“Black Is A Color, Not A Race”
I am fed up with hearing “black conservative this, black conservative that,” and “black conservatives say this” and “black conservatives say that,” ad nauseum. And don’t get me started on my contempt for the “African-American” assignation. My personal empirical experience(s), persuades me that when a cogent and articulate opinion is presented, said is based upon something far superior to a crayon color.
I am furthermore persuaded that the strength of any discourse, intellectual or not, is based upon the ability to present reasoned opinion and that is not based upon skin-color.
My business cards include the following personal quote: “Black is a color, not a race.” I am persuaded that it is time for America to move beyond crayons and coloring books. And using verbal crayons is exactly what is being done with this damnable insistence upon the prostitution of “skin color. It is tantamount to taking a crayon and trying to color without going outside the lines.
It is insulting to my intelligence to be recognized exclusively as a “crayon color” and even more egregious to have people ascribe merit or value based upon same. Being recognized, as a crayon color is not a portrait of embracing self worth, it is tantamount to saying the person cannot find self worth in any capacity outside of the crayon box.
We are Americans and it is time that “One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all,” is taken as an absolute. I’m not interested in the complaints that venal skin color mongers and stenotopic dullards whose cosmological world view is based upon the number of streets in their neighborhood, who see prejudice and so-called racism behind every bush and under every bed.
How does being a color make a person more knowledgeable, give them a higher degree of professionalism, make them more politically astute, or a Godlier minister? Spare me the social jeremiads and the mournful ballads of inculcated immiseration. And by all means spare me the cacophonic orchestrations of how bad slavery was blah-blah-blah. Preceding a professional assignation for me or anyone else with a crayon color prefix should be viewed as demeaning and insulting.
There are those who claim to be conservative(s) but who grip a crayon color prefix as if it were a solid gold or platinum caduceus.
Being reduced to a crayon color as the prefix before professional endeavor and or ideological construct is the most insidiously baneful form of alienation and derogation today. It’s a cancer that’s preventing a unified fabric of America and sadly, even the well-intended are blind to same.
People should want to be recognized as the best of “all” not the best of a particular color. As I’ve oft argued, being the best of a particular color has only marginal value. It is a perverse form of self-induced alienation that by definition marginalizes a person/people. I work to be the best of all. That is a challenge worth getting up each morning to pursue.
The very nature of being a crayon color is the suggestion that “the person is different.” And the difference is based upon that which is the absolute worst method of quantifying, i.e., skin-color.
An example of that which I speak is the recent incident at a Rittenhouse Square Starbucks, involving two young men who happened to be a “color.” It is well documented that Starbucks has an unimpeachable historical record of insulting people and groups. They’ve insulted President Trump supporters, they’ve offended Christians, they’ve gone out of their way to insult and offend law enforcement, military, and legal American citizens. But somehow the treatment that experienced by two young men who were a “color” made it worse. Starbucks’ record of insulting law enforcement is well known. But it wasn’t until the crayon color pimps saw there was a market to be exploited financially that the color-coded Muslim front group called the “Black Star Project,” began their well-practiced claims of “racism.”
These people cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim to be oppressed and have new cars, new “Air Jordan’s,” jobs, and the trappings of disposable cash. They cannot claim to be oppressed and be millionaires and billionaires. They cannot practice the lifestyles of the poor and promiscuous and complain about not having enough to eat. I could site many more examples, but my point is understandable.
It’s no different for those who claim to be free of the emotional and psychological imprisonment of “the others” and fixate upon being a crayon color.
There will be those who offer protestation alleging those who think as I do are ashamed of their race, sellouts and fools desiring to be the “skin color” with less melanin. However, they’re who are ignoring the fact – “black is a color not a race.”
One side of the crayon color coin demands to be a color but becomes indignant when reduced to same and treated as such. Those on the other side of the crayon color coin claim to be free of the psychological shackles while clinging to the trappings of same.
About the Author
Mychal Massie
Mychal S. Massie is an ordained minister who spent 13 years in full-time Christian Ministry. Today he serves as founder and Chairman of the Racial Policy Center (RPC), a think tank he officially founded in September 2015. RPC advocates for a colorblind society. He was founder and president of the non-profit “In His Name Ministries.” He is the former National Chairman of a conservative Capitol Hill think tank; and a former member of the think tank National Center for Public Policy Research. Read entire bio here