The Pendragon's Hall

Someone asked me recently why in a contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, women and blacks would still swarm to support Hillary. "What," this person asked, "do poor blacks in the inner-city have with a rich white woman?" It's a good question. Unfortunately, since the beginning of this country, portrayal is everything. In 1800, the Yankee planter John Adams faced off against Virginia aristocrat Thomas Jefferson and the press of the time portrayed Jefferson as the humble man of the people and Adams as the rich, idle monarchist. The picture has stuck to this day. Only two years ago, millionaire tag-team Kerry and Edwards were portrayed as men of the people, boldly sticking up for the little guys against the evils of the corporate empire, headed by George W. Bush. But there is a deeper problem. Everyone likes to feel victimized and what rich, white women like Hillary tell blacks living in poverty in the inner cities is that there is nothing wrong with them. They are the hapless victims of a vast, rightwing conspiracy to keep them downtrodden and the only way they can better their station in life is to keep voting liberals into office. Since a majority of Americans will never vote liberal, Hillary can count on the blacks wasting away in poverty without ever having to answer for it. But people like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell give blacks in the inner city a far less comfortable picture. They give them the idea that blacks can indeed better their station themselves. By hard work and perseverence, these two have risen to the heights they have. So if the blacks are living in squalor in the inner cities, there is more than one reason. For some it may be a mixture of lack of opportunities but for many more it can be lack of incentive and refusal to take responsibility for one's own life. This is why blacks will continue to vote for rich, white liberals instead of hardworking black conservatives. It is not because liberals are good for blacks, the way the general press tells it, and it's not because they're stupid, as some (unfortunate for us) conservatives tell it. It's because a message of blacks excelling through taking initiative means they can't keep counting on pity; they have to earn the right to be respected. That's an uncomfortable truth for anyone, black or white.