Mad harsh! Mad true!
Keyes Earns our Buckwheat Award
August 8, 2004
By The NorthStar News Staff
Illinois Republicans Enage in Tokenism
In an act of racial tokenism, equivalent to the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, Illinois Republicans have selected Black conservative Alan Keyes as their candidate for the U.S. Senate to face Democrat Barack Obama. Keyes, whose politics is to the right of the right, lives in Maryland but must simply declare residence in Illinois by Election Day to qualify for the ballot.
For this blatant act of hypocrisy, the NorthStar Network bestows upon Alan Keyes our “Buckwheat Award”; for conduct contrary to the interests of people of African descent and allowing himself to be posed like a lawn jockey for the enjoyment of whites who seek to maintain their privileged status in society.
…For all the Republican rhetoric on “reaching out” to Blacks and Mr. Bush’s so-called “compassionate conservatism, running Alan Keyes exposes just how disingenuous the GOP is on the matter of race. What’s more, they are so clueless they believe we should be enamored of Mr. Keyes because he is “articulate”, an off-hand “complement” that offends us to our core. It is the equivalent of “some of my best friends are Black” when some whites attempt to justify their racist orientation. Yes, Mr. Keyes is articulate, so much so that his asinine rhetoric can be easily understood for what it is.
What’s more Keyes is a poster child for the new Black neoconservative; well positioned, paid and totally submissive to the interests of whites on the right who advance an agenda that at its root is racist driven. Tragically, these Rent-a-Negroes have displaced a generation of Black Republicans, like Arthur Fletcher, William T. Coleman, Jr., Edward Brooke and E. Frederic Morrow, who, despite the many opportunities to do so, never abandoned the interest of their community…And they have made Republicans racial charlatans; always using race for racist intent while arguing that race doesn’t matter. The new Black Republican is neither Black nor Republican; but some mutant strain that now seeks to infect the rest of us.
The Horatio Alger myth espoused by Keyes and his ilk is easily exposed when one considers how these people used every conceivable government program available to advance and were then handpicked by the right to act as race shields. White neoconservatives, many of whom are former liberals disillusioned with progressive Democrats’ posture on race, understood that the only way to avoid being labeled racist was to create a Black servant class that would do its bidding. The result has been the Alan Keyes’, Clarence Thomas’ and Condoleeza Rice’ of the present day.
The real irony of Alan Keyes’ latest foray into electoral politics is that he was utterly dismissed by his own party the last time he ran for president. Not only was his candidacy derided, he was categorically rejected when attempting to be included in debates. His only value to the party is to create confusion and validate the perception of Blacks held by many whites. After all, if a Black person is casting dispersion on their own community, there must be some truth to rhetoric that race is no longer a determiner of life chances.
… And the next time Republicans want to engage in this type of coonin’, don’t cut corners, just run ‘Lil Black Sambo, Aunt Jemima, Amos ‘n Andy or any of the other racial stereotypes that represent their true sentiments.
