, but of course both sides flip the hierarchy to benefit themselves.
And, not to overload, but if
And, not to overload, but if you found those posts interesting (albeit admittedly a little dense), you might like the whole set. In reverse chronological order:
Dissections of Power: Can Blacks Be Racist to Whites?
The Internal Critic and Intersectionality: Who's Looking Out For the Minority Right?
Buried Treasure
Conservative for a Day
We Are (Are We?) Better Than This.
Like the post you linked to, I believe these too are both interesting and a little dense :-). I'm nothing if not consistent.
Enjoy!
"Minority conservatives, by
"Minority conservatives, by contrast, are assumed to be bought and paid for, speaking from an “impaired consciousness” (MacKinnon’s term), or at best useful dupes who’d otherwise be totally obscure. The impact is the same–minorities who agree with us are the only ones who possess merit. Those who don’t are commie radicals (to conservatives)/uncle toms (to liberals)."
I have no use for black conservatives or white liberals. And, at the risk of pandering to the stereotype, my experience with black conservatives is that they are bought and paid for or are seeking ways to sell out. They have every right to whore, if that's what they want to do. But when they function as the spokespersons for antiblack agendas (Ward Connerly) or as shock troops in the army of white supremacy (Condi Rice and Colin Powell), they should be confronted and challenged at every turn.
I have no problem identifying and excoriating tomcoonery when I see it. But, like P6, I don't equate black conservatism with membership in the Republican Party. I know the history of black involvement in the R. party. And I am old enough to remember the soild Democratic South of the fifties and sixties (George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Strom Thurmond, Herman Talmadge, etc.). I also know, for example, that Richard Nixon (racist that he was) had a far better record on civil rights than John F. Kennedy. The Presidential election of 1960 triggered a sizable swing of black voters from the Republican to the Democratic Party. Far too much credit is given to the role of Richard Daley's machine in Chicago in electing Kennedy, and not enough to the role of black voters (Kennedy's phone call to Coretta Scott King while Martin Luther King Jr. was in a Georgia jail was a decisive political maneuver. It happened on the eve of the election).
What is important here is that we scrutinize and analyze the words and deeds of black conservatives and black Republicans and not paint everyone with the same brush.
One more thing, I have no use for the Democratic Party either. It's long past time for black folks and others to understand that there is only one party in America: the Corporate Party. Everyone in political office is bought and paid for by special interests (none of which cares about the genuine interests of the citizens of this country).