ptcruiser's comment on TNR's reaction to Eric Motley, the non black black man, deserves exposure on it's own.

The efforts of the mainstream print media and other press organs to present Eric Motley and others as "independent thinkers" should be called for what it is: a public relations campaign that is designed to foster the view that black conservatives represent some vigorous core of integrity and critical thinking that is largely absent from the black community. None of these flack pieces, for example, would describe the politically radical Jarvis Tyner, the brother of the great jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, as an independent thinker although he is a Marxist-Leninst and a member of the current iteration of the American Communist Party.

There are far, far fewer black Americans who would describe themselves as being Marxist-Leninist and card carrying members of a far left wing political party than there are blacks who would describe themselves as being black conservative Republicans. Jarvis Tyner and other blacks who share his views are in great disagreement with the Democratic Party on scores of issues but they would not be considered or referred to as "independent thinkers."

What is going on here is a concerted and orchestrated effort to identify an alleged anomaly within the community, i.e., conservative black Republicans. and to use this so-called example as the basis for drawing unwarranted, i.e., not supported by the evidence, conclusions about the life-style choices and cultural tastes of blacks in general. Inductive reasoning is being used to promote a hypothesis that cannot be proved or disproved but simply accepted on its face as true.

Stories about Eric Motley et al. are simply part of a propaganda campaign that is designed to discredit and consequently greatly minimize questions, concerns, issues and problems about race in America. To be more exact, it is an effort to remove the spotlight from black Americans and to shift it to groups who have a less contentious history with the white majority and a less cantankerous response to the record of that history.

African Americans who have historically displayed an independence of thought and action in the United States have generally been vilified and condemned. Since the rise of Clarence Thomas and others too numerous to mention here, however, we have seen how he and his fellow rightist travelers and their political views are described as being "independent" but the entire range of black political thinking that runs counter to their philosophy is painted as being nothing more than a part of the prevailing consensus of the Democratic Party.

Elsewhere I have written that the true test of the views of black conservative Republicans comes in the voting booth, not on the op-ed pages of various newspapers and journals or on Sunday morning talk shows or Internet blog sites. If black conservatives have something of value to offer the black electorate then they should make their pitch directly to these voters. The mainstream media and what remains of the black press are not blocking the doorway. The establishment press, including NPR and TNR, would do whatever it takes to usher them through the doors.

NPR, for example, actually gave John McWhorter air time to rave against black Americans, who on their own time and dime, were initiating DNA research in Africa to discover their origins. NPR would not have granted a minute of time to me if I had offered to present the misguided opinion that Jews, for example, should desist from their research about the Nazi's genocidal campaign against their ancestors. Among other insults McWhorter delivered in his customary perfervid style was that blacks should be content with knowing their history on American soil.

We are in the midst of a propaganda war that is designed not only to remove the infrastructure of social programs and services that are needed by many African Americans but to discredit the very racial consciousness and history of African Americans in this country. When Clarence Thomas, for example, attacks the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. The Board of Education on the specious grounds that black children were as capable of learning in all black schools as they would have been in a school with white students he ignores the fact that these all-black schools were absolutely never given the same level of resources as the all-white schools. In other words, there never were any separate but equal public schools in the United States for black children. (Thomas also fails to address the mass and multi-generational expropriation of the value of the tax dollars that African Americans paid that was used primarily for the benefit of whites and their communities.)

If blacks can be convinced that their understanding of American history is mistaken and the wrongs they have suffered cannot be redressed or have already been redressed through the 1964 Civil Rights Act etc. there will not be a need to use government intervention to ameliorate any their problems as a group. The state can then devote its resources and energies to more productive uses such as enabling the rich to get richer or engaging in acts of global piracy by using the American military to invade and conquer other nations that have valuable natural resources. Sooner or later, the next stop will be Africa. And if McWhorter and folks like him can convince us that we have no real ties to that continent and its people then we will not raise our voices in protest when that time comes.