That black Americans constitute the most reliable of Democratic voting blocs no one who knows anything at all about American politics would think to deny.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On average, the Democratic Party receives the support of nine out of every ten blacks.\u00a0 In the last presidential election, the Democratic challenger elicited over 95% <\/em>of the black vote.<\/p>\n There are, however, black conservatives\u2014however small a percentage of the black population they may be.\u00a0 Some of them are so well known that they need no introduction.<\/p>\n There is, though, one black conservative with whose name, chances are, relatively few of us are aware.\u00a0 This is a pity\u2014to say nothing of a scandal\u2014for George Samuel Schuyler was among the most impassioned and intelligent writers\u2014black, white, or other\u2014to which twentieth centuryAmerica had given rise.<\/p>\n For roughly half-of-a-century, from the 1920\u2019s to his death in the 1970\u2019s, Schuyler wrote for several publications, from the iconoclastic H.L. Mencken\u2019s American Mercury <\/em>to the Pittsburg<\/em> Courier\u2014<\/em>the second largest \u201cnegro\u201d newspaper in the country.\u00a0 It was at the Courier <\/em>that Schuyler served as assistant editor from 1922 to 1964.<\/p>\n Though he wrote for popular consumption, Schuyler was remarkably conversant in a plethora of literature.\u00a0 In his autobiography, Black and Conservative\u2014<\/em>which even the black leftist academic Cornel West acknowledges as a \u201cminor\u201d classic in African American letters\u2014Schuyler relays the laborious efforts he made to read all of Marx\u2019s works, for instance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed, Schuyler was as well read as he was prolific an author.\u00a0 A distinguished member of the black cognoscenti who tirelessly argued on behalf of the legal and civil equality of blacks, Schuyler\u2019s was among the most influential of black voices during the middle of the last century. He was regularly sought after to appear on radio and television where he would routinely decimate his opponents in panel discussions over the issues\u2014typically racially related\u2014of the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n So why is it that, in spite of the prominence that he once enjoyed, Schuyler is no longer mentioned these days?<\/p>\n One obvious reason, of course, is that Schuyler was <\/em>a conservative.\u00a0 <\/em>And he was a black <\/em>conservative.\u00a0 But to know only this isn\u2019t to know the full story.<\/p>\n You see, unlike most of today\u2019s conservatives, black or white, Schuyler relished in taking a wrecking ball to just those persons and ideas that our generation has elevated into sacred cows.<\/p>\n For example, while few of our contemporaries who crave the company of \u201crespectable society\u201d would dare to publicly criticize Malcolm X or, more crucially, Martin Luther King, Jr., Schuyler repeatedly took both men to task.<\/p>\n He was particularly unyielding when it came to Malcolm, who he had debated on several occasions.<\/p>\n In 1973, eight years after Malcolm\u2019s murder, Schuyler penned a piece entitled, \u201cMalcolm X: Better to Memorialize Benedict Arnold.\u201d\u00a0 In it, he said of Malcolm that he was \u201ca bold, outspoken, ignorant man of no occupation,\u201d one of the many \u201cmediocrities, criminals, plotters, and poseurs\u201d that constitute \u201cthe past generation of\u2026black \u2018leaders\u2019\u201d who have been \u201cafflicting the nation [.]\u201d<\/p>\n But Schuyler wasn\u2019t just insulting the memory of a dead man.\u00a0 He confronted Malcolm face to face while the former was alive and \u201cwas initially astonished by his wide ignorance.\u201d\u00a0 Schuyler explains that when Malcolm \u201claunched into an excoriation of white people in the name of Islam, I called his attention to the fact that the majority of Moslems were whites [.]\u201d\u00a0 Malcolm, he continued, was no better prepared to reply to this revelation than he was Schuyler\u2019s assertion that Moslems were more involved in the African slave trade than were Europeans. \u201cHe was surprised to learn this,\u201d Schuyler recalled. \u00a0<\/p>\n Schuyler also informed Malcolm that the Nation of Islam\u2019s \u201canti-white\u201d and \u201canti-Christian\u201d ideology aside, American blacks are \u201cthe healthiest\u201d and \u201cthe wealthiest\u201d blacks anywhere in the world.\u00a0 They \u201chave the most property\u201d and are \u201cthe best educated\u201d and \u201cbest informed group of Negroes\u201d on the planet.\u00a0 This includes, Schuyler was quick to note, all of those blacks from \u201cthe Muslim countries.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither was Schuyler a fan of Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/p>\n When it was announced that King would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Schuyler was critical. In his article, \u201cKing: No Help to Peace,\u201d he declared unabashedly that \u201cneither directly nor indirectly has Dr. King made a contribution to the world (or even domestic) peace.\u201d\u00a0 Alluding to King\u2019s alleged communist ties, Schuyler added: \u201cMethinks the Lenin Prize would have been more appropriate for him [.]\u201d<\/p>\n Schuyler stated: \u201cDr. King\u2019s principal contribution to world peace has been to roam the country like some sable typhoid-Mary, infecting the mentally disturbed with the perversion of Christian doctrine, and grabbing lecture fees from the shallow-pated.\u201d<\/p>\n Most tellingly, when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was still a bill, Schuyler came out as one of its most formidable opponents.<\/p>\n In \u201cThe Case Against the Civil Rights Bill,\u201d Schuyler asserted that all such civil rights laws \u201care another typically American attempt to use the force of law to compel the public to drastically change it [sic] attitude to and treatment of a racial group, the so-called Negro [.]\u201d<\/p>\n Although Schuyler finds this attitude to be \u201cmorally wrong, nonsensical, unfair, un-Christian and cruelly unjust,\u201d the fact is that \u201cit remains <\/em>the majority attitude\u201d (emphasis original).\u00a0 Still, since 1865, he says, there have occurred \u201cmarked changes\u201d in this arena, constructive changes, and \u201ccivil rights laws, state or federal, have had little to do with it [.]\u201d<\/p>\n While by every conceivable standard, black Americans have made strides\u2014irrespective of whatever civil rights legislation may have been on the books\u2014more remarkable than any to which any other group can lay claim, \u201cthe principal case against a federal Civil Rights law is the dangerous purpose it may serve.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Such a law is but \u201canother encroachment by the central government on the federalized structure of our society.\u201d\u00a0 What this means is that \u201carmed with this law\u2026to improve the lot of a tenth of the population, the way will be opened to enslave the rest of the populace.\u201d\u00a0 Schuyler denies that he is being hyperbolic on this score.\u00a0 \u201cUnder such a law the individual everywhere is told what he must do and what he cannot do, regardless of the laws and ordinances of his state or community.\u201d This can only be read as \u201ca blow at the very basis of American society,\u201d a society \u201cfounded on state sovereignty and individual liberty and preference.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Schuyler insisted on being even more graphic: \u201cWe are fifty separate countries, as it were, joined together for mutual advantage, security, advancement, and protection.\u00a0 It was never intended that we should be bossed by a monarch, elected on born.\u00a0 When this happens, the United States as a free land will cease to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the heroes of the past to whom we should turn as we approach this next election and reckon with those who would deprive of us of our liberty, George Samuel Schuyler must be placed at the top of the list.<\/p>\n originally published at American Thinker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" That black Americans constitute the most reliable of Democratic voting blocs no one who knows anything at all about American politics would think to deny.\u00a0 On average, the Democratic Party receives the support of nine out of every ten blacks.\u00a0 In the last presidential election, the Democratic challenger elicited over 95% of the black vote.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n