I think as people we tend to gravitate to people that are like us. Be it of ethnic background, people that look like ourselves, or of a particular belief system there is a large degree of comfort in this. Whether this is something that is taught or inherent within each of us I do not know. But what I do know is that for very long time I have too often felt as if I were alone in the wilderness.
For many of us Conservative of Color I strongly believe that this is something that we all share. Coming up in the world, I was expected to act and think a certain way from my peers and for the most part I did. The expectation was that being a minority I must be a Democrat and have a liberal slant on life and issues all around me. As a young man in my lower 20's I never really gave much thought to this. I mean all of my friends and people I associated thought along those same lines.
However, over time as I started to come in to my own, become more educated both formally and informally, and gained the wisdom that life had to offer I started to change my views of the world. I started to see things from a more Conservative perspective as the things I use to believe no longer made sense when thought logically through. This of course put a strain on many a number of my relationships for as much as I had changed and grown in my beliefs so had they in becoming more and more liberal.
And of course, as you may have guessed, came the conversations, debates, or as I like to call it "The Flame Wars". What would start out as a conversation on issues would quickly turn in to name calling. You know: Sell out. Uncle Tom. Wanna Be White. The typical.
For a time I struggled with the why of these conversations taking such a negative turn and nearest I could surmise was the fact that when confronted with facts liberals will quickly use Scorched Earth tactics (Time would reaffirm this over and over again). I also learned that it did not mater how long you may have known them, your personal relationship, or anything else.It was as if I was philosophical pariah. So for a long time I would felt like an outsider. An outsider in the sense that I understood why I believe in my views of Conservatism but could not understand why others like myself, young, Hispanic, family orientated people, did not and not the other way around.
Now we could get in to attempting to understand that very last sentence but that is a subject that I would prefer not to get in to at the moment. Rather, the burning questions for me was that if I was able to come to these philosophical conclusions on my own then clearly there were other people of color that had as well. Where were they? Why were they so quiet? What can we do to network together?
For a very long time I would seek out others who were of the same mindset. Find people like this is not all that hard. And the conversations would be incredible however there was always that one thing amiss and you would hear that when some of our white conservative counter parts would occasionally state: "Why are there not more conservative minorities?"
Again, that question could easily move in to another tangent but sufficed to say it was a question I would find myself asking all too often. We know the intimidation factor from the name calling forces a lot of us to just bite the bullet. As we grow in our Conservatism we learn to deal with the heat. In fact many of us these days tend to enjoy it as we know and understand the strength of our beliefs and argument.
Fast forward a few years and advanced in social media has made outreach something we could have only dreamed about 10 years ago. For the first time we had things like Facebook groups, internet broadcasts, YouTube and so many others. This has lead to many Conservatives of Color to feeling that they are alone to knowing that there are many others of us out there in the public eye. Granted we are not falling out of the wood work but everyday we become more and more of an influence in the Conservative Movement.
However, while this is all good stuff there are still more inroads that need to be made. These inroads can only be made by each of us. It all starts with networking with one another. As an individual we proudly can say that we were people to be considered seriously in debate and conversations. As a group there is so much we can do together that is good.
Each and everyone of us share great number of shared beliefs and values. Personal accountability. A belief in American Exceptionalism. Free Markets. Limited Government. It is through networking and supporting one another can we possibly hope to effect the change that we so very much wish to bring about to this nation that we all love.
Together. No longer alone.
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