Of late I have been receiving too many invitations from DC Republicans saying they have selected me to sit on a prominent commission. I talked to one, asking if they were mistaken, and if they had recognized that I am BLACK and NOT a REPUBLICAN. I asked her how they could have gotten my name on their list of people they want on their commission, in short, in their corner. When hearing my brash response to their cooing, they confessed that they were mistaken, and their courting stopped for a while; then came more calls and more letters.

I have to wonder why they are courting a stoutly Afrocentric writer. As I think back over my writings this last year, I have written on just about everything. And, yes, I have said harsh things about Republicans and their feeble vanguards into our community--Black Conservatives--but I have said some things they are doing correctly, albeit they are few. I have written of the Democrats and their need to rethink an Al Gore candidacy; on international affairs, especially the Israeli-Palestinian problems; on failed Black leadership and incompetent white leaders and the numerous white business and political thieves; I have written about religious con men in the Black Church and sexual perverts in the white Catholic Church. In short, I have spared no sector of society from my pen.

But maybe their confusion about my political stance is due to the fact that I am aging, an inevitable side effect of one's continued life, and they assume that the older one gets the more conservative that person becomes; or maybe in their reading of my columns they have misinterpreted my Afrocentic rantings for those of a Black Republican, which seemingly is the same as a Black Conservative. (Can one ever be Republican without being conservative? They seem to be too insecure to allow and entertain diverse opinions: Only the monolith, sir; there is strength only in numbers, and those numbers are our truth, and our morality is by plurality! )

But there is quite a difference between the Afrocentic writer and the Black Conservative writer/speaker. The first thing is intelligence, and this leads to the second: Black Conservatives usually exhibit a great deal of self hatred. They are terribly ignorant about American realities, accepting only the Republican paradigm of America's place in the world and of Black realities. They, like most of white America, see black America through the prism of white (and some black) image-makers' projections. And those images of our 27% underclass, they try to sell as being the mindset of the 73% non-underclass. (1) Black Conservatives do not seem to like themselves as a part of the Black American landscape, and that dislike--even hatred in some--is seen in their writings as black bashing that always points Blacks to a white model for imitative behavior.

Black Conservatives rail against the problems of black Americans, but never of the strengths, achievements, and contributions of black Americans, and there are many. But they are willing to sell themselves for a handful of dollars because, as writer Ishmael Reed has said, "There is money to be made in bashing Blacks." They simply bash Black people, putting them all into the same class--the lower class that is characterized by the comedic, even foolsh sitcoms. And their wailing is always at the behest of others, not the need of Blacks. We need their comments and observations like we need tofu in grits.

On the other hand, the Afrocentric writer also wails against certain behaviors of some Blacks, but his/her wailing is always from a posture of help, never from a motivation of money or to appeal to the white masses. The Afrocentric writer does not overlook the failings of Blacks, but tackles them head-on. He/she addresses them with the fervor he/she should have, as one concerned about his/her people. It is because of this frontal assault on aberrant Black behavior that the white Republicans who come a courting have confused my writings with that of some of their black dogs.

But my bark is friendly, instructive, and received by the Black community; their dogs' bark is mean, uninformed, and unaccepted by most of the Black community. Consequently, many whites, I am sure, wonder how such writers as Shelby Steele, John McWhartors [their newest creation], Stanley Crouch, etc., are so ineffective in our communities, while they sell their books and their conversations to whites. No mystery. They are just not people the majority of educated Blacks regard because we have seen these stray dogs before, and we know who feeds them!

My writing is edgy, and not mine only, but most of Gibbs's writers are edgy also. That edginess is intended. The concept of edginess is an intellectual one that is often confused by many. So confused are some that Gibbs has received articles from some poor brothers who are racist in tone and intent, thinking that such manuscripts are acceptable. We are not racist, and if one confuses our edginess or our Afrocentric bent for racism, we suggest a rereading of our magazine until that one understands precisely what we are attempting to do.

Of course, we receive e-mails from whites who are free and liberal with their invectives, and with an over-reliance on the word nigger, as if it has special flavor or magic that I am supposed to appreciate. Sorry, I am unaffected.

When I write, I attempt to provoke thought, make the reader see nontraditional or non-majority views on an issue, and to push the boundaries of thought beyond the narrow American scope of parochial obsession with itself and its supposed rightness of being. That sometimes means that I challenge not only white thought but black thought too.

Most white Americans do not really think; they merely accept uncritically what a biased media overwhelmingly and repeatedly give them. And too many black Americans do not think either; they simply buy a white monolithic way of non-thinking as if it is thought. And that thought is only a white ethos of how things should be in a white world. But, as James Baldwin said, "This world is not white, nor black either, for that matter...." (2) And since this world is diverse, we explore other ways of understanding ideas and issues that many have already settled on. We go to the sensitive and controversial edge of ideas without crossing the line into absurdity or extremism. Yes, we are sometimes strident, even a bit pedantic, but so is the white media we have to counteract.

This is the nature of my edgy writing, and that may be the confusion Republicans get when reading me, which makes them think I am court-able into their camp. Sorry, about that confusion, there is no need to court me, I'm already married!

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1.) The Black American majority is more of the Dr. Huxtable type than the many black comedic sitcoms the world is fed.
2.) James Baldwin made this observation at the National Press Club, on his last visit to this nation before his death.