African-Americans who believe that Mitt Romney represents the best opportunity for black America.

IT ONCE WAS fashionable to suppose that slavery had made the conventional family difficult to sustain because of spouses so often being sold away from one another and children being separated from their parents. A natural conclusion was that, after slavery, the old patterns persisted, especially given how difficult conditions continued to be for black people, and that this was an understandable precursor to the fatherless norm in inner-city black communities after the 1960s.

There is, indeed, sociological literature showing that it was hardly unknown for black people to be raised by single mothers during slavery and afterward. In fact, over the last 150 years, there have always been proportionately more single-parent black homes than white ones.

However, as classic work by Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman has shown, despite the horrors of slavery, overall, during the pre-emancipation era, about two-thirds of enslaved families had two parents — far more than today. More recent revisionist work has stressed that, while forced separations were always an important part of the picture, the two-thirds figure remained dominant (Wilma Dunaway is especially handy on this).

Unfortunately, Muddy, Chuck, Little Richard, Wolf, and Big Mamma did die that day. They were smothered in the ashes of their white successors. With Buddy dead and Elvis shipped off to war, the immediate “channelers” of Black blues and soul were gone. And so gone was the trail that led to the beginnings of Rock & Roll.

Black Music soon transitioned into the commercial Motown sound which served to make the distinction between polished R&B soul music and the new guitar driven R&B of white acts like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who. The distinction grew even further as “Rock” music became more audacious and black music became tamer and tamer.

Disco music had transformed black music so much that by the 80′s black music and rock music were as different as days and nights. However, there were grand funk bands in the 70′s like Funkadelic, Earth, Wind, and Fire, and Kool & The Gang. And What about Jimi Hendrix?

How long will the Black community continue to allow the Obama administration and the Democratic Party to insult them and then blame it on Obama not wanting to be perceived as a “Black” president?

Let me give an example. You have invested in a business project, Obama Inc.

There were 4 classes of investors: class W, which comprised 74% of the total stock; class B, which comprised 13% of the total stock, class H, which comprised 9% of the total stock; and class G, which comprised 4% of the total stock. How would you respond to the CEO of Obama Inc. if he says the rate of return (ROI) payout would be as follows: those who invested in class W stocks would be paid first, followed by, class G, then class L and the last to be paid back would be class B.

Well, any sane businessman would expect to be paid by order of the largest to the smallest investor. If you were part of the class W stock (74%), you should be paid first and work your way down to the smallest investor. This is normal and logical in the world of business.

Like many blacks who openly identify as Republicans or conservatives, Dr. Rice is often the recipient of sharp elbows from other blacks who question her affinity for African-American issues. Her closeness to the often reviled 43rd president also conspires against her in a community that historically views the GOP with unremitting hostility.

The release of Dr. Rice’s new book, entitled Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family, affords an opportunity to take a more balanced view of the many achievements notched by the Stanford University professor, who skipped two grades, began her college career at 15, and earned three degrees — including a PhD in political science. Her expertise on the former Soviet Union earned her a place within the notoriously insular conservative foreign policy establishment.

As the “official” story goes, between the year 1932 and the year 1972, the United States Public Health Service (PHS) conducted a series of secret longitudinal studies on Black sharecroppers who had already procured syphilis. While the official story says one thing, if you ask people about the study, most will tell you that the Tuskegee experiments resulted in Blacks secretly being injected with syphilis by the government.

I’ve read countless articles on the internet from both left-wing and right-wing sources who believe that what most people think about the study is more conspiratorial than factual. They purport that since the sharecroppers already had syphilis, that the government officials only erred in not telling them that they were sickly. My argument to that is, how could anyone trust the “official” story from bureaucrats who were purposely deceptive for several decades?

Yesterday, the media was pushing hagiographic narratives about the redemptive story of Robert Byrd’s past on race relations. The moral of the story is that you can always make up for being a racist son-of-a-bitch.

I’ve learned over time that the relationship between Blacks and the “government” is not as simplistic as pundits would like to make it seem.

For decades, social conservatives have relentlessly targeted Black Churches as a way to bring more African-Americans into the Republican Party. Despite many sincere efforts, the numbers of church going African-Americans who vote Republican is smaller now than ever before.

While there has been much debate and talk about the Religious Right within the Republican Party, one could equally and strongly argue that African-Americans make up one of the largest socially conservative voting blocs in the Democrat Party. Earlier this year, the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life released a detailed study on the religious views of most African-Americans. The research was unique in that the new analysis found blacks to be the most religious group of people in the United States population as a whole.

According to the research, when compared to other racial and ethnic groups, African-Americans are among the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation with 87% of African-Americans describing themselves as belonging to one religious group or another. The analysis also finds that nearly eight-in-ten African-Americans (79%) say religion is very important in their lives compared with 56% among all U.S. adults.

Why don’t black people listen to or produce Rock music?

Apparently, the music died on February 3rd, 1959 when Buddy Holly, Richie Valenz, and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash following a concert. Apparently, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Howlin’ Wolf, and Big Mamma Thornton were also on that plane, if in fact, the music had died. Oh they were not. Then what the Hell was that song about? Oh that song was about the day white music died. Got It.

In short, Black people don’t subscribe to conservatism or listen to rock music because they gave it away. Many of their reasons were valid but for the most part they are outdated. As long as we as a people limit our political perspective and our artistic tastes we’ll lock ourselves out of the mainstream and all the opportunities therein.

When people think of South Carolina, they think of . . . I know, Comedy Central. Given the state’s generosity in providing punch lines, Jon Stewart really ought to consider taking a pay cut. What people do not typically think of is black Republicans, a perception that could change soon if a young man named Marvin Rogers has his way.

One thing I have learned and noticed during my many trips to Africa is a lot of these attitudes are taught to Africans. They are taught that Black Americans are not serious people, they are criminals, and they should not be trusted. Most African’s only image of Blacks come from BET or the Hip-Hop community.

I encourage African Americans to buy land or face the possibility that all the struggle, the work, the achievements will be forgotten. The measure of success should not be how much you earned in your lifetime, but how great was the legacy given to posterity.

  By Cleo E. Brown The first African Slaves were brought to the North American Colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1620. The justification for enslaving these people had been that they were child-like, happy-go-lucky, heathens, barbarians and a licentious people who needed to be taken care of. In the slave holder’s view The Africans needed [...]

By Dr. Ada M. Fisher  Yesterday while sitting in the corner barbershop, six police cars flew down the street.  The chasers brought back the report that last night one young sixteen year old black man was shot on a lot  next to a house I previously bought, fixed up and sold in an attempt to [...]