Not Black Like Me
I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this story, but when I was in law school, I was the Vice-President of the St. Louis University Black Law Student Association. I know it may sound shocking, but I was. Now I have never been a joiner of organizations that define themselves by race, however the young lady who convinced me to sign up at the time was very easy on the eyes. So when she asked me to do some tutoring in Constitutional Law for first year students, I was all over it, with my ultimate goal to eventually be all over her. Hey, I was still a single guy in my 20s, what did you expect?
My first lecture had nothing to do with Con Law. It was more about getting to know the students, telling them about life at the law school and some advice about personal freedom and the personal responsibility that went with it. And after teaching a few lectures, I noticed that I was making a difference so I decided to really get involved and run for V.P. My platform was simple, increase minority law student test scores and expand our weekend lecturing classes to the rest of the school. While a lot of my counterparts agreed with the first part of my agenda, the “SLU Black Revolutionaries” led by Angela Davis and a guy I will call “Chaka Zulu”, fought me gold tooth and pressed nail on the second, saying “we ain’t here for white folks we’re here for us!” Of course by opening up our weekend lectures we could increase student participation and dispel myths about the organization and in turn get more funding from the law school because we serve a broader student base, but that didn’t matter. Unfortunately, that particular cadre of black law students was incapable of three-dimensional thinking and did not find my conservative philosophy nor my expansive ideas appealing so they embarked on a whisper campaign that I was against affirmative action and was working with administration to eliminate it by including more white students in our activities and thus kick out all the black students. I lost the election in a close vote to Angela Davis.
I was really ticked off at the time and nearly quit the organization. I didn’t mind a loss on the issues, but these guys were beyond the pale. So my thought process was that if the natives couldn’t see the jungle for the trees, they deserve what’s coming when that big clipper ship comes ashore. Luckily, there were two people who convinced me not to quit, my father, who told me stay engaged. And the young lady with a great legal mind and body to match. So I stayed, and ironically halfway through her term Angela Davis quit because she could never come through on any project and the Black Law Student Board asked me to take her place. So I got the job and eventually a date.
Why do I bring this up? First of all, to freak people out that I actually belonged to something with the term “black” in it. Number two, to draw your attention to recent comments made by Stephen Clay of the Baptist Ministers Alliance and tweeted by my counterpart Amos Brown during a Sunday “Rally For Change” which really should have been labeled “We hate Greg Ballard and can’t win on issues so we’ll do it on race” The line attributed to Stephen Clay was referring to their Black Opponents; who is anyone who is free thinking and doesn’t believe their political and economic salvation comes from white folks or self-appointed and self-righteous Pharisees who cross dress as men of God. Amos tweeted “They are of our color, but not of our kind”. What “kind” is that?
I will never fully understand why Blacks who choose to think for themselves, subscribe to a political philosophy of personal liberty and responsibility are considered the bad guys? And because we don’t worship at the feet of these so-called “community organizers” and shucking and jiving race pimping hucksters, there is allegedly something wrong with us. Of course if you look at whose policies promote black unemployment, teen pregnancy, unstable families, poor educational opportunities and livelihoods of crime and despair, if I may paraphrase Chaka Zulu, “it ain’t us!!!!” If anything, instead of calling us the enemy, they should be calling us for advice. Since we’re not the ones with the problems, they are.
But to do that would lead to the end of the Black underclass because they would become self-sufficient and no longer need the services of the “Balderman Davis” types. It’s hard to be the “HNIC” if you don’t have any N’s to follow you. (“N” is for negro, by the way). So if I’m not Stephen Clay’s kind, so be it. I guess there are worse things in this world, I could be his type.
