November 18, 2004

On Authenticity

We created quite a stir yesterday with our numerous links to political cartoons depicting Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. The principal theme was “black authenticity” as determined by white liberals. That’s an old subject, of course, and one on which too many whites pontificate. But the over-the-top nature of so many of the cartoons clearly struck a nerve nationwide. In brief, many blacks, along with conservative whites, have had enough of the mainstream media’s attempt to degrade black conservatives. Were conservative whites to attack prominent blacks with similar art or language, or to insinuate such a thing, they would (properly) be run out of town. Ask Trent Lott.

A point that needs to be reiterated is that many of the cartoons depicting Colin Powell were not racist in the raw sense that, say, the Oliphant drawing of Rice was. But the attempt to confer black authenticity on Powell is, in the end, only slightly less offensive. By lauding Powell for his “independence,” a euphemism denoting his left-of-center beliefs on some issues, liberal whites throughout the mainstream media (and not just cartoonists) announce him as a legitimate force for good, a man of whom his race can be proud. Liberals have for years been anxious to deny the GOP, and conservatism per se, any benefits from Powell’s independent decision to declare himself a Republican and serve Republican presidents. Oh, he may serve them, they seem to say, but he’s not really one of them.

But can anyone imagine this struggle for Powell going on if he was white? Would the liberal press be so desperate to claim him as, if not one of their own, at least something other than a conservative? Surely not. Therefore, Powell’s race serves as an asset within the liberal universe. It allows him to be played off against his successor, a black woman, in a way that is unfavorable to her, but not because of any lack of accomplishment on her part. Rather, her shortcoming is purely ideological. As a highly educated conservative, she’s deemed by white liberals to represent not the virtues of the African American community, but those of the white conservative elite. In too many liberal eyes, this reduces her authenticity as a black woman of high accomplishment and opens the way for ridicule and mockery, some of it overtly racist in nature.

And it’s in that sense that a racial overtone permeates the comparisons of Powell and Rice. Would she be lauded had her predecessor been a white man? I very much doubt it. But I also doubt that she would be portrayed as unworthy of filling his gargantuan shoes. Think about it: Had Rice been born 20 years earlier but risen to similar heights, does anyone think the press would have ridiculed her so, and praised her predecessor, had he been a Jim Baker or George Shultz?

Liberals are claiming not just that she’s unfit for the job, but that she’s no Colin Powell, a giant who strode the earth. And their depiction of him as such, again, rests on his race in addition to his genuine accomplishments. This isn’t to say that Powell isn’t an extremely impressive individual – he has been and remains so. It’s only to argue that the double-standard for black conservatives continues unabated, and that those blacks who break with the liberal tradition can expect a level of vitriol from whites who would praise these blacks if, all else being equal, they were on the left.