This is just what I was talkin' about

For as much as I complain about the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton 'nem, I can honestly say that if I was in a situation like those people in Texas who had been incarcerated by the lies of a rogue police officer, I would call Jesse or Al before any Black conservative I can think of (except my mother. I would call her first.). The problem is, I don't think I'm the only one. Why is that? Given that most Black conservatives seem to stress the idea that we could achieve Dr. King's dream if only Black people would stop crying racism at every turn, why isn't anybody out there when there's an unmistakable example of real, live racism? Why the attempt to act like everything's okay? I look at Townhall.com just about every day. Not a peep out of the Black writers there. (Not a peep out of any of the writers, actually, but the cynical part of me is not exactly surprised.) Granted, the people were released from prison last summer, so there might have been a massive hue and cry. I wouldn't put money on it. Although I think there probably is a good article for a traditional conservative in there on the high cost of police misconduct. Like I wrote last week, that's a weakness of Black conservatives, stressing the individual over the collective to such a high degree. In doing so, the "there, but for the grace of God go I" perspective gets lost. That's problematic. Like I said, I know that if I lived in that town, it could have been me just as easily as it was those people. Those people were guilty of nothing. They just lived there and looked to the police officer (it only took one!) like the jury would believe they were guilty if he said so. (And the sad part is, he was right.) Same thing goes for the death penalty. I don't have a problem with capital punishment in theory. In practice, though…the way things go in this country, the way some police lie, the way some judges hand out sentences unevenly, the way far too many innocent people have been convicted and sentenced to death (and who knows how many people have been killed over lies?)…I just can't sign on like it's all good.