Today I debate probably the oddest of all political curiosities: a black female conservative. They do exist, and are actually shockingly numerous in the Southeast, but still, if someone gets to debate a unicorn (and really somebody voting conservative when true conservatives would probably rather that person not be allowed to vote makes about as much sense as a unicorn) they should probably take it.
Brody: You’ve made it clear you don’t want to use your real name, and I’ve really made a big push to get people to use their real names but in your case I absolutely understand. I myself would be ashamed to hold these beliefs.
Black Female: Oh I’m not ashamed—
Brody: So what would you like your alias to be?
BF: How about Harriet Tubman? I too am leading the ideologically enslaved to freedom.
Brody: Fucking veto. I’ll call you Brittany.
Brittany: [laughter] okay
Brody: So this has to be the first question: Why the Republican Party? What’s in it for you, YOU specifically?
Brittany: My first answer would have to be that I’m a conservative, not a Republican.
Brody: And my first rebuttal would be that everyone says that, even if they vote Republican 99 percent of the time. Same question though, why conservative?
Brittany: Religion, money, family, pretty much everything.
Brody: That’s a list of words, it doesn’t tell me shit. I could say Jupiter, marijuana, Starsky and Hutch but it wouldn’t tell you anything.
Brittany: Abortion obviously, I don’t really care that much about gay marriage, but I would be more conservative than liberal on that. It’s mostly religious issues and fiscal conservatism.
Brody: Fiscal conservatism like black people shouldn’t have any money, that kind?
Brittany: Race is overused in politics—
Brody: Woah now, you knew that would be on the menu. You knew that was practically the whole point of having you on was to talk about being a black female conservative. Because I have seen plenty throughout my life in Alabama and none of it makes a damn bit of sense to me. I know a lot of black Southerners are practically raised in a church, but Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and before them Martin Luther King Jr. were able to reconcile being liberal with being a Christian. The two things are in no way, shape, or form incompatible. In fact, some would argue that liberalism and its message of equality is much more compatible with Christianity.
Brittany: But being a conservative and being black aren’t incompatible either. Colin Powell is one, Clarence Thomas is another, and Allen West was just elected to congress as a Republican.
Brody: Yeah, but Allen West is gaining fame because he’s one of only TWO black Republicans in the House of Representatives, and both were elected the last time mostly because the GOP wanted people to stop calling it racist. Allen West originally tried to run as a Democrat but the party didn’t want him—
Brittany: See, they turned down a black guy!
Brody: Because he’s two steps above a war criminal, he got kicked out of Iraq for torturing a suspect and holds vehemently anti-Muslim views. If a Republican is Islamophobic enough, yes, the Democrat Party will turn them down. When you tolerate intolerance, you’re not really being tolerant.
Brittany: I just think it’s unfair to say one party is more racist than the other, it’s completely false. The leader of the Republican Party was Michael Steele.
Brody: Who got fired.
Brittany: He was the head of the RNC for two years—
Brody: And people like Rush Limbaugh and other “conservatives” hated him every day for those two years. Most of the criticism lobbed at Michael Steele was from members of his own party, “conservatives” actually because they’re usually more racist than moderate or centrist Republicans. The right wing and Tea Party hated Michael Steele and now he’s gone. So if you’re going to list someone as proof your party isn’t racist, you might want to pick someone that wasn’t fired.
Brittany: It’s not my party.
Brody: Right, you just vote for it 9 times out of 10, but even in terms of “conservatives” the numbers are still the same. You’re able to name them because there just isn’t that many. Being able to handpick black Republicans doesn’t exactly take away from my point. And even being able to, you’re naming men. You’re forgetting the FEMALE part of black female, besides Condoleeza Rice I think you’re going to have a damn hard time finding a black female Republican.
Brittany: Actually, I was going to name her [laughter]. There are others though. The Republican Party is much more inclusive than you think, and of course being a conservative has no relation to racism or skin tone.
Brody: Well I don’t know about that. Throughout history the people fighting for racial equality have been labeled liberals. Anytime someone wants to free the slaves or lead the civil rights movement or hurry along integration or make it legal for interracial couples to marry or elect the first black president, those people have almost always been labeled liberals. And look, now we have the nation’s first black President, a liberal, and he’s being protested by Birthers, Tea Partiers, and every conservative group in the country who call him a Muslim, an atheist, a foreigner, a socialist, some say the anti-Christ. They pretty much call him everything but a horse thief.
Brittany: You don’t have to be a racist to not like the job Obama is doing as President.
Brody: But it sure helps.
Brittany: Well, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and he was a Republican while the Democrats fought for slavery.
Brody: Michael Steele made the same point before getting shit canned, and the answer was the same then: Republicans were liberal then, and Democrats were conservative, since then the two parties have flip flopped, which is why the South went from Democrat to Republican after the Democrats—liberals in 1960—passed the Civil Rights Act that integrated the South. After all, as you so helpfully remind us, conservative and liberal don’t mean Republican and Democrat, and liberals, whether GOP or Dems, have always been on the progressive side of racial equality.
Note: At this point I prematurely end the debate, mostly because I like ending on a high note. Fair to the person being debate? Not really. But then again, they can start a support group “People not happy with the way a debate turned out” if they really don’t like it bad enough.
lol
i hate when republicans bring up allen west–a nut–to show tea party’s not racist