The Black Community - By B. Glover

The "Black Community" is a phrase I hear quite often. Too often. It has become a phrase that is uttered so frequently and with such disregard that I wonder if anyone stops to contemplate it's meaning, if there is one. I lump it into the same category as "working families".
"Working families" became a liberal buzz word during the Clinton years relating to proposed tax cuts. "Working families" was code word for families whose members worked but were below a certain, undisclosed income threshold. The incinuation being that families earning above the mysterious threshold somehow were no longer "working". At the time, and to present day, conservatives have had every opportunity to force liberals to define the term. Exactly how much money does someone have to make before they are no longer considered a "working family"? In this case, as in so many countless others, conservatives have dropped the ball. Left undefined for nearly 20 years, the phrase and the ideal it embodies, rolls off both the tongue and brain with equal intellectual neglect.

On to the equally enigmatic "Black Community". What is it? Where is it? Who is it? Also undefined, it has come to lump all people of African-American decent into a monolithic chattel, single in thought and purpose. Sadly, whenever I hear the term, it is all too often followed by statements or policies with which I fervently disagree. To add insult to injury, I futher must acknowledge that I, as an African-American, have just been included as a proponent of that policy by default of my very existence. In essence, I have just been used by my political opponent, without my consent, to bolster the strength of something I most likely diametrically oppose. I am black and therefore part of the "black community", therefore I have been counted.

As conservative blacks, we know exactly what is meant by the term "black community". It would more accurately be labeled the "black, liberal, urban community", who's value structure, political leanings and moral platitudes are as far removed from our own as probably any that co-exist within this union. It is imperative that we conservative blacks define the term "black community" for what it is and do not allow ourselves to be counted as part of a group with which we have so little in political common. It is only when we define ourselves and draw the distinction between our view of the world and theirs that we will ever be recognized as an independent force and be given a seat at the political table.

Article written by B. Glover @ http://conservativebrotherhood.org/?q=node/231