Recently, an African-American friend of mine noted that in order for him to have "respect" in his community, come November, he must be able to walk out of the voting booth saying proudly that he voted for Barack Obama.  I asked him if he had, at any time in the past, ever voted for a Republican candidate for President.  (He has been voting since 1976.)  He told me he didn't think so and did remark that when he told some of his black neighbors back in '84 that he was thinking about voting for Reagan, he was branded "An Oreo Cookie" and a traitor to his race.

For those of you readers who don't know what an "Oreo Cookie" is in the African-American community that is a person who is "black on the outside and white on the inside."  During this presidential election year you will hear a lot about those few black republicans being traitors to their race and Oreos.  Michael Steele, the former Lt. Governor of Maryland, who is also black, is a conservative republican and currently the Chairman of GOPAC.  He has been branded a "black Rush Limbaugh" by Bob Novak in Human Events and "a betrayer of all that Martin Luther King, Jr and the civil rights movement stood for" by the Huffington Post.  Yet, he remains firm on the true conservative principles that set him apart from Obama and his Democratic ilk.  Steele, along with other black conservatives like Tom Sowell and Larry Elder and conservative politicians like Alan Keyes, jurists like Clarence Thomas and Presidential Advisors like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice have been attacked by those of their own race as turncoats, defectors, betrayers and Oreos.

Why?  Because Michael Steele and his fellow African-American conservatives realize that the Democrat Party doesn't really care for the plight of the black community.  A little bit of history will illustrate this.

First, the Republican Party was founded in 1854 to abolish slavery.  Slavery was primarily and institution of the Democratic Party.  After all, following the civil war, Democrats were involved in the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. 

The poll tax, which was enacted in southern states from 1889 to 1910, was a Democratic institution.  Because payment of the tax was a prerequisite for voting, it disenfranchised many blacks and poor whites who couldn't afford to pay it.

Democrats instituted Jim Crow laws (laws which imposed racial segregation on blacks) throughout the South.

When black and white student activists made "Freedom Rides" on Greyhound buses through the South in the spring of 1961, Alabama police departments refused to protect them from the KKK and angry white mobs.  Many freedom riders were beaten and harassed at bus terminals - including the one in Birmingham, Alabama where Police Chief "Bull" Connor arrested everyone on the bus for violating segregation laws.  Chief Connor was a Democrat.

Democrats were the original segregationists who opposed desegregation and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (including Senator William Fulbright who Bill Clinton awarded the Medal of Honor and Senator Al Gore, Sr., who vehemently opposed equal rights for blacks).  If not for the support of white Northern Republicans, former President Lyndon B. Johnson would have not been able to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  It should be noted here that Martin Luther King, Jr. supported and endorsed Republican candidates - not Democrats - for Congress in the south.

Democratic Senator Robert Byrd from West Virginia was a Kleagle in the KKK and used the term "white n----r" twice in a TV interview with Tony Snow on a March 4, 2001 broadcast of Fox News Sunday.

Now the question is: Why have we seen over 92% of the African-American vote (since 1964) going to the Democrats?  Although better than 9 in 10 blacks vote Democratic, it is interesting to note the a Pew Research Center poll taken in 2006 found that 75 percent of black Americans believe "liberals" push too far to keep prayers and religion out of the public schools and government and only 17 percent of African Americans want to legalize gay marriage (these are liberal Democratic positions!  Now, this is an overwhelming statement of traditionalist convictions.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was a traditionalist.  In almost every public statement he made, he called upon God to inspire him and deliver justice.  Bill Cosby is also a traditionalist.  He travels the country urging black Americans to return to the American traditions of self-discipline, self-reliance, and self-respect.

Cosby, like Michael Steele, Thomas Sowell and other black Americans, understand that moral relativism is not helping blacks overcome their historical disadvantages.  The key to success, according to Cosby, is a strong traditional education and hard work.

Yet the Democratic Party wants the black community to be satisfied with decaying schools, an educational public school systems which has turned into more of a baby-sitting service that an enterprise for learning and mental growth.  They want the black community to think that the government in general, and those more advantaged in particular, "owes" them for past offenses and current disadvantages.  The Democrats prefer blacks to be "enslaved."  This slavery can no longer be to the White Devil Slave Masters of the past, but to the "system," i.e. the government which doles out entitlements like its candy and tells them to "remember on election day who helped you with these handouts."  In the world of psychology, we call this "brain washing."

Now lest you think I am accusing blacks of being brain-washed, let me quote Bill Cosby in a speech he gave in October, 2006 to the NEA.  "Black people today don't want to take care of themselves or their children, black men don't want to be responsible for parenthood, black women don't want to be free to pursue happiness and self-respect.  We have bred a generation of men and women who think that it is up to someone else to take care of them and their needs.  When will these young men and young women take on personal responsibility and get their self-respect?"

We have read and heard in the media, from commentators and pundits alike, that Bill Cosby is "an Oreo."  To me, he is a thinker who upholds traditional values and believes that the government cannot be held responsible for absent fathers, babies having babies, black on black violence, rap music advocating stealing guns, f---ing hos and crazy bit--es, and doling out welfare and food coupons as a way of saying "here is what is owed to you."  What this country owes to the African-American community is the freedom to pursue a life without government interference and with dignity and pride.  It is a right to self-reliance.  The conservative ideology (and to a great extent the Republican Party) guarantees blacks and all races these freedoms.  The liberal ideology (and the Democratic Party almost as a whole) makes no guarantee except a life in the projects, a little bit of money each month and a failed education system which will never assure anyone that he or she will be smart enough to fill out a job application, much less read and write.

In this election year, to those of the African-Americans community who find it hard to vote for Republican John McCain I would only suggest voting for Alan Keyes, who will likely run as an independent.  He is an African-American who understands what being free truly means.