Making of a Conservative Black Man
With all the hub bub about the Tea Party, I’m getting a little sick of the “racist” cry. It was that cry about the John Birch Society in the sixties that turned me into a radical conservative. It seemed that every liberal black or white person you ran into, “knew” that the John Birch Society members were rabid racists.
The longer and louder they screamed at me about those blankety blank people my resolve became stronger. There was a reason…
There was this lady in my church – I’ll call her Alice. She and her husband Alan were members of the dreaded “Society.” Only problem was, they never demonstrated any racist attitudes toward me. Not only did she want to sing in a choir with me, or occasionally have me tell her what to do (assistant choir director); or that we talked about issues of the day; and the two of them tried to make sure I got invited to their house. That sure did not seem racist to me!
Lest you think that I was too “white” to not know they were being racist, remember, I grew up in Jim Crow Oklahoma. A state where negroes still got chased, had to ride on the back of buses and attend segregated schools. I was born in an all black community that was three miles from an all white town, and they didn’t want any of “us” living there. Working there was alright, but “we don’t want any ‘n……’ living here!'” As a black person, you were very careful not to go outside your community at night. And forget camping! Yep, I knew what racists were, what they looked like and how they talked. Oh, don’t forget the “colored” bathrooms, food at the backdoor of restaurants and perfect movie seats in the rear of the balcony
So, that kind of clinched it. If supposed racists are not racists, (as demonstrated by Alice and Alan) then maybe the rest of what the liberals talked was a lie as well.
The downfall of the liberals was that I could read. Off to the libraries and bookstores. What did the “Birchers” really believe? What did they want for the country? Were their positions on the issues they talked about tenable?
Amazing what you can find out when you read what people say and believe, rather than listen to somebody tell you what they said or “what they really mean!” The liberals were the ones lying. The more I read, the more convinced I became that bending the laws wasn’t the way to get to a better world. Maybe I shouldn’t have read the Bible at the same time. Bending the laws always got the people in trouble – over and over.
So there I was, no longer stuck on the horns of a dilemma.
Maybe that’s why there are people in the world who don’t want our kids to learn to read, or find books in the library. Maybe we should leave the books in English, but not teach anyone to read that ancient language. Then, we skip having the kids and new citizens learn anything about history – good or bad. We just tell them about how bad some things were…not that there were some people who wanted a change for the better. And those people weren’t the supposed saviors of the black people. It was the dreaded racist Republicans who voted for laws that ended segregation and separate schools. Read your history people!
Getting the picture?
It may be a pain, but read! “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
Just so you know, this was during a period in my life where about once a week, I visited a printing supply store…next door was the John Birch Society “Book Store.” Yes, I did eventually wander in and read some of their publications. Even got a subscription to their magazine. Never did find that they said anything racist. Very high quality articles written by people with Masters and Doctoral degrees. This was some more convincing.