THE HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL BARRIERS TO EXPANDING THE CONSERVATIVE VOTE AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS

African Americans were a liberal leaning constituency prior to the 1960s and partly for good reasons.  Breaking the Jim Crow system would inevitably involve the aggressive use of federal government power and the most reliable supporters of civil rights laws were among northern liberals. The intensity of the African American community's antipathy towards conservatives was born in the civil rights struggles of the mid 1960s (and every conservative really should read William Voegeli's Summer 2008 CLAREMONT REVIEW OF BOOKS article on conservatives and the civil rights movement).  But we should not mistake the roots of the division between African Americans and conservatives to be the sole cause of this division.  How many Americans of any race remember Goldwater's vote on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and relate it to contemporary politics?

In my experience, younger and better educated African Americans have a much clearer (and more hostile) collective memory of Ronald Reagan than of Goldwater or William F. Buckley.  The memory of the "welfare queens" remark has been passed down as a slur on black women in general, and this (among other hostile impressions) has influenced how many educated African Americans view Reagan and the conservatives who admire Reagan.  It is worth remembering that different communities can remember the same person in different ways and that for many African Americans, "welfare queens" is much more intensely remembered than "tear down this wall".  This collective memory of Reaganite hostility (whether this hostility was real or not) is also much more powerful in shaping their view of Reagan and conservatives than Reagan's record on economic growth or anything else.

This hostile communal view of Reagan and conservatives is not an accident or a conspiracy.  It is a dominant narrative that is passed on by politicians, journalists, academics, and of course family members.  Conservatives should not dismiss the sincerity of much of this collective memory.  Sure hacks like Charles Rangel manipulate (and help perpetuate) this hostility for partisan purposes, but millions of people truly believe it and pass it on.  This narrative forms the screen through which contemporary events and personalities are viewed. 

The assumption that conservatives are hostile or indifferent helps make sense of events.  If the Democrat controlled government of Louisiana fails in Katrina relief it is incompetence.  If a Republican (which is by association conservative) administration fails in the same task it is racist indifference at best or racist conspiracy at worst.  This is a case in which rapper Kanye West's comments that Bush did not care about black people have particular importance.  Conservatives are used to hearing celebrities slander conservative politicians, but they should listen a little closer to West.  West's mother was a college professor.  He was raised as part of the educated, striving, black upper middle class.  West's opinion was hardy unanimous but it does indicate that conservatives have a problem that extends beyond Grammy winners.

There is also the problem of being a black conservative in the black community.  This is not the same as having conservative opinions on abortion, the death penalty, or taxes.   This is a problem of associating yourself with conservative tainted organizations - the Republican Party most of all - and thereby cooperating with the enemy.  Even if one has basically conservative opinions, the social barriers to joining such an organization are significant.  Most of all is the disinclination to join groups that one has assumed are hostile.  There is also the knowledge that such association opens you up to all kinds of hits big and small.  The rules of civilized debate will only sometimes and partially apply to you and you are vulnerable to social ostracism.  Emerge magazine (a news monthly marketed towards African Americans) put Clarence Thomas as a lawn jockey on its cover.  Conservatives bitterly complained that Michael Steele did not stick up for them when D.L. Hughley compared Republicans to Nazis.  What conservatives would do well to remember was that Hughley was trying to slyly portray as a Nazi collaborator.  This suspicion was only to be expected when he took on the RNC chairmanship.  There is the Spike Lee movie Get On the Bus in which a (demonized) African American conservative is thown off a bus going to the Million Man March and is symbolically expelled from the African American community.  Real life is generally less dramatic than Spike Lee fantasies (though the fantasies have their own subtle influence), but conservatives should not dismiss the less overt pressures.  Picture a person in a predominantly conservative community who has a strong affinity for Code Pink.  It can't be easy. 

Well, that is one (white) guy's opinion about some and only some of the challenges that conservatives face.  What can we do about them?