Calling out the sellouts. By Eric Smith

We arbitrarily dismiss African American Republicans/Conservatives as being clueless, clownish buffoons at our own risk. Yes, their antics are hysterical but it is not so much their individual performances that should give us pause, it is rather those forces behind the scenes that choreograph that pose the real danger. These individuals are being used and in return for the selling of their souls allowing themselves to be used by their masters in the GOP to try to immunize the Far Right against charges of racism and give it cover for pursuing policies that discriminate along the lines of race; not the least of which is voter suppression, and denying the most needy among us who are most proportionally people of color, the most basic necessities of life; be it food, housing, education, or employment opportunities.

These people provide and have provided just enough of a diversion to allow the implementation of draconian social policies that annually costs untold thousands of poor people of color their lives either due to malnutrition, exposure, lack of adequate healthcare, or all three. We cannot afford for this to continue from either a practical or moral standpoint and as such we are obligated to speak out, expose, and undermine these individuals at every opportunity because in this case silence equals complicity. We simply cannot allow the Dr. Ben Carsons, the Clarence Thomases, and Herman Cains, of the world to blind us to the evil they front for. They may have sold their souls to the devil in return for a pot of gold but the rest of us do not have to.

There is far more to life than mere material gain or public prominence. Yes, the African middlemen who led the European slave catchers to Kunta Kinte, the person or persons of color who betrayed Nat Turner & John Brown, and more recently in another context the Jew or Jews who revealed the hiding place of Ann Frank to the Nazi Gestapo were all no doubt richly rewarded and held in the highest esteem by those who's cause they served but their personal enrichment & so called success in no way shape or form symbolized an advancement for those oppressed people they represented and the same holds equally true for the African American Republicans/Conservatives of today.

The advancement of a race, a religion, or a group, is a collective achievement; it is in no way signified by the advancement of a token few. A single grain of pepper in a pile of salt does not diversity make and those who claim it is so must be constantly called out for their vanity, their greed, and their placing of self far above that of the common good. If they accuse us of racism & being intolerant, fine. So be it. Let them. Who cares? Look merely at the people they front for and the policies they promote and you will know without a doubt who the real racists & intolerant ones among us are.

Call out these sellouts for what they are for there is nothing honorable about being a lackey for those who hate you and promote policies that are designed to ensure your ultimate destruction. Betrayal for whatever rhyme or reason is fundamentally evil. Not one successful African American Republican/Conservative would have gotten anywhere near where they are now if it had not been for those very civil rights laws, Affirmative Action programs, and expanded social safety nets that they now publicly despise. Not one. But for these policies which in effect gave the government the power to end legal segregation, voter suppression, and discrimination along the lines of race, we would never have heard of a Dr. Ben Carson, a Clarence Thomas, or a Herman Cain, because the racist people who gave them their key breaks in life would have felt under no legal obligation to do so.

Thus, the ultimate irony in all of this is that every black Republican/Conservative is where he or she is today because of some form of Affirmative Action. Had it been otherwise there would have been far more of them. You know, once Clarence Thomas got on the US Supreme Court to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall, there was no further talk on the part of President George H.W. Bush or of his son President George W. Bush adding another person of color on the Court to join him. If these Republicans had really been for diversity like they say, they wouldn't have just stopped at one. Likewise, now that President Obama has been reelected we hear no more talk of a "real" black man who happens to be Conservative being on top of the GOP presidential ticket in 2016.

Oh when President Obama first took office in 2009 we heard a whole lot of talk about "real" black men along the lines of Allen West, Herman Cain, and Tim Scott, being on the ticket against President Obama in 2012 but even then there was no serious talk about any of these people of color being on the top of that ticket and now that 2012 has passed there is absolutely no talk of any person of color being on the 2016 GOP presidential ticket at all.

Coincidence? No. A token only has value when it can be played and once these folks on the Far Right conclude that their tokens of color can no longer be used to positive effect, they are quickly cast aside & discarded; just ask Allen Keyes, Michael Steele, Allen West, or Herman Cain. We no longer hear the Republicans speak of these men as being presidential timber. We no longer hear the Republican establishment touting them as the alternative to Barack Obama now that he has been reelected and black people in 2012 again voted against the GOP to the tune of damn near 95%.

However, not all elections are runaways and so we need to keep calling these black sellout out for being sellouts. We can't let up on them. We owe it to ourselves as people of color and to this country we love & cherish to call them out and undermine them at every opportunity for in the end not only lives are at stake but the future of freedom in this country itself. Let us not ever forget that.