Once again, beauty – or exploitation – is in the eye of the beholder.
I have heard an awful lot of feedback on Glenn Beck’s “Time to Be Heard” special show last week.
To some, it was much needed and well-designed. To others, it was a Friday the 13th nightmare.
Some that stated emphatically that it was one of the best shows that Glenn Beck ever put on television. To them, it clearly showed the level of diversity found within Black America when it came to politics and social matters. It was a chance to voice the opposition that they felt themselves without the issues of race complicating the debate.
To others, it was an Uncle Tom holiday, orchestrated by the chief bigot himself, Glenn Beck – a man willing to exploit Black Republicans to shield his hatred for the first Black president of the United States. To them, it cleared showed that some people are willing to be on television and receive kudos from anyone, even if it meant going on national television in front of millions of people to say – among other things – that they do not term themselves as “African-Americans” but simply as “Americans.”
As complex and controversial as the airing of Fox News Channel’s “Glenn Beck” on Friday was, it only reflected every bit of complexity and controversy that surrounds Black Republicanism, Black conservatism (which the show displayed was not the same as Black Republicanism), and Hip Hop Republicanism (which side-steps the issue of race although by focusing on culture and background instead.) The diversity of conservatives shown on Friday illustrated how and why the blending of ideas and philosophies must not continue to be systematically rejected by Black America as political tokenism, particularly at a time when the loyalty to a president and a decades-long political approach to social problems has not yielded the results that everyday Americans. Even as the criticism of President Obama (and, moreso, Democrat-led liberalism in America over the past 50 years) mounted on the soundstage of “Glenn Beck” (much to the dismay of some), the NAACP and other national race-based advocacy groups – including some of President Obama’s staunchest supporters – are imploring the president to do more to create jobs. In short, they are saying the same things that Black conservatives have been saying since January: the liberal spending and approaches from Democrat-led Washington have not worked and, therefore, something else must be done.
In an ideal situation, we would have an ability to air our similarities with the same passion and clarity as we do ou
