The top 5 reasons why Blacks Become Conservatives.

Why do some black folk consider themselves to be republicans/conservatives. Below, I list the most common reasons why I believe blacks Label themselves as such. Not necessarily in the order of most or least prominent and certainly not limited to these reasons either.

1. Ideology. Some black people actually believe that a conservative approach is the best way to solve black problems. Usually, such a person has seen the conservatives platform or blue print as having been applied true to their lives or others they know. The flaw with this is that it assumes what was true for them or the people they knew is thus true of everyone else. It assumes that one approach will work for all, which is rarely true in regards to social issues.

2. Status. Some black people label themselves as conservative because they associate it with being the ideology of the upwardly mobile. They believe that they will be seen in a different light or find more promotion in the business world if they are seen as followers of the conservative platform. After all, it is well know that the republican party is considered the party of the rich and those in the business class. Thus, blacks who have aspirations in those areas are compelled to find rationalizations to become conservative, even if they were reared liberal or benefited from liberal programs.

3. Being Different. Some people strategy from bringing attention to themselves is to be different from the rest of the crowd. Therefore, it stands to reason that some blacks like to simply be different from the masses of other black people. It is a sure way to be able to stand out or to be taken note of to be the only guy with a white tux, when everyone else is wearing black tuxes.

4. Resentment of black leadership. Some black folk become conservatives simply because they are not happy with the black leadership. There are people who do not like leaders like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton and thus become so obsessed with this that they join the conservative movement to fight against their interest. They generally do like the platform of these black leaders and their inability to change it from the inside out compels them to try to change it from the outside in, via the republican party.


5. Political strategy. Some blacks feel that Democrats take the black vote for granted. Thus, they believe that by becoming republicans, black interest with have more leverage in the political process. This motive totally makes no sense to me. How do the politicians differentiate why blacks voted for republican? How do they separate the protest vote against the ideology vote? If more blacks start voting republican then the Democratic party will likely feel that their platform needs to move more to the right, thus, working to take away political backing for black interest represented by a more liberal democratic party.


I believe that the political construct of parties and platforms are extremely inefficient in solving black problems. The primary reason being is that whites essential get to decide what our problems really are and what solution to implement, in regards to whether it will be a liberal or conservative approach. However, whites do not see our problems and solutions in the same way that we do. Moreover, white racism and the belief in white supremacy has a profound effect on policies enacted by white America through their political party construct.

Secondarily, and maybe more importantly in that it address the inherent failures of the system for everyone, is that political solutions produce a cookie cutter approach to solving. I see the conservative vs. liberal argument as being akin to an “Audio” vs. “Visual” teaching/learning methodology. If one comes out and says they are an “Audio” and support the audios platform, such a policy or program would benefit those who learn best via audio, while stagnating or hurting those who learn best visually. The reverse would be true as well.

The truth is that until we deal with creating policies that creates the ability to address the specific needs of each entity, we will never be promoting the full potential of society. The political construct just does not allow for such. What such a construct would require is much more money to create the oversight and flexibility to be built into the system to enact programs on the micro level. This meets most resistance with the republicans who think there is too much monies being spent on government expenditures already. Certainly such a flexible based approach would be more expensive than a cookie cutter approach, with little oversight and flexibility. Such would require increased funding and hence taxes, unless funding for Military or other expensive outlay is reduced.