Black conservatives perennially face the slur that they're "not really black" if they aren't on the Left. Not only that, they are tools of white racists if they dissent from the NAACP's hard line.
When the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn a racially gerrymandered congressional district in Louisiana, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) was outraged by the local Deseret News in Salt Lake City prominently featuring an Associated Press photo of a lone black protester in front of the court holding a sign that said, "Thurgood is watching you, Clarence." That implied Thurgood Marshall was disappointed in Clarence Thomas.
Lee tweeted: "They're going after Justice Thomas for being conservative while Black. That's racist. And it's very, very wrong." He added: "It'd be absurd to assume that Justice Alito should agree with the late Justice Brennan because he's white. It's racist and offensive for @Deseret to suggest that Justice Thomas should agree with the late Justice Thurgood Marshall because he's Black."
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), a black conservative, seconded that thought: "When the Left can't beat a Conservative Black man's argument, they attack his Blackness." For example, the Congressional Black Caucus has a membership of 60 Democrats, but none of the five black Republicans in Congress.
This kind of slur greeted Thomas when he was nominated for the Supreme Court in the summer of 1991. NBC reporter Bob Herbert uncorked a commentary underlining "David Duke, former Ku Klux Klan leader, is crazy about Clarence Thomas." Columnist Carl Rowan wrote Thomas had no talent, only the ability to "bootlick" Reagan and Bush, that "If you gave Clarence Thomas a little flour on his face, you'd think you had David Duke talking."
That same spirit continues today, as the ladies on ABC's "The View" were upset with Justice Thomas. Joy Behar complained he "didn't stick up for his own." Two years ago, Behar complained that Sen. Tim Scott doesn't understand being black, "the systemic racism that African Americans face in this country and other minorities. He doesn't get it. Neither does Clarence. And that's why they're Republicans." At the time, Sen. Scott tweeted: "When a Black conservative who believes in the future of this nation stands up to be counted, they lose their minds."
The standard leftist line is represented by Sen. Cory Booker, pushing hyperbolic lies. "Morning Joe" championed his tweet that Thomas and Co. gave "a green light for unconstitutional attacks on the voting rights that generations of Americans bled and died to secure." But no one has been denied the right to vote.
The Left insists that unless blacks get to elect other blacks, they have no voting rights. So what happens when a majority-black district elects a white guy (Steve Cohen in Memphis) or an Indian guy (Shrinivas Thanedar in Detroit)? Did their voting rights disappear?
It got worse. Booker told MS NOW's Jonathan Lemire that the Court's verdict is "eliminating black representation, disenfranchising African American voters by drawing creative districts that completely take away any kind of representation." So all 65 black members of Congress are going to lose their seats? Or too many Democrats might?
It's also bizarre that Booker would talk about "drawing creative districts," when that is exactly what many majority-minority districts look like on a map — as it was in this court case, the Sixth District of Louisiana, which looks like a squashed centipede intersecting the district of Speaker Mike Johnson.
Black conservatives aren't in favor of "eliminating" black legislators or "disenfranchising" black voters. But leftists will villainize them like this because negative campaigning can work. Pretending only black Democrats are black isn't going away.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.
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