“Making the Black Community Sustainable” by Dr. B.B. Robinson

Op-ed submission by Project 21

If something is good and it is enjoyable, it’s not surprising that people want it to last forever. We want the goodness to be unceasing. We want it to be sustained. But the sad fact is that nothing lasts forever. Even the cosmos is subject to the vagaries of time and will one day cease to exist.

Within black America, despite the hardships we have faced, there have been many favorable developments that have benefited our people. They should continue. Unfortunately, many appear to be unsustainable.

Consider the example of the black family. Formerly the bedrock of our community, the black family is now failing. Around 70 percent of black children are currently being born out of wedlock, and the availability of marrying-age black males is restricted by a very high, albeit declining, incarceration rate.

Several of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which many charge with maintaining a tradition of scholarly excellence in our community, are slowly but steadily falling by the wayside. Schools that were once virtually the only choice for black higher education are now failing to receive broad economic support because, in part, they become enmeshed in non-educational issues, reflect poor management and often produce graduates who exhibit sub-par academic achievement.

The rapid pace and major accomplishments of the Martin Luther King-era civil rights movement left the establishment black special interest groups with a hard act to follow and few critical hurdles to overcome. Today’s civil rights lobby is largely a “go along to get along” movement that often focuses on the wrong issues.

When presented with the declining black family, subpar educational achievement and a lack of progress on key economic issues, today’s self-professed black leaders seem quite ineffective in comparison with the greatness of their predecessors.

Even effective past efforts by the Nation of Islam to make black America more productive and independent are not being replicated today. Given Minister Louis Farrakhan’s current advanced age and declining health, we must wonder whether that movement will be sustained beyond his passing.

Conversely, there is an important institution that remains sustained, in form if not in substance. That institution is the black church. Why has the black church been sustained, and generally what are the keys to sustainability?

For institutions, organizations and movements that want to last, they must, at their core, contain the materials and the chemistry that it takes to be sustainable. Like kernels that always produce stalks of corn and create the kernels that grow yet more corn in the future, these institutions, organizations and movements must include what is essentially a genetic code that ensures their sustainability.

Sustainable entities must embody long-range plans with provisions for course corrections (consider the U.S. Constitution), systematic processes for leadership succession (consider the Catholic Church) and flexibility to evolve (consider creation itself).

Probably the most important key to sustainability for black American institutions, organizations and movements is a willingness on our part to work diligently and selflessly to make them successful. The reason that kernel of corn is successful in producing more corn is because earth, water, air and sun are always there to do their parts. Likewise, we must be committed to serving as the equivalent of the earth, water, air and sun to ensure that our institutions, organizations and movements are sustained.

While all good things inevitability come to an end, they do not have to suffer a premature demise. With work and care, good things can be sustainable for quite some time. As a result, we can avoid the hazardous stops and starts to our efforts to preserve ourselves as a people and as a community within the larger American nation.

B.B. Robinson, Ph.D. is a member of the national advisory council of the black leadership network Project 21. You can visit his website at http://www.blackeconomics.org

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“Obama, Sharpton and Black America’s Downward Spiral” by Darryn “Dutch” Martin

Op-ed submission by Project 21

As a conservative, President Barack Obama’s re-election was one of the most disappointing experiences of my life.

As a black American, my sorrow was only amplified.

Just look at President Obama’s economic track record. Look at the unemployment rate during Obama’s first term. Throughout his first four years as the nation’s CEO, the official unemployment rate rested almost exclusively between eight and ten percent — with data showing the inclusion of those leaving the workforce altogether out of despair actually made the number much higher.

He promised much better. But then asked for more time.

Despite being carried to re-election by a nearly unanimous black vote, black unemployment under President Obama was a staggering 14.3 percent in the month before his re-election. Young black men are being hit particularly hard by unemployment.

A white liberal incumbent president with such an abysmal economic track record would be slaughtered for such a performance. He was. Remember Jimmy Carter’s 1980 landslide loss to Ronald Reagan? Yet Obama cruised to a fairly easy win. The fact that it was black America carrying Obama to victory that leaves me flabbergasted.

To add insult to injury, the Reverend Al Sharpton sees fit to not blame the stubbornly high black and Hispanic unemployment rates on Obama’s policies, but on conservatives! In a recent radio interview, Sharpton said:

[Obama’s] increased jobs and found jobs — unemployment has gone down in the private sector. What has not gone down is [unemployment] in the public sector and blacks in particular are disproportionately in the public sector.

One of the reasons those jobs have gone down or have remained down is one, the Republicans are cutting a lot of the agencies where we are the employees of government jobs… [W]hat we’ve got to do… is take on these governors and mayors as well as the private sector on why the private sector is getting all these contracts and bailouts and not hiring and correcting the disproportionate amount of their employment does not touch our community and have the President and them support us in that.

Really?

I’ll overlook that Sharpton, like most liberal elitists, seems ignorant of basic economic principles. Otherwise, he would know Obama’s big government, tax-and-spend policies — such as the failed stimulus, his existing taxes and his proposed $1.6 trillion in tax hikes on corporations and small businesses (derisively called “the rich”) and Obamacare — are primarily to blame for high unemployment rates overall and a disproportionately high black unemployment in particular.

If the Reverend Alfred Charles Sharpton, Jr. were to read black economist Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, Sharpton would know that more taxes will make it nearly impossible for any businesses to generate investment activity and create jobs needed to expedite our nation’s economic recovery — something the public sector cannot.

But I digress.

My primary beef with the illogic of people such as Sharpton is the racially condescending insinuation that black Americans are not cut out for corporate America — that only a good public sector (read: government) job will ensure black America’s socioeconomic survival. Tell that to former presidential candidate Herman Cain, who had a fabulously successful career in corporate America — up to and including becoming president and CEO (and later part-owner) of Godfather’s Pizza.

Forget the “fiscal cliff.” Black America already plunged over the cliff of political skullduggery, propelled by intellectual buffoonery. It’s on a collision course with economic calamity by reelecting an inexperienced community activist to the White House.

That dinosaurs of the modern-day civil rights establishment such as Al Sharpton are still found relevant by the mainstream media only adds urgency to the need for those of us who care about our country to strap on the parachutes of our own economic security plans and pull the chord.

It’s going to be a crash landing before Obama’s second term is over.

Darryn “Dutch” Martin, a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network, is a former member of the American diplomatic corps.

“Life, Liberty and Happiness” by Archbishop Council Nedd II

Op-ed submission by Project 21

In an increasingly secular America — where moral absolutes have vanished — it is not surprising that same-sex marriage referendums recently passed in Maryland, Washington and Maine.

After all, noted theologian N.T. Wright said, “by itself, human reason can no more be guaranteed to tell us which way to go than a compass in a room full of strong magnets.”

A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found approximately one in five Americans — roughly 33 million people — have no religious affiliation. Of those, 13 million consider themselves atheist or agnostic. That’s a lot of people without spiritual grounding!

Furthermore, the gravitas of the “Catholic vote,” once coveted by politicians and which struck fear into the hearts of the church leadership’s political opposition, has dissipated like a morning dew — leaving only memories of its former power. And, because of black pastors who place political expedience ahead of theological integrity, the mythic “black church” seems to have turned from a sanctuary from life’s turmoil to a directionless moneychangers den of thieves.

Lacking a moral compass, there’s a general assumption now that we are all good people and any behavior can be countenanced no matter how abhorrent it may be to others. That being said, I don’t fault individuals merely following their id because no one is there to caution them otherwise.

I don’t really fault those seeking same-sex marriages. I don’t fault the non-religious. I fault those whom God placed in a position of authority over the past 50 years who failed to do what was required and expected of them.

There are many to blame for society’s current wanderings.

First, politicians sold out. Then, community leaders sold out. Now, the religious establishment is selling out. In the span of mere generations, a population grew up without any true moral leadership. This has put the nation in the treacherous position it is in today.

Specifically, I fault teachers who let kids graduate from high school without the ability to read. I fault politicians more concerned with reelection than properly tending to our tax dollars. I further fault politicians who use the office the American people gave them to merely gather accolades and largess rather than serve constituents’ best interests.

I also fault pastors more obsessed with preaching about politics than the gospel.

When people of faith emerge from their homes and look — mouths agape — at the world around them, wondering about the current state of affairs, I lament the systemic and chronic “responsibility fail” that got us into this mess.

At some point, people must realize the consequences of the their actions.

Rome was undoubtedly an amazing and fun place back in the year 350 A.D. But paganism, lack of gratitude, hedonism, monetary troubles and military problems along with a covetous world eventually took its toll on Roman society.

Most people educated enough to have studied this sort of thing in college (or even high school) history seem inclined to ignore the parallels and seem unwilling to confront the current peril.

Chapter four of St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians reminds us that our political and religious leaders should not preach about themselves, but rather about the Lord and that the “excellency of the power” and wonder of our nation is of God and not us.

Our nation’s Founding Fathers recognized this when they acknowledged that we are endowed by our Creator with an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit is not an entitlement because it is understood to exist within the framework of our moral and social fabric.

With prayer, we can weather this moral tsunami. We can because — though we may be hard-pressed on every side — we are not yet crushed. We may be perplexed, but we are not yet completely in despair. We may be persecuted, but we are not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.

Archbishop Council Nedd II, a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network, is the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church and the chairman of In God We Trust.

“Jovan, Jason and Jumping to Conclusions” by Derryck Green

Note: photo and link to Jason Whitlock article was added by administrator.

Op-ed submission by Project 21

Jason Whitlock started it, and Jason Whitlock can end it.

On December 1, the Fox Sports columnist penned a column about what happened earlier that morning when Jovan Belcher — the starting linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs — murdered his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins (the mother of his three-month-old daughter), and then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and killed himself.

In his piece, Whitlock questioned and lamented how the NFL and the Chiefs decided to play their scheduled game against the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. He argued the appropriate thing to do was cancel the game.

So far, no harm no foul.

But, instead of questioning the unjustified reasons why Jovan Belcher would kill the mother of his daughter and then turn the gun on himself (or sticking just to the sporting angle), Whitlock took the opportunity to lament gun violence — as if the gun was used independently and without cooperation of Jovan Belcher’s hands and mind.

Whitlock also lamented America’s “gun culture” — a culture he never thoroughly explained yet passively blamed them for “more and more domestic disputes [ending] in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead.” Again, Whitlock acted as if guns kill people independently of their owners.

On December 3, Whitlock doubled-down on his politically correct, logically-deficient and morally-deficient position and further exposed his lack of intellectual credibility for all to see. During CNN-contributor Roland Martin’s podcast, Whitlock likened the National Rifle Association to… the KKK.

That’s right, the Ku Klux Klan. Telling Martin “I did not go as far as I’d like to go” with his column, Whitlock unload — implying the NRA is responsible for arming black youths with guns used to kill other black youths. He also seemed to blame the NRA for not only gifting black kids with guns, but also supplying them with drugs.

Aside from the embarrassing and unadulterated stupidity of Whitlock’s comments, he proceeded to take illogical leaps with absolutely no connected dots to verify his recklessness. He unjustly made racist and conspiratorial accusations about an organization that advocates gun safety and responsible use as well as protects gun rights.

What Whitlock claimed about the NRA was morally indefensible. It stripped him of any remaining credibility after an already-shaky opening salvo. The irony is that Whitlock is the one thinking in racial terms when he assumed only whites are, or can be, members of the NRA.

That said, where’s his proof the NRA is arming black youths? Has he read it? If so, where and when did he read it? Are these incidents in the police reports of gun crimes committed by black youth? If so, publish these police reports.

I’m willing to bet that the black youths on Chicago’s South Side, who are doing their best at contributing to the city’s sky-high black murder rate, aren’t card-carrying members of the NRA. How can they be? They’re black!

Furthermore, as he did in his original piece, Whitlock turns those who would use guns to settle disputes into victims as opposed to willing participants who chose guns over knives, clubs or bare hands in their acts of violence, terror and destruction.

Once again, guns don’t kill people without human participation. Belcher wasn’t a victim. He intentionally used his gun to kill his girlfriend and himself. And, as much as Whitlock would try and paint the picture, the drug-addled and armed black youths he laments aren’t victims of racist white gun-club members bent on destroying black communities.

Criminals consciously make decisions to use guns illegally, and — as a result — are responsible for their own actions.

Jason Whitlock should apologize to the families of Kasandra Perkins and Jovan Belcher — in that order — for using them as political pawns to advocate more gun control. He should then apologize to the NRA for his baseless, deliberate and absurd smear of the NRA’s credibility.

The consequence of Jason Whitlock’s thinking inevitably disarms law-abiding citizens, ensuring more gun violence. This is the exact opposite of what Whitlock claims he wants, and would ensure there will be more victims like Kasandra Perkins.

Derryck Green, a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network, received a M.A. in Theological Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary and is currently pursuing his doctorate in ministry at Azusa Pacific University.

“Eric Holder’s Plantation” by Derryck Green

Op-ed submission by Project 21

It’s said Lyndon Baines Johnson used voter fraud to win his 1948 Senate primary campaign. In 1954, then-Senator Johnson orchestrated a law prohibiting church involvement in electoral politics. Yet it was LBJ’s presidential library where Attorney General Eric Holder chose to demonize ballot protection laws last year.

And it was Holder who, this past May, huddled with black clergy from the Council of National Black Churches and the IRS and the Congressional Black Caucus to determine how political black churches could be without running afoul of LBJ’s rule. And, for good measure, he further criticized voter ID.

In the analogy that black Americans are imprisoned on the liberal plantation, it’s fair to consider Eric Holder the overseer. In the days of slavery, it was the overseer who managed through fear to maximize crop yields. Nowadays, it’s fear management for political yields.

Today’s bogeymen are 30 state-level laws, enacted through the democratic process, that require proper identification to vote. These popular laws protect against voter fraud, from preventing illegal immigrants from voting to dealing with bogus registrations and identity thieves voting in other peoples’ names.

Holder and his fellow overseers say these laws disfranchise and suppress minority voters. The NAACP alleges in a 2011 report that possibly 25 percent of black Americans don’t possess the proper documentation to meet some ID requirements. Yet the NAACP’s report didn’t contain a single instance of someone deprived of his or her legal vote.

Despite being completely divorced from reality, these radical claims become harder to dismiss when allegedly revered figures such as NAACP president and CEO Ben Jealous calls voter ID the new Jim Crow and Holder calls them “poll taxes.”

Holder cracked his symbolic whip last May to frighten clergymen and their congregations against the idea of abandoning President Obama. Obama’s recent “evolution” on same-sex marriage sent a chill across black churches, and the threat of Jim Crow reborn helps rekindle support.

Holder’s tactics of intimidation and fear is condescending. Having a valid government-issued ID isn’t a poll tax, and the only form of suppression it represents is suppressing voter fraud. Blacks board airplanes, open checking accounts and rent cars just like everyone else. They buy guns, alcohol and tobacco products. All of these purchases now usually require ID. Who is complaining about these restrictions on black Americans?

Yet Holder expects clergymen to take this selective outrage back and insult the intellect of their congregations? How offensive!

LBJ stole people’s votes. He silenced churches. He did that to all races. He was certainly not a man of integrity to follow. Yet liberals embrace LBJ’s legacy, and they seem willing to continue to condone an environment in which votes can be stolen and in which only churches with the right connection can speak.

At what point will blacks become so offended at this condescension that they will no longer participate in the madness? Holder and his fellow overseers are basically telling their obedient, unquestioning slaves that they are too dumb, too lazy — or both — to obtain valid ID. This is absurd!

More importantly, given the ear of the black clergy, why did Holder rush to push politics when he could have helped create a more moral and responsible society? Why didn’t he instead encourage these pastors to return to the pulpit to preach about men being men — being responsible husbands and fathers and shunning the temptation of crimes, drugs and misogyny?

Rather than harkening back to the brutal past, why not promote a dignified humanity that comes with being created in the image of God — the dignity that our enslaved ancestors literally died in struggle to achieve.

But that was apparently too much to ask. For overseer Eric Holder, politics apparently trumps character.

Derryck Green, a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network, received a M.A. in Theological Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary and is currently pursuing his doctorate in ministry at Azusa Pacific University.

“We Don’t Need Another Hero” By Lisa Fritsch

Op-ed submission by Project 21

Our nation’s current political battle about same-sex marriage reminds me of the film “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” in which rivals fight it out in a cage to chants of “two men enter, one man leaves!”

I also recall Tina Turner’s song from the film. She belts out: “We don’t need another hero. We don’t need to know the way home.”

Conservatives might take Turner’s lyrics to heart. Look at liberals these days. They championed Barack Obama as a superhero, but have discovered the cape doesn’t fit. Conservatives need not repeat the liberals’ folly.

Obama recently revealed his “evolving” opinion on same-sex marriage evolved into support of it. It instantly created a clear division with conservatives he probably wanted to keep muddled for until after the election. Conservatives, to the contrary, have long maintained that marriage should only be defined as a legal bond between a man and a woman.

But this sudden and clear distinctions on the definition of marriage is not the point. Americans want a life beyond what politicians are offering.

Americans yearn for a simpler time when everyone knew everyone else’s name but not all of their business. Perhaps it’s the fault of so much social networking, tweeting and round-the-clock news. It seems that someone always has the answer, or can at least bluff so convincingly that it appears they do.

Americans are concerned that we are in a real-life political Thunderdome, one that makes our union fragile and headed for trouble. We need a world beyond the Thunderdome of class warfare, legislative immorality and financial ruin.

Turning back the clock to the time of our founders is not an option. Who can ever really go back home again anyway?

Like Turner’s song, we should realize we don’t need to be told the way home in 2012. What we need most is to find a way back to ourselves so we may figure out who we are and where we stand.

We are so distracted and overwhelmed with ideological diatribes and identity politics on both sides that we have lost touch with a basic understanding and appreciation of morality.

All of this drowns out the voice of our Creator, who helps us determine right from wrong and the way home.

We need to realize we don’t need hope and change from a leader in Washington.

We don’t need to rely on what a politician thinks about two men or two women buying a house and shacking up, just like we shouldn’t care about what they think about heterosexual couples doing the same. Individuals are responsible to their Creator for their life choices — not someone in the White House.

Welcome to freedom!

Conservatives would be wise to define their values — beginning with a strong appreciation for individual responsibility. For example, I will not make a list of moral right and wrongs for others. I will let their consciences be their guide.

It’s time to get this country thinking again. It’s time for people to be responsible for their choices and accept the consequences.

But as long as we are still arguing and disagreeing so vociferously, like Thunderdome, we take up all the space needed for the sort of self-reflection that empowers people to turn inward to their own responsibility and away from noise of the world.

Maybe Turner’s song is wrong. Maybe we do need another hero, and maybe we do need to know the way home. But it’s more complicated. The hero is beyond this world, and the way home offers a unique direction for each one of us that only He can give us.

We’ve mistakenly tried to find our home and our hero in government.

We need to look no further than Obama’s ill-fitting cape to realize our mistake.

Lisa Fritsch, a member of the Project 21 blackleadership network, is the author of “Obama, Tea Parties and God”. Her personal web site is located at www.lisafritsch.com.

“Certain Signs of Societal Decline” ‏By Deneen Borelli

Op-ed submission by Project 21

There were reports of babies out in the cold for hours in Houston. In Indianapolis, two dozen police officers used pepper spray to control an unruly crowd that pried shopping center doors off their hinges.

These were just a few of the scenes caught on video across America as people tried to get their hands on a pair of sneakers.

These instances point to a moral breakdown of our society, especially among young people with misguided priorities who are not held accountable for their actions. Morals have seemingly taken a back seat to things that are thought to be worth more than respect.

“These shoes have always had a place of value in black life,” said one young black male in response to the frenzy surrounding the release of the limited edition Air Jordan XI Concord sneakers by Nike.

Named after the legendary basketball player Michael Jordan, these prized kicks retail for over $200 a pair. Demand is so high that some pairs of these sneakers were sold on the black market for over $500. And getting them was considered worth the risk of freezing or getting arrested.

The sneaker riot, which was caught on video, is deplorable. The looting of mall kiosks, robbing of shoppers, forced entry into stores and trampling of shoppers are disturbing to watch.

How did America get here?

Young adults imitate what they see, and what they see is bad behavior being glorified, on reality television, in movies, in music videos, in video games and on the Internet. These mediums are rife with demeaning language and behavior, violence and examples of blatant disrespect towards others, yet some of the rawest and craziest acts on video are not derided for their incivility but lauded for how many “thumbs up” they get on YouTube.

Misbehavior is so prevalent that, in some households, it seems to be accepted as normal behavior.

The Occupy Wall Street movement provides another example of contemporary bad behavior. While claiming to support a middle class that, allegedly, can’t win playing by the rules, youthful Occupiers are nonetheless preoccupied with the forgiveness of their own school loans (often for useless degrees) and credit card debt and seem more interested in growing big government than helping anyone succeed. The entire Occupy movement seems like yet another instance of the take-what-you-want decline of society.

What’s worse is that Occupy efforts receive support and sympathy from President Barack Obama, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other prominent leftist leaders and celebrities. Their support for the Occupiers sends a message that it’s fine to be disruptive and not expect to be held accountable. Just last week, in fact, former Obama administration official Van Jones proclaimed that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was “the original Occupier” and warned that 2012 would be a “turbulent” year.

In the wake of the sneaker riots, several ministers and activists in Houston held a press conference to blame others for the action of the mob. They called for Nike and Michael Jordan to “do something,” giving those who actually caused the chaos a pass.

There is no excuse for this behavior. Individuals should be held accountable for their actions. Nike and Michael Jordan did nothing wrong and are not accountable for the misbehavior of others.

Why are black leaders largely mute about this bad behavior? Where were the voices of black leaders standing up against the “flash mobs” in 2011? Why isn’t the White House decrying its former colleague for publicly preparing for what he refers to, and one must assume, is hoping to help instigate, a “turbulent” year?

Actions have consequences. To continue on this destructive path will result in a bleak future that for many will include violent acts, incarceration and even early death. Our country is in vital need of a morality surge in which parents, grandparents, church members and lawmakers all play a role.

There are thousands of misguided youths who desperately need love, guidance and discipline on a consistent basis. This would help put them on a path towards personal responsibility and success.

A New Visions Commentary paper by The National Center for Public Policy Research. Deneen Borelli is a fellow for the Project 21 black leadership network.

“Silencing of the Black Conservative” by Lisa Fritsch

Op-ed submission by Project 21

Glenn Beck was more ahead of his time than I realized in 2009 when he aired his first program to prove the existence of black conservatives.

Despite Beck’s assistance, we remain largely unseen on the news channels. As a black conservative advocate of how blacks should (and, in many instances, do) embrace conservative values for more than a decade, the media does not call us as often as it should.

Black conservative voices must become ubiquitous. We aren’t anomalies. The problem is that we aren’t being heard.

That’s a shame since it is precisely because black conservatives are infrequently invited to espouse our views that the misperceptions about black conservatives fester.

Some want this silence because the more we talk the less unusual it is to be black and openly conservative.

That’s why the left appears adamant in trying to silence black conservatives. After I appear on television, for instance, I can be assured pervasive and virulent e-mails meant to intimidate me are on their way. For instance:

“And you even with your straight-hair wig would have been mistaken for a welfare gal. Beck is using you. I hope it pays well.”

“…you display that sad self-hating stereotype black conservatives are known for by not recognizing your African heritage.”

An oft-expressed, but baseless, suspicion by slanderers is that black conservatives adopt the conservative position for attention. We are called on by factions of the right, they argue, as a sideshow to validate their bigoted and racist views… simultaneously selling out our community for financial gain.

If that’s true, whoever they think is passing out the paychecks forgot mine. Furthermore, I recognize my African heritage more than just every time I look in the mirror. I’m secure in my heritage and my beliefs.

But making a respectable name for ourselves isn’t helped when people such as Ann Coulter appear to validate the suspicion. On a recent edition of Hannity, she said “our blacks are so much better than their blacks.” For Coulter to seemingly take ownership of black conservatives had me throwing trail mix at my flat screen.

This type of flippant remark from a white conservative speaking for blacks whom she purports to support (or, in this case, approves of) unfortunately only justifies the accusation that black conservatives are indeed mere puppets.

MSNBC, CNN and other networks aren’t expected to look to the black conservative commentators to talk about how the Obama Administration has set the black community back. But what about the Fox News Channel?

Fox News has a steady stream of liberal black commentary on their roundtables as opposed to black conservatives. Juan Williams, for instance, shares the Sunday roundtable with Chris Wallace. Marc Lamont Hill is a consistent presence on The O’Reilly Factor and Jehmu Greene is a regular Fox News contributor.

Being a black liberal apparently does pay well, even on Fox News.

In trying to determine what prevents black conservatives from making the cut, I can only surmise that my comrades are also like me: modest in querying producers; afraid to appear arrogant or boastful; insecure about stature and dubious about appearing self-serving.

Likewise, is Fox News leery of being perceived as “using” us? MSNBC and Al Sharpton surely aren’t worried about this, considering Sharpton seems to be taking the race issue to the bank. Cha-ching!

But isn’t there room for a black conservative on The Five or as a foil to Sharpton? After all, respected conservative commentators… white, yellow, brown and black… are considered qualified to comment on issues revolving around the black community. Why aren’t black conservatives called more often to discuss policies pertaining to America at large?

I hadn’t realized that Glenn Beck needed a show to prove to America that black conservatives exist. To a more relevant degree, however, we still don’t.

Lisa Fritsch, a member of the Project 21 blackleadership network, is the author of “Obama, Tea Parties and God”. Her personal web site is located at www.lisafritsch.com.