DANCE FOR YOUR DINNER:

I don't agree with Black Republicans. I think they are wrong on their policy prescriptions for America. I think many of them are entirely too tolerant of the systemic racism that plagues our society, even to the point of complicity. I think, when pressed, they too often resort to the victim blaming that runs through that core Republican ethos of "I got mine, why can't you get yours?"

But I can respect Black Republicans. I can recognize Black Republican scholars and politicians as legitimate thinkers who have something to add to the American political discourse. Rank-and-file Black Republicans are not "race traitors." As I see it, part of the "dream" is that Black people get to be just as wrong and myopic as white folks. So I can accept that a person like Tim Scott is a mediocre senator who cares more about the profit margins of Chick-fil-A than uplifting the Black community. He's disappointing, but no more so than the queen of disappointment, Susan Collins.

Unfortunately, the actual Republican Party doesn't seem to respect reasonable and thoughtful Black Republicans as much as I do. Instead, the party has chosen to promote irrational, hateful conservatives and flagrant grifters. The GOP has decided to make people like Herschel Walker, Candace Owens, Larry Elder, and Kanye West the "faces" of Black conservatism in America, and that tells you more about how the Republican Party thinks about Black people than it does about the few Black people who have decided to play into the party's unending desire for minstrels.

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