Serendipity

The kerfuffle regarding the Conservative Brotherhood at Wizbang has yielded a lot of comments and some interesting posts and outcomes at other blogs.

Here's proof that good things often come unexpectedly: David Anderson, a liberal/leftist blogger and Cobb--the Conservative Brotherhood was his brainchild--have cleared up a misunderstanding and buried the hatchet like the classy gentlemen they are.

Jeremy Pierce of Parablemania articulates the reasoning behind the existence of the CB quite well.

One reason we can pretty much know that this isn't some kind of separatist notion of gathering together to the exclusion of all others is just from observing an empirical fact. Most of the members of the Conservative Brotherhood have mostly white readers, and many of them belong to some of the blog alliances I've already mentioned that have nothing to do with race. Most of the links from CB blogs go to blogs by white people. I'm sure at least most of them spend lots of time reading and commenting on blogs by white people. This is not isolation. It's not exclusion. It's not separatism. It's a formation of an alliance from a shared background for a very particular purpose. That purpose requires that the people allying in this case be black.

Additionally, he points out that if CB’s aim was to separate itself from others, that at least one member has an odd way of demonstrating this alleged goal.

The fact that one of the members is married to a white man, is watering down what's left of African ancestry in her genes through reproduction that has led to kids whose skin tone looks like that of some Italians, and has mostly white friends, at least of those in town, just shows how silly these claims are.

And Jack at Random Fate doesn’t quite get it, but, unlike some others, is open to getting it, which is all one human being can ask of another.

I always am searching for my brothers and sisters of the heart. I don't give a damn what color their skin is or the shape of their eyes or noses or mouths are.

In this, as in most other things, it appears I have little if any company.

I, at least, am with you, Jack. You do acknowledge in your post, however, the complexity of race issues as they exist today. Today, the types of overt enemies against whom you battled are toothless. (I was going to say Senator Robert Byrd notwithstanding, but at his age, he’s probably literally toothless also; his political clout is another matter, however.) Closed-mindedness is the enemy that has teeth now.

Perhaps saying this will ease the complexity a bit: as is so for like nearly any other type of topic, race issues aren’t static. Sometimes the dimensions are interracial, sometimes intra-racial; sometimes social issues are at the forefront, other times political issues upstage all others. Sometimes there might be a combination of these forces at work or none of them.

Unlike in the Klan rally you disrupted (heh), one can’t run over a blind spot in the thinking (no matter how much one may wish it were so). And that enemy is what many of all hues and perspectives are facing. Conservatives who happen to be black merely get their own flavor of stereotype, often from people in their own families (see Jeremy's post). Other groups (for example, white southern males) have other kinds of stereotypes leveled at them. The stereotypers may be different, but one trait they likely share, I'll bet, is the inability to see past their own noses and past previously received "wisdom."

All of you: well done, gentlemen.

Administrative note: tomorrow is the last day of school and my school work is done, so I’ll probably get back to doing some original posting after I come back from my appointment to have my head examined eyes checked.

UPDATE: Speaking of heads in need of examination... ;-)

Comments

[John Ballard]

Interesting comment thread at Wizbang. I didn't have the patience to read it all, but it looked pretty redundant at a glance. In the case of black writers waving a conservative flag I am reminded of Twain's line about the "calm confidence of a Christian with four aces." One might argue there is a contradiction, but even Christians play bingo for money. It's not a stretch to switch to poker.

As a sixties style Liberal in the streets for civil rights I felt invited OUT of the movement some years ago for being white. It's okay. I have other drums to beat besides that one. As the only goy in Hillel years ago I always felt like an honorary Jew. But I never figured a way to become an honorary black person.

You have a great blog, by the way. Keep up the good work.

[Ken Summers]

Too late, dear. They already examined my head and found nothing ;)