Black Republican

“I feel like a Black Republican. Money, I got comin’ in. Can’t turn my back on the hood. I got love for them. Can’t clean my act up for good, too much thug in ’em.” ~Nas

I would have been a member of the Young Republicans if I thought about politics at all when I was young. But I didn’t, so I wasn’t, but now I’m a member of the Middle-Aged Republicans, a card carrying member of the party of Abraham Lincoln. Sure, a lot has changed since the mid-1800s but I’m not judging.

I’m a Black Republican, and somehow that still surprises people every single time they find out. I have a Romney/Ryan bumper sticker on my car (yes, from 2012), and apparently the people I work with just found this out. So the jokes have started coming in. “Did you seriously vote for Romney?” “You do realize it’s 2016, right?” “Where’s the Ben Carson sticker?”

Uh, yeah. I would never have voted for Ben Carson. I don’t play the race card, and not all Black Republicans are created equal. I think it’s funny, too, that as soon as his own campaign crumbled around him he glommed onto the presumptive favorite now in Trump. I think it shows all along that he will do whatever it takes to have some influence, to stay in the limelight. Just like my buddy Chris Christie.

But they (the others) think because I’m black and a Republican, that somehow it means I’m a spotted jackass, rare and detrimental to the race as a whole. Well, since it seems like the majority of people in my race are snowed by Hillary Clinton, I’m proud to stand apart from all of that. With all the things she’s lied about that have come to light, why would I ever support her and then wait for the other shoe to drop? I don’t get it.

Then again, I’m conservative. Always have been. Always will be. Which is funny because my wife is pretty liberal. No, not “Bernie Sanders-liberal” but pretty liberal nonetheless. We joke that our votes will always cancel each other out, so we should avoid voting altogether and go see a movie on general election night instead. I like that plan a lot. It certainly would take care of waiting in line at the polling place.

I think it’s funny that society says politics and religion are tough subjects to have real conversations about because people get so oppositional about those topics. I say that if you’re convinced your view is right, why try to change other people? Just speak your truth, don’t get into an argument, or get all upset that others are different from you. We can be whatever we want, and that’s OK, remember? I can be a Black Republican married to a White Democrat, and that’s alright.

But I’m sure someday my Romney/Ryan bumper sticker will disintegrate, at which point I might have to go Bush 2032. And I’m good with that.

Sam