The limited usefulness of Black conservatives

[marmar]

The limited usefulness of Black conservatives
Donald Trump's behavior at Diamond's funeral should be a warning for Black conservatives

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED JANUARY 30, 2023 6:00AM (EST)


(Salon) What follows is a sad story. It is also a parable and warning about race, politics, and life. While many people have chosen to laugh and mock, there is little if anything truly funny about these events.

On Jan. 8 "Diamond," whose real name is Lynette Hardaway, passed away. It was initially speculated that she died of COVID. It has now been publicly revealed that the cause of death was a heart condition caused by high blood pressure. Diamond rose to public prominence as one half of the duo known as "Diamond & Silk." These Donald Trump obsessives performed as "black conservatives" and were routinely featured at Trump's rallies, on Fox News, Newsmax, and across the right-wing propaganda disinformation media echo chamber.

"Black conservative" is a specific type of character and performance in post-civil rights America (although the archetype long predates it). In the white right-wing imagination, these are black people who fulfill a fantasy role in a type of new-age race minstrel performance where they denigrate and insult the intelligence, dignity, and political agency of other black people for the pleasures of white "conservatives" and white America. These black conservatives claim that other black people are lazy, have "bad culture", "can't think for themselves", are trapped on a "Democratic Party plantation." If they "knew better," black conservatives argue, more black people would actually be "conservatives." Black conservatives also elevate themselves as exemplars of "hard work" and as "proof" that America is a meritocracy where anything is possible — "if you just stop worrying" about racism.

In what is perhaps their most important role, black conservatives are professional "best black friends." They serve as mercenaries, human racism deflection shields who are deployed to tell white people some of the most grossly racist and vile things about other black people. For example, on the Friday edition of his Fox "News" program, Tucker Carlson's black conservative guest played the above role perfectly as he suggested that the savage killing of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police was somehow caused by "black culture," specifically single black mothers:

They don't want us focused on reality. Hey, if they want us to devote an hour of coverage to this and weekend coverage to this and they want to take us to a good place, I would examine the racial element of this. Because there is a racial element. And this is a story about young Black men and their inability to treat each other in a humane way.

Everybody involved in this, on the street level, was either 24 to 32 years old. Everybody, it was a group of young Black men, five on one. It looked like gang violence to me. It looked like what young Black men do when they're supervised by a single Black woman, and that's what they got going on in the Memphis Police Department.

They've elected -- or put some Black woman in charge of the police force, and we're getting the same kind of chaos and disunity and violence that we see in a lot of these cities that are run by single mothers.

If we want to discuss the breakdown of family that leads to disrespect for authority, that causes you to resist the police and run from the police and not comply with the police, because you resist authority at all times, because there was no male authority in your home, let's have that discussion.

But that's not where they want to take us. They want to take us down the path of saying, "You know what? This is Tucker Carlson's fault. This is some random white -- this is Donald Trump's fault." It's not. It's the breakdown of family and the buying into all these left-wing things that have nothing to do with promoting family.

Carlson looked on with approval as his black conservative guest channeled white supremacist and other anti-black talking points that made Nichols somehow responsible for his own killing by the Memphis police. ..........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2023/01/30/the-limited-usefulness-of-black-conservatives/

[llashram]

1. black face minstrels

aka black conservatives are just self-hating individuals doing their master's bidding. It is not complicated. House and field slaves have always been a problem within the African-American race. Light skin versus the various darker skins of African-Americans is still, in some AAs, a point of jealousy that has always caused intra-race hate and contention. Tyre Nichols is an example of black self-hate. Until African-Americans stop the intra-race hate we will have this bullshit from 'black trumpers'. The ex-prez emboldened the 'black conservatives' to come out of their holes and to be proud of what they stood for. Tyre Nichols found out...pure hate and evil.

American racism IS NOT complicated. Many generations ago in a land of slavery and violence settled in the streets of the cowboy days and involuntary servitude based on race, America grew. In some ways, progress was exemplary, in other areas of the human race aka races, not so much. Technically beautiful progress and that is as far as I go.

Americans, tfg proved, are just as racist now as at any time in our history. And racism probably never will disappear worldwide and here at home because millions are willfully trying to be hateful and evil. And these days of political and racial violence I am careful as to who I believe is trying to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Fascists are making their play worldwide and here...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/just-in-trump-reiterates-why-he-trusts-in-vladimir-putin-over-u-s-intelligence-lowlifes-in-jawdropping-comments/ar-AA16THPS?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=139224d25e294f9aa4af5ab97ff862bc

is who trumpers grovel before. TFG wants Putin to help him again and allow him to agitate races into a war based on skin colour this time. He tried in his 4 years as POTUS and all we gained is hate stalking the streets of America.

[OAITW r.2.0]

2. Are they really conservatives?

Or simply opportunists that use their skin color to serve as useful idiots in exchange for money and notoriety?

[Marcuse]

3. Wedding Planner/HUD exec used as a mute African-American enabler prop by Meadows.

[link:https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/07/politics/hud-lynne-patton-tv-show/index.html|