Home > Blackwashing
By Joshua Holland, Gadflyer
"Black Conservative to Rebut NAACP Leader’s Remarks in
C-SPAN Interview," read the press release from Project
21, an organization of conservative African-Americans.
I had read in Reuters that Kweisi Mfume, president of
the NAACP, had called groups like Project 21
"make-believe black organizations," and a "collection
of black hustlers" who have adopted a conservative
agenda in return for "a few bucks a head."
So I tuned into C-SPAN with interest to hear what a
leading voice in the black conservative movement had to
say. But then a funny thing happened: The
African-American spokesperson for Project 21 caught a
flat on the way to the studio, and the group’s director
had to fill in. And he was white.
As the segment began there was an awkward Wizard of Oz
moment as C-SPAN’s Robb Harlston - himself black -
turned to Project 21’s Caucasian director, David
Almasi, and said, "Um...Project 21... a program for
conservative African Americans... you’re not African
American."
It was a remarkable moment. A flat tire had led to a
nationally televised peek into what lies behind a murky
network of interconnected black conservative
organizations that seek ostensibly to bring more
African-Americans into the conservative movement. But
they’re not just reaching out to the community. They
also speak out publicly for conservative positions that
might evoke charges of racism if advocated by whites.
And while that’s not to say that there aren’t some
blacks who embrace conservative values, the groups that
claim to represent them are heavily financed by
business interests and often run by white Republicans.
Almasi replied defensively, "I wanted to make clear
right at the beginning that I’m an employee, I’m an
employee of Project 21, my bosses are the members of
Project 21, the volunteers...I take my marching orders
from them, not from anybody else."
Almasi told me by phone that he is Project 21’s only
paid staffer, and that he works part-time. He said that
the approximately 400 volunteers - among whom there was
a core of "a few dozen" - were simply conservative
blacks "willing to do interviews, be quoted for press
releases and be available to write for Project 21
publications," and that his role was simply to serve as
"a syndicator, an editor and a scheduler."
But Project 21 is a subsidiary of the National Center
for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), which, according to
the liberal watchdog Mediatransparency.org, was formed
in the 1980s to support Reagan’s military interventions
in Central America. NCPPR’s leadership - president,
vice president, executive director - are all white. Amy
Ridenour, former Deputy Director of the College
Republican National Committee and the organization’s
president, also sits on the board of Black America’s
PAC, an organization that claims to be nonpartisan but
whose IRS filings state that its mission is to elect
Republicans.
NCPPR’s directors are also all white. In fact, one of
them - Jack Abramoff - is so white that he’s actually a
high-powered GOP lobbyist and Bush ’Pioneer’ who,
according to the Washington Post, is the target of
multiple investigations into alleged funny-money
payments from Indian gambling concerns (along with the
$45 million in fees they collected from them, Abramoff
and his partner Michael Scanlon convinced the tribes to
donate large sums to conservative organizations run by
Scanlon, which then funneled the money back to
Abramoff, according to the Post).
In the 1990s, NCPPR got into the business of denying
that climate change warnings were based on sound
science. If the connection between black conservative
outreach work and environmental skepticism doesn’t seem
clear, that’s because it’s not. But it’s logical
considering that ExxonMobil donated $30,000 to NCPPR
for "educational activities" and $15,000 for general
support in 2002, and last year they hiked their
operating support to $25,000 and kicked in another
$30,000 for NCPPR’s ’EnviroTruth’ website, according to
company financial records.
Project 21 also received funding from R.J. Reynolds and
"has lobbied in support of tobacco industry interests,
opposing FDA regulation of the industry, excise taxes
and other government policies to reduce tobacco use,"
according to the Center for Media and Democracy. Almasi
denied that Project 21 received tobacco industry money,
but said he was not sufficiently aware of the details
of NCPPR’s fundraising to say whether the parent
organization had.
A Mile Wide, an Inch Deep
Project 21 is one small part of a broad coalition of
black conservative groups that fight for issues of
concern to the business community. These organizations
draw their intellectual inspiration from Thomas
Sowell’s landmark 1975 book Race and Economics, one of
the founding documents of the new black conservative
movement. Just as born-again conservatives like David
Horowitz and Zell Miller are showered with praise and
money, black conservatives are embraced and elevated by
the conservative movement as living repudiations of
liberalism.
So Sowell and others - like Robert L. Woodson of the
American Enterprise Institute, J.A. Parker of the
Lincoln Institute, sometime presidential candidate Alan
Keyes of Black America’s PAC (BAMPAC), and Jackie
Cissel of the Black Alliance for Educational Options -
have little trouble finding cushy think-tank sinecures
and generous support for their organizations. Many
among this small group of prominent black conservatives
are on several groups’ advisory boards, adding to the
appearance of a broad ideological movement. Cissel, for
one, also serves as regional director for the African
American Republican Leadership Council, a group whose
mission "is to break the liberal democrat stranglehold
over Black America," according to their web site. As
Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten reported last
year, 13 out of the 15 members of the AALRC’s Advisory
Panel are white. They include such well known minority
champions as the Free Congress Foundation’s Paul
Weyrich, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform,
the Reverend Lou Sheldon, Gary Bauer of the Family
Research Council, David Keene of the American
Conservative Union, and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
What do people like Weyrich, Norquist, Bauer and
Hannity have in common with the black conservatives?
It’s more than a common affection for low taxes and
non-existent government regulation of business.
Conservative activists understand that the GOP’s
history of tolerating bigots in their ranks and seeking
out their votes, from Nixon’s "Southern Strategy" to
George H.W. Bush’s use of Willie Horton to George W.
Bush’s courting of the confederate vote in the 2000
South Carolina primary, presents a problem for moderate
voters of all races. Finding African-Americans to make
the conservative case goes a long way toward wiping
those memories from the public mind.
Big Men on Campus
But ideology starts outside of Washington, and one of
the most important ideological battle grounds for the
black conservative movement is on campus, where many of
the faculty in the social sciences and humanities
believe the silly notion that structural racism still
exists in America, and aren’t afraid to say so.
So in 1998, the Young America’s Foundation formed the
Alternative Black Speakers Program "in response to the
overwhelmingly leftist bent of Black History Month on
campuses," according to a press release. The program
sends conservative black speakers to college campuses
across the country, "giving students an alternative to
the often radical and irresponsible message of black
lecturers appearing on campuses as part of official
university programs." One of YAF’s top executives is
Floyd Brown, the infamous dirty trickster responsible
for creating the 1988 anti-Dukakis ads featuring Willie
Horton’s menacing mug shot.
Perhaps the most visible black conservative in the
campus wars is Ward Connerly, president of the American
Civil Rights Institute (ACRI). Connerly was a protA(c)gA(c)
of former California Governor Pete Wilson, who
appointed him to the University of California’s Board
of Regents. Connerly drafted Wilson’s anti-affirmative
action initiative Prop 209, and is now attempting to
bring a similar ballot measure to Michigan.
When asked what he thought about Trent Lott’s comments
about segregation in 2002, Connerly told CNN:
"Supporting segregation need not be racist. One can
believe in segregation and believe in equality of the
races."
According to the civil rights group By Any Means
Necessary (disclosure: I am a member of BAMN), Connerly
reportedly makes $400,000 dollars per year as the
president of ACRI.
Follow the Money
And that’s what seems to unite these seemingly
disparate groups - money. Every black conservative
group I’ve mentioned - without exception - receives a
significant portion of their funding (in some cases all
of their funding) from at least three of four
ultra-conservative foundations (the Lincoln Institute
gets its share funneled indirectly through the
conservative Hoover Institution).
The four are the usual suspects of the Right’s
political ATM: Richard Scaife’s family foundations,
Adolph Coors’ Castle Rock Foundation, The John M. Olin
Foundation, and the Linde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
What’s striking about these groups’ underwriting of
"minority organizations" is that some of them have at
times displayed what many would consider a frankly
racist agenda.
Scaife has gained notoriety as one of the great funders
of the "New Conservative" movement. While he is best
known for his anti-Clinton activities, including paying
for the American Spectator’s "Arkansas Project," he has
plenty of unsavory grantees; the Charlotte Observer
reported that he provided funding for Children
Requiring A Caring Community, a scary fringe group that
pays poor women to be surgically sterilized or to
undergo long-term birth control.
According to People For The American Way (PFAW),
William Coors gave a speech in 1984 in which he
reportedly told a largely African American audience
that "one of the best things they [slave traders] did
for you is to drag your ancestors over here in chains."
Later in the speech, he asserted that weakness in the
Zimbabwe economy was due to black Africans’ "lack of
intellectual capacity."
The speech drew controversy and a boycott by African
American and Hispanic groups. In response, Coors
pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to African
American and Hispanic organizations. Apparently, black
conservative groups run by white Republicans count.
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation is a
particularly interesting case. According to PFAW,
Bradley, whose recipients list "reads like a Who’s Who
of the U.S. Right," is a major funding source for the
Center for Individual Rights, which brought the Hopwood
v. Texas case that ended affirmative action at the
University of Texas law school. Bradley played a major
role in financing Pete Wilson and Ward Connerly’s Prop
209, and, through the Pacific Legal Foundation, Bradley
"provided pro bono representation to ...Wilson in his
challenge to five state statutes dealing with
affirmative action ..." Clint Bolick, vice president of
the Institute for Justice, another recipient of Bradley
money, "played a pivotal role in attacks on Lani
Guinier, President Clinton’s nominee to head the
Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Bolick’s
Wall Street Journal opinion piece headlined ’Clinton’s
Quota Queen’ dredged up the worst racist and sexist
stereotypes and helped throw the Guinier nomination on
the defensive."
Even more striking is that Bradley grants supported
Charles Murray and the late Harvard psychologist
Richard Hernstein while they wrote The Bell Curve:
Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.
According to PFAW, "the book was widely seen as a piece
of profoundly racist and classist pseudo-science, and
was denounced by the American Psychological
Association. It had relied heavily on studies financed
by the Pioneer Fund, a neo-Nazi organization that
promoted eugenicist research. Immediately after its
publication, Bradley raised Murray’s annual grant to
$163,000."
The boards of these foundations aren’t exactly
"multicultural," if you know what I mean. But they have
a message to get out: They’re coming after affirmative
action, the minimum wage, social welfare programs, pre-
and after-school programs and, indeed, multiculturalism
itself. And when that’s the message, it’s good to have
it delivered by an African-American.
So there you have it, the leading lights of the black
conservative movement. If you believe that the most
pressing problems facing the African-American community
today are the minimum wage, too many regulations on
energy companies and too many people trying to get kids
to quit smoking, then maybe you should join the black
conservative movement yourself. You don’t have to be
black, or even know anyone who is. And heck, if you are
black and you leave the house early enough, they may
even put you on TV to "rebut" the NAACP.