To quote Brother James himself, "Blind man can see it."

Hell, even Warren Coolidge can see it! He admits that James is clearly devoted to the principles of Booker T. Washington, but the problem is that he is such a kneejerk liberal and married to the funhouse mirror image of Black Conservatives as self-hating darkie minstrels that he fails to realize that Booker T. Washington is generally considered the Messiah of the Black Conservative movement!

http://www.bookerrising.net/2004/05/welcome.html
http://www.bookerrising.net/2005/01/why-were-called-booker-rising.html

(note that this site describes itself as targeting "black moderates and conservatives, **regardless of party affiliation**... As I keep saying, it is not about Democrat or Republican)

Another Black conservative organization: http://www.btwsociety.org/

Here's a (non-partisan) Black conservative foundation run by Booker T's family: http://www.booker-t-washington.com/about.htm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_conservatism_in_the_United_States#Overview

"One of the main characteristics of black conservatism is its emphasis on personal choice and responsibilities above socioeconomic status and institutional racism. In the tradition of African American politics and intellectual life, black conservatives tend to side with Booker T. Washington as contrasted with W. E. B. Du Bois. For many black conservatives, the key mission is to bring repair and success to the Black community by applying the following fundamental principles:

-The pursuit of educational and professional excellence as a means of advancement within the society;
-Policies that promote safety and security in the community beyond the typical casting of a criminal as a "victim" of societal racism;
-Local economic development through free enterprise rather than looking to the federal government for assistance;
-Empowerment of the individual via self-improvement (virtue), conscience, and supernatural grace.

Black conservatives may find common ground with Black Nationalists through their common belief in black empowerment and the theory that black people have been duped by the Welfare state."

A man like Warren Coolidge may be well pleased to note the reference to a certain overlap between Black conservatives and Black Nationalists... but one of the key differences between them is that Black conservatives place much less importance on racial pride, which they sublimate in favor of national patriotism. And isn't that what James said in that quote I posted above? That you should be proud of **where you live** and not the color of your skin?

This article here talks a bit more about the occasional overlap between Black conservativism and Black Nationalism:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2009/10/what-is-black-conservatism/26617/

This portion here illuminates the confusion plaguing Our Coolidge:

Black Conservatives Are Sometimes Nationalists

At Think Progress, Matthew Yglesias says the ideological conflict within black politics has often been misread. According to Yglesias, Washington's legacy reveals that black conservatives are often misread as "timid appeasers of white supremacists," when in fact, they are "pessimistic about race relations and nationalistic in orientation." He explains, "Because this controversy within black politics is embedded inside a larger white-dominated political context it often gets confused," he writes. "Sometimes, as in the conventional reading of Washington, the black conservative appears to white American liberals to be the timid appeaser...other times, as with a Malcolm X, he looks like a dangerous radical black nationalist." Yglesias says the phenomenon of a black conservative "a la Clarence Thomas" aligning himself with the (white) conservative mainstream is recent, but that "even so, that didn’t mean there was no ideological conflict in black politics or that general rightist sentiments somehow didn’t exist."

The article also links to a nice Ta-Nehisi Coates piece on Bill Cosby's recent turn towards cranky conservatism:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/05/-8216-this-is-how-we-lost-to-the-white-man-8217/6774/

This portion here is revelatory:

"The split between Cosby and critics such as Dyson mirrors not only America’s broader conservative/liberal split but black America’s own historic intellectual divide. Cosby’s most obvious antecedent is Booker T. Washington. At the turn of the 20th century, Washington married a defense of the white South with a call for black self-reliance and became the most prominent black leader of his day. He argued that southern whites should be given time to adjust to emancipation; in the meantime, blacks should advance themselves not by voting and running for office but by working, and ultimately owning, the land.*

W. E. B. Du Bois, the integrationist model for the Dysons of our day, saw Washington as an apologist for white racism and thought that his willingness to sacrifice the black vote was heretical. History ultimately rendered half of Washington’s argument moot. His famous Atlanta Compromise—in which he endorsed segregation as a temporary means of making peace with southerners—was answered by lynchings, land theft, and general racial terrorism. But Washington’s appeal to black self-sufficiency endured.

After Washington’s death, in 1915, the black conservative tradition he had fathered found a permanent and natural home in the emerging ideology of Black Nationalism. Marcus Garvey, its patron saint, turned the Atlanta Compromise on its head, implicitly endorsing segregation not as an olive branch to whites but as a statement of black supremacy. Black Nationalists scorned the Du Boisian integrationists as stooges or traitors, content to beg for help from people who hated them."


*doesn't this should just like JB's "Funky President"!


Again we find the overlap between Conservatism and Nationalism. I earlier expressed some ambivalence as to whether Marcus Garvey was conservative or not... In essence, I believe that he was; but in the worldview of the modern Black conservative, the idea of Blacks leaving the United States is anathema, so I rule against him for that reason... And James Brown definitely said he was not leaving America where he wore continental suits and flew in private jets!

(Sorry for the long, rambling post... Was not my intention, but I just think certain concepts need to be cleared up)