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).

I believe in low, flat taxes for all, and relative, general deregulation to encourage economic liberty, competition, and success. I view the far left fiscal ideologies of Socialism, Communism, and its supportive and practicing heads of state worldwide as the Devil really, and the very anti thesis of all that is free, good, and actually, really fair. I’ve seen the destruction the fiscally left policies of the Democrat Party (the same party of slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, Robert Byrd, DADT, and DOMA) cause.

I believe that inner city entrepreneurship, fostered by the fiscally right, GOP policies for mentioned, will help get my fellow, proud, minorities off this Jackass welfare dependency, get us outta the ghetto, and put them on the track to real, prosperous futures. Like may rap and R&B stars have done.

My foreign policy, formed after I was awakened on 9/11, consists of utterly destroying any and all hidden, growing, and festering threats to our great nation’s national security, and strategic interests worldwide, including through pre-emptive military action if such evidence deems it necessary. Yes I believe in diplomacy, but also believe that it’s really, only effective when backed up by powerful military force. My family has been U.S. military dating back to the Civil War, and I’m former Navy myself. I will always, strongly, proudly, and from the bottom of my heart support our heroes in uniform.

Education philanthropists have been showering money on publicly funded charter schools while often taking their eyes off the big picture. What’s missing, however, is the fact that for every new charter school opened recently, two Catholic schools have closed because of financial trouble.

Officer Ziplock came to my house a few months ago and asked me to drop the term “urban” because it was synonymous with “black”. He informed me now that I live on the Conservative side of town, I don’t need to self identify as “urban” or talk about race under any circumstances whatsoever. I showed him a Wikipedia article that defined “urban” as being “of or related to the city” – to no avail.

Officer Ziplock warned me he’d be keeping his eyes on me and I noticed he had been following me around town the last few months. He even emailed me on facebook, but I never responded. I remember an incident in the supermarket where I noticed some eyes staring back at me through the cracks in the aisle right by the Apple Jack’s boxes. It kind of creeped me out, but I figured, since he was the self-identified “conservative police”, he was just doing his job. I always wondered how a public sector employee was busy stalking me and my urban conservative brethren instead of fighting crime and spreading the ‘conservative’ message to areas with very few conservatives.

As an inner city school counselor, my passion for strong families was birthed as a result of witnessing firsthand the emotional trauma that ensues as a result of students who are born without married mothers and fathers.

A few weeks ago, I met an ex-convict on my way home from a meeting with a photographer. We’ll call him “Jason”. While I was parked at the stoplight, I heard Jason talking to someone on the corner. He said, “I just got out of jail today man! I’m so happy to be out after serving 10 years!” The journalist in me screamed, “Hey, um, I want to ask you some questions. Stay right where you are!”

After parking my car, we went into a pizza restaurant. Jason told me he was arrested 10 years ago after getting caught with his friend who was selling drugs. I asked him what his plans were now that he is out, and he said he is working on finding employment since he has temporary housing. While serving time, he worked in the kitchen and told me he is an aspiring cook. I warned him how difficult it would be for him to find employment because of the current economic climate. I also told him not to get discouraged because of the stigma associated with being an ex-convict.

Jack Kemp, the man we credit with the supply-side economics revolution of the 1980s fully supported Enterprise Zone legislation that went largely ignored until Bill Clinton signed the Federal Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1993 that provided tax credits and other incentives for “Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Communities”. Incidentally, Jack Kemp was openly critical of the version approved by Clinton.

More importantly, Jack Kemp didn’t ignore the inner city like to many Conservatives and Republicans du jour. Jack Kemp didn’t let right-wing rhetoric blockade legislative attempts, grounded in conservative principles, to help “the least of these”. Kemp unequivocally cared about Black America and the stakeholders in the inner city-fortunately- not in the paternalistic way that Liberals show they “care”. As Director of HUD (Housing and Urban Development) between 1989-1993, he attempted, but failed to push for residents in “Projects” (inner city low-income housing units) to partially own the housing developments that they lived in because Kemp argued that, “When people lack jobs, opportunity, and ownership of property they have little or no stake in their communities.”

While stakeholders in urban areas are busy trying to figure out how to fix the broken educational system in our communities urban conservatives need to think out the box to solve problems. In fact, we should officially divorce ourselves from useless rhetoric. We must make education the #1 issue on our platform. This means we will need to go beyond a band-aid approach to the educational crisis such as school vouchers. These talking points are meaningless if we do not put any teeth behind what we are saying.

You cannot talk about job growth in any area until you address education first. The reason? Without the proper training by taking the time to learn the skills first you will be going to a job unprepared. In an information age we must train our inner city to be prepared.

This week “National Public Radio” profiled Marvin Rogers an urban Republican who has been featured on HHR many times.

Marvin is the type of Republican that Jack Kemp would have been proud of here is a guy who is truly ‘on the ground” in urban areas spreading a genuine message of personal empowerment.

For the last three decades the Republican Party has given up on cities. Some say it’s due to racism. Others because the GOP is trying to engage in divisive politics. Others say they just don’t care. I say it’s none of these. I think there is one very basic reason:

Urban voters just don’t like what we’re selling.

The Democrats must understand that the American people are shopping. The American people want to choose the plan they are going to pay for. This is not being bigoted, but it is called “shopping around”. We “shop around” every day in our everyday lives. We take in the cost and the durability of the item we seek to have and then we purchase it. On both concerns, with regards to cost and durability, the public option is found wanting!

By Brandon Brice In my recent article, “Jobs, Baby, Jobs”, the idea of job creation and common sense dominated the main theme. As conservatives, libertarians or moderates we realize that now President Barack H. Obama is our new Commander and Chief, but we can always look towards the future. Vice Presidential candidate, Gov. Sarah Palin [...]