The Underlying Source of Conservative Anger Uncovered

The Underlying Source of Conservative Anger Uncovered

“Lawrence, Explain how policies of the past are failed when we used those policies to build the greatest nation on EARTH? Polls have shown the tea party is made up of a large number of independents? You failed to mention this? What are you trying to say here? That there are few blacks? Why would there be? The majority of Blacks need a Democratic government so they can continue to live in poverty,  raise children by single moms on welfare, pick up their food stamps for groceries, and allow their children to be disruptive in schools, fill our prisons and make rap videos before they are shot outside some stripper club. Did it ever cross your mind that after 40 years of Democrats bragging about how the African America community will be helped by them that NOTHING has changed? How many blacks do you know voting for democrats have a good job and a better life because of it? Maybe if you vote Republican and allow them to help business, those same businesses will begin hiring us back! Giving us paychecks to support our families! and getting many off of entitlement programs! .....Food for thought!”

One of my readers addressed this comment to me. It discloses, I think, one of the reasons—perhaps the greatest reason—many so called conservatives are so angry with the Obama administration. “Inalienable rights” are not for blacks, but for anybody else. So they spew out words such as “socialism,” “liberty,” and “Nazism” and saying that there has been “a socialist takeover” of the government. When they talk about fiscal responsibility, low taxes, and cutting spending, they are really talking about cutting taxes on the rich and cutting spending on entitlement programs—welfare, social security, universal health care and so on. “We are angry as hell,” many of them say to the media. “We want our country back,” as if it has been taken away.

The overwhelming majority are angry because of the entitlement programs championed by the Obama administration, if I hear rightly their underlying tone (attitude). Hidden underneath their words is their concept that the government is taxing the rich to pay for entitlement programs that enable blacks to live without working. “The majority of blacks,” according to my reader’s comment, “need the Democratic government so that they can continue to live in poverty, to raise children by single moms on welfare, pick up their food stamps for groceries, and allow their children to be disruptive in schools, fill our prisons and make rap videos before they are shot outside some stripper club.”

Born in 1932, I grew up in a time when this concept was verbalized every day. Blacks were pimps, prostitutes, criminals, happy-go-lucky, and lazy. Black women “have babies just to get on welfare,” many in my day were heard to say. But the truth is many could not get jobs and others had to take low paying menial jobs.

“The scarcity of food led my daddy to do some unforgettable things in his attempt to put food on our table, including stealing hogs,” I wrote in my life story. Daddy was not allowed to go to school and, therefore, could not read. So the only job he could get was working on the farm—which paid very little money ($1.00 per day). He was victimized by the system and blamed for his victimization.

Seeking to remove this terrible scar for this great nation’s history, the U.S. government created welfare and social security. Many well-meaning white Americans protested these programs because they sincerely believed that they were being robbed to take care of the poor blacks of the nation—who were lazy.  

When I listen deeply to the tone of the conservative mantra today, I hear clearly the underlying attitudes.  Many have bought into the stereotype that blacks are lazy and that the U.S. government is taxing them to provide for those who don’t want to work—and they are mad as hell and want their country back.

For a decade and a half in a state that requires party registration, I was a registered Republican because I was fooled by the “big shots” into thinking that I was “too intelligent to be a Democrat.” As I gathered in group discussions, I discovered that many had the attitude that affirmative action was discrimination in reverse because the one in ten jobs that was reserved for blacks robbed their children of the job because not even one black was qualified for it.

If my read of the Tea Party and the far right in the Republican Party is correct, they feel that blacks, led by a black president, have taken over the country and will soon bankrupt it to take care of those blacks who don’t want to work. If my read is wrong, forgive me!

Thank you my reader for uncovering a source of anger in the Tea Party and for giving me “food for thought.”