On May 15, 2007, I stopped at one of Washington DC’s most well-known soul food restaurants. As I waited for my favorite fare, a news flash came over the air stating that Jerry Falwell had died of a heart attack. Suddenly, a black waitress began to dance and celebrate because of Falwell’s passing. She was truly elated. In her mind, a great enemy of civil rights and the black community had just left the battlefield.
Ironically, I had just spoken in a conference with Dr. Falwell a month before. In fact, I served on a board with him. He was warm, friendly, and had a heart for all people - including African Americans. In my view, he was a champion of Christian values and faith.
The wild antics of the waitress showed that she simply did not know the man. She, like many blacks, only knew the caricature that the mainstream media had painted of a spiritual giant. Unfortunately the “Moral Majority” never worked to change its image among the millions of blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities who had no firsthand knowledge of the movement. Further, the Moral Majority never took it upon itself to challenge followers who were genuinely part of a racist fringe. As a result, an invisible “no blacks allowed” sign seemed to hang over the entrance to the movement.
Once again, the Left is trying to label decent people as monsters and the righteous as hypocrites. Today conservatives and the religious Right have a unique opportunity to re-brand themselves as being compassionate and caring toward the poor. We cannot afford to fall into the trap of winning a Pyrrhic victory on pet issues, while being negatively labeled so that no one can hear our voices on major long-term fronts.
President Jimmy Carter has claimed that the much of the recent challenges to the administration were personal. “I think people that are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by the belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African-American.” were his misguided conclusions. Unfortunately, it does not help the conservative movement to have the Tea Party movement cast as racist. One writer (Keith Richburg of The News International) penned the following observations, “One did not have to look too hard at the 12 September anti-Obama rally in Washington – an overwhelmingly white, largely rural crowd – to see the sea of Confederate flags, a symbol of ‘heritage’ to some southern whites and a symbol of racist oppression to blacks. Or the racially laden signs, such as ‘The zoo has an African lion – the White House has a lyin’ African.’ Others held signs that demanded Obama be sent ‘back to Kenya’.”
Countless others have attempted to lift up their voices to malign the Tea Party grassroots movement. Simultaneously widespread conservative resistance to the administration’s healthcare plans is being labeled as anti-poor. The historic problem conservatives have had is that they play into the hands of their enemies, from a public relations perspective.
Let’s just analyze our recent political history for a moment. Fed up with the establishment, Republican politics, and hypocritical purveyors of party loyalty; new wave conservatives want to return the movement’s foundational values of limited government, individual rights, free enterprise, and traditional values [LIFT}. Unfortunately, new conservative activists have forgotten the power of the press.
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