As a child of the 70’s, I grew up in a typical two-parent middle-income household. My father, then a U.S. Navy man honorably serving his country, carried much of the discipline he acquired in the military into his methods of parenting. Much of that order and discipline continues to permeate my thought processes to this day. My mother, then part of the hustle and bustle of corporate America, was/is a paragon of hard work and good work ethics and instilled in me the same traits that would benefit me to this day.

Politics in general was not a recurrent topic of discussion, at least of any depth, in our household. However, the comments that did arise regarding current political and social events certainly earned our family the so-called liberal label. Though there was no parental inculcation of liberal doctrine with my brother and myself, I maintained a liberal philosophy through early adulthood. Despite this, I was the object of recurrent disdain and name-calling from the neighborhood kids I grew up with because I was academically successful. Then, as is often the case today, if you were a black kid who did well in school, you were considered to be “acting white”. To make matters worse, I was fairly articulate and possessed no local accent that is common among blacks in the Washington D.C. area, so I was often seen as “talking white”.

Situations such as these are unfortunate, particularly for young, malleable kids who often succumb to good and bad peer pressure. Because of this kind of pressure, I witnessed a number of kids I grew up with who I knew were capable of academic success, but chose to dumb themselves down to fit in with the “cool” crowd. Little did they know how this would adversely affect them for years to come. Fortunately, I had strong parents who instilled strength and discipline, and allowed me to withstand years of verbal assaults. Some twenty years later, I’ve come full circle to experience similar subjectivity and mistreatment as an American who is black and conservative. Though my detractors are now adults, the same infantile contempt for someone who is different still exists.

Nevertheless, the times are slowly changing, as an increasing number of young black Americans are departing from traditional beliefs and voting patterns, and embracing a conservative philosophy. Still, I, and a great many others like me are a minority within a minority. We are socially limited by blacks who are liberal, yet not fully embraced by others who share the same political beliefs. Baseless ad hominem attacks on black conservatives by the increasingly outdated civil rights “leadership”, et al, put undue pressure to keep our conservative beliefs under wraps for fear of ostracism. This is especially the case in academia, particularly among predominately black colleges and universities.

It is sad that most black Americans (and others) who fight for racial diversity fail to accept and even outwardly reject political and philosophical diversity. It is this kind of inconsistency that creates an air of mendacity among those individuals who still want to be in the “cool crowd”. Many of them are the same individuals who rapidly rebuke the implication that blacks are a monolithic group in America, but are slow on the trigger when it comes to politics.

Sean Turner
Fulton County Republican