Fraters Libertas

Turning the Other Cheek

Two days ago I commented on the racial slurs leveled by local blogger Mark Desrosiers regarding Metropolitan Council Chairman Peter Bell. Mark has now reconsidered his choice of words:

Folks, I'd like to apologize for dissing Peter Bell so bluntly in Sunday's post. I still despise the man, and he's got a long way to go before he wins respect from working people in the Twin Cities. But I let my emotions run away from me, started looking for a fight, and dropped a nasty racial slur ("Oreo") that I probably shouldn't have said. It was a reckless choice of words, and I'm sorry.

Good for him. He also links to a column by Clinton Collins Jr. in The Rake that shows how accepted and widespread this form of prejudice is among various factions of the Left. This is regarding Peter Bell’s campaign for Hennepin County Commissioner:

I witnessed the verbal equivalent of a lashing. Prominent African-American ministers, community activists, and just plain folks vied to see who could inflict the most abuse on Bell. It was a sickening spectacle. Bell told the group something I will never forget. “My racial identity is too important to me to cede control of it to anyone—white people or self-appointed black leaders.”

After the meeting, one well-known community leader said in my presence, “Peter Bell is bad news. The white man will always keep us down as long as he has Tommin’ Negroes like that to do his dirty work for him.” Heads nodded in agreement. No one rose to defend Bell’s right to be a conservative, including me. I did not want to risk being labeled as another “black conservative,” which in that group would have meant “sell-out.” I now regret that moment of cowardly silence.

I knew then that Peter Bell could be conservative, support Republican candidates, and be African American. Just as importantly, I have come to appreciate how crucial people like Peter Bell are to the viability of the African-American community.

Obviously, criticizing a man’s politics and ideology is fair game. But having behavioral expectations based on race alone is prejudice, pure and simple. The use of crude racial slurs to slap down those who exceed these prejudicial expectations is disgraceful, and in practice no different than how white racists have behaved for centuries toward blacks. I’m glad to see at least some of those on the Left are coming to realize this.