In the New York Times, Mr. Adolph Reed takes to the opinion section to blather such offensive rhetoric that it is amazing the editors let it get by them, or perhaps they did so because some prominent African-American voices are speaking up for conservative values, low taxes, pro-life, lower government spending, smaller government, etc.... and each one that does so, takes more from the Democratic Party, so in the mind of Reed and those at NYT, they must be vilified and have their opinions downplayed and ridiculed and therefore, their values and ideologies, can be somehow be negated.
Tokens and Liberal Intolerance
But this “first black” rhetoric tends to interpret African-American political successes — including that of President Obama — as part of a morality play that dramatizes “how far we have come.” It obscures the fact that modern black Republicans have been more tokens than signs of progress.
The day South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley named Representative Tim Scott as a replacement for Senator Jim DeMint's US Senate seat, reactions from other liberals were on track with Reed's comments, with liberal Twitter users calling him "Token black", "Token Negro" , the GOPs new "mistrial show", "House Negro," "Uncle Tim Scott", "Uncle Ruckus", and a "joke".
Another classy example by a Twitter user was a "US Senator who's Black only in skin color."
Such intolerance for a person who might just have a different political philosophy from what liberals demand a "black" person must have in their opinion.
Scott isn't the first and certainly won't be the last black American who has been attacked because they believe conservatism is the way to lead our nation to become prosperous once more.
During the 2012 election campaign season, American actress Stacey Dash, who is black and Hispanic and who has appeared in films including the 1995 feature “Clueless,” also found herself in the middle of what some termed a racially-charged controversy after she posted a message on Twitter endorsing Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
“You’re an unemployed black woman endorsing Mitt Romney. You’re voting against yourself thrice, you poor beautiful idiot,” responded one critic on Twitter. “Kill yourself, you old hag,” wrote another. (Source)
Reed and those other intolerant liberals act like Republicans grabbed Scott and other African-Americans off the street and forced them to register as Republicans, forced them to get into politics, forced them to campaign for office under conservative ideals, just so they could be a Republican "token," or "symbol."
Tea Party and Diversity in the GOP
Mr. Scott’s background is also striking: raised by a poor single mother, he defeated, with Tea Party backing, two white men in a 2010 Republican primary: a son of Thurmond and a son of former Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. But his politics, like those of the archconservative Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, are utterly at odds with the preferences of most black Americans. Mr. Scott has been staunchly anti-tax, anti-union and anti-abortion.Even if the Republicans managed to distance themselves from the thinly veiled racism of the Tea Party adherents who have moved the party rightward, they wouldn’t do much better among black voters than they do now. I suspect that appointments like Mr. Scott’s are directed less at blacks — whom they know they aren’t going to win in any significant numbers — than at whites who are inclined to vote Republican but don’t want to have to think of themselves, or be thought of by others, as racist.
That point was debunked, the very same day Reed's nonsense was published, by the National Journal:
It’s ironic that at a time when party strategists are publicly panicking over the party’s need to diversify or face extinction, they’re blind to the reality that if it wasn’t for the much-maligned tea party, the Republican Party would be even more homogeneous than it is today.
Haley, a little-known state senator before being elected governor, would never have had a chance at becoming governor against the state’s good ol’ boy network of statewide officeholders. Scott would have been a long shot in his Republican primary against none other than Strom Thurmond’s youngest son. Marco Rubio, now the hyped 2016 presidential favorite, would have stepped aside to see now-Democrat Charlie Crist become the next senator, depriving the party of one of its most talented stars. Ted Cruz, the other Hispanic Republican in the Senate, would have never chanced a seemingly futile bid against Texas’s 67-year-old lieutenant governor, seen as a lock to succeed Kay Bailey Hutchison.
But all those upset victories--all of which at the time seemed shocking--took place because of the conservative grassroots’ strong sentiment for outsiders who campaigned on their principles, and not over their past political or family connections. Even a decade ago, party officials would have been more successful in pushing these outsider candidates aside, persuading them to wait their turn. (In Rubio’s case, it almost worked.) Now, in an era where grassroots politicking is as easy as ever thanks to the proliferation of social media, more control is in the hands of voters. And contrary to the ugly stereotypes of conservative activists being right-wing to the point of racist, it’s been the tea party movement that’s been behind the political success of most prominent minority Republican officeholders.
That's right, some of the most prominent minorities office holders, women, hispanics and blacks, are Republicans, and they were backed and supported by the Tea Party.
Reed concludes:
The trope of the black conservative has retained a man-bites-dog newsworthiness that is long past its shelf life. Clichés about fallen barriers are increasingly meaningless; symbols don’t make for coherent policies. Republicans will not gain significant black support unless they take policy positions that advance black interests. No number of Tim Scotts — or other cynical tokens — will change that.
What Reed cannot comprehend is that "blacks" have minds of their own and that while the majority of blacks support Democrats, there is a growing segment of African-Americans, Hispanics and women, who believe conservative political ideologies do advance the interests of all Americans and what Reed and his brethren don't seem to grasp or won't acknowledge, is that African-Americans are Americans.
In fact it is Reed and other liberals' mindset that separates African-Americans from all the rest of America, not conservatives. There are white Democrats and white Republicans. Democratic women and Republican women. Hispanic Democrats and Hispanic Republicans.
But in the mind of Reed and other liberals, an African-American must be a Democrat or they are a "token" or a "symbol" instead of an individual with a mind of their own who believes there is another way.
Noah Rothman over at MediaIte, gets the quote of the day:
Today, the Republican party claims the only black Senator, as well as the nation’s two Hispanic and Indian-American governors. Not to mention the many other notable minority politicians who call the GOP home. Kraushaar makes a point that Romney/Ryan ticket, a relic of a pre-Tea Party era, may end up being viewed as a quaint as future Republican tickets become irreversibly more diverse.
That is a threat to Democrats who claim to be the singular champions of the rights of minorities. Hence, the Times’ conspicuously timed assertion that the Republican party’s diversity is nothing more than tokenism.
Here are a few questions to ponder..... why do Reed, NYT and liberals feel the need to separate blacks from the rest of the country? Are their problems not the same? High unemployment, making ends meet, high food stamp usage and welfare.
Every single segment of the American population are dealing with these issues.
If Republicans held one set of rules for African-Americans and another set for Hispanics and a third set for women and a fourth for "whites," etc.. wouldn't they be called racist?
I think so.... therefore I think I am totally justified in calling those that want to segregate African-Americans from the rest of the country... RACISTS.
[Update- 12/20/12] William Jacobson from Legal Insurrection, provides the NYT Masthead of their own editorial board, with 17 pictures one of which is an African American..... Jacobson headlines with "I would never be so insulting as to accuse the NY Times of tokenism."
I would.