biggirl, are you sure you’re not thinking of the self-apponited “black leadership” which does tend to be more liberal? From the list you yourself posted, I perceive blacks as being on the “conservative” side of many of those issues. I guess that makes them “wrong” by your definition.
Take abortion. Many black Civil Rights leaders were very much against abortion, even the ones that have switched sides in the last couple of decades (Jesse Jackson for example). Much of the civil rights movement came out of the black churches. True, the influence of the chirch in black communities has waned (as it has for society as a whole), but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a strong core remaining. In sum, there is a very large, very conservative (in the non-Republican sense) force in the black community. I’m not sure why you don’t see it. True, it doesn’t make the papers as much as Al Sharpton’s marches, but it is there.
School vouchers. Black support continually outpolls white support. Of course, because of the NEA-Democrat relationship, I think the voice of just regular black folk gets swamped by the vocal black leadership, which is so intertwined with the Democratic Party that people fail to notice the grass roots.
Taxes. I think most blacks want lower taxes, same as whites.
Death penalty and criminal justice in general. I’d like to see some polls on how support for being “tough on crime” breaks down according to race. I hear a lot of voices in the black community, the older generations in particular, who decry what has happened to their neighborhoods; who lament the fact that drug dealers have taken over their communities and are working on corrupting the younger generations, which are the future of the black accomplishement in this country. You won’t hear too many bleeding hearts if you listen carefully. Put the punks in jail is what I hear. And for the gang killers? many blacks favor the death penalty.
Military. I know this wasn’t on your list, but I thought I’d bring it up anyway. I was thinking about this when people were guessing how the military ballots would come in. Officers for Bush and enlisted for Gore was what a lot of people were guessing, based on the higher percentage of minority in the enlisted ranks. Well, things may have changed, but I was in the Army during both Bush Sr. campaigns. I knew of no black soldiers who supported Dukakis over Bush, and only one who professed to support Clinton. My unit was in the south and was about 50/50 along racial lines. Again, maybe things have changed.
Let’s see, what else? What is your perceprion of acceptance of homosexuality in the black community? My perception is that there is a significantly larger percentage of gay-acceptaing whites out there than gay-accepting blacks. I have no numbers for this; it is just a perception.
Maybe I just have a much different background than you, biggirl. the blacks I know personally have been through church (protestant and evangelical, mostly), the Army, and through my profession (science). Those demographics prety much skew conservative, so it is no wonder the blacks I know tend to be more conservative.
However, it is not only that. I grew up in the south, where the percentage of blacks runs a lot higher than many other areas of the country. I read the papers every day. Not just the headlines where the leaders get their sound bites and press releases in bold print, but in the interviews with black families, the church-goers, the single mothers, the kids trying to get ahead when the odds are stacked against them. When you listen to those voices, I think you hear the very definition of conservative (and, again, I don’t mean “Republican”).
