(My answer on Quora)
If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black' Joe Biden
To the contrary other than the right-of-center bandwidth of the political spectrum they don’t get nearly the attention they deserve elsewhere. They are in many ways the voice of reason. This of course is a reality of our times and is reflective of the fact that their views fly in the face of the groupthink that dominates the discourse in mainstream circles.
The problem is that these conservative and libertarian thinkers highlight uncomfortable truths - truths that would collapse the delicate plywood narratives that progressive orthodoxy sits on.
Thomas Sowell: Source: KPBS
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth.. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. Thomas Sowell
Indeed Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Shelby Steele, Carol Swain and the late Walter Williams represent some of the most articulate voices in contemporary political thought. To this I would add Justice Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly. All of them pick up from the writings of Frederick Douglass in the way that champions the authentic liberal values of the constitution and the freedom and liberty of its ideals.
Black Conservatives and Libertarians (BCLs) , with little exception, emphasize self-sufficiency, personal agency and traditional cultural/social values. They eschew the cult of victimhood that dominates progressive thought and they see solutions arising from the sovereignty of the individual, radiating outward, as opposed to the top down big government approach favored by Progressives. They want African-Americans to find answers to community woes from within. In this they echo the words of Malcolm X when he said “our problems will never be solved by the white man.”
Walter Williams Source: WSJ
They have no need for the patronizing white savior and resent being used as a minority voting bloc by Progressives to advance a social agenda that BCLs know from empirical evidence harms the African-American community. They are all too weary of the history of eugenics and the racism of low expectations that has framed and continues to frame Progressive thought. They want none of this. They are also willing to take on sacred idols – one of which is the legacy of Great Society as Walter Williams outlines here in the Times News (2019)
According to the 1938 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, that year only 11 percent of black children were born to unwed mothers. As late as 1950, female-headed households constituted only 18 percent of the black population. Today it’s close to 70 percent. In much earlier times, during the late 1800s, there were only slight differences between the black family structure and those of other ethnic groups. In New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related black households were two-parent households. Welfare has encouraged young women to have children out of wedlock. The social stigma once associated with unwed pregnancy is all but gone. Plus, “shotgun” weddings are a thing of the past. That was when male members of a girl’s family made the boy who got her pregnant live up to his responsibilities.
Personal responsibility and a re-emphasis of fatherhood is key to the conservative ethos and BCLS take issue with the notion that this vital trait that has historic and survival value in African-American communities has been pushed aside by the visceral response of blaming ill on the all too common bogeyman of racism. Critical Race Theory is anathema to BCL thinking.
William suffers no fools when he says:
The high crime rates in so many black communities impose huge personal costs and have turned once-thriving communities into economic wastelands. The Ku Klux Klan couldn’t sabotage chances for black academic excellence more effectively than the public school system in most cities.
He is of course correct. The public education system in many cities is indeed broken. There are alternatives. Black people need charter schools when public schools fail black children
Opponents all too often resort to the noxious labeling of BCLs as Uncle Toms for daring to repudiate accepted thought. The hypocrisy of the charge is all the more nauseating when it emanates for white progressives who place themselves at the forefront of the anti-racist fight. However these Conservative and Liberal voices matter. They ask the tough questions from the grassroots and are willing to challenge a failing orthodoxy. 'White Guilt' and the End of the Civil Rights Era
Larry Elder Source: YouTube on his Documentary Uncle Tom.
Those who truthful in their aspiration to reduce problems negatively impacting black communities in the US (and elsewhere in the Western world) would do well to listen to these BCL thinkers who offer good reason to dissent from failed progressive initiatives.
Source of William’s Quote: Editorial: Blacks' biggest enemy is a white liberal
Additional Reading:
1. Blame the welfare state, not racism, for poor blacks' problems: Thomas Sowell
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