"Your a what?" That is the response I get whenever I tell someone I'm a Republican. It's like I just reveled some deep dark secret that I should be ashamed of. I've had people come to me and say "I'm sorry to hear that" or just stare as if I just grew a third eye. I must have been absent the day that the memos were passed out evoking this unwritten yet mandated law that all blacks must be Democrat. One person even had the nerve to tell me that being black and a Republican was like being a roach working for Raid. Oh come now! If this person would have done any research, they would have quickly found out that some of America's most prominent and respected African Americans were Republican. Fredrick Douglass, Mary Mcleod Bethune, Denzel Washington and many more including Martin Luther King Jr. Yes he was a Republican.
If this person would have opened up a history book they would have known that up until the New Deal most African Americans considered themselves Republican. It was Republicans who were the driving force to push through civil rights legislation. It was Republicans who pushed and made Martin Luther King day a national holiday and it was a Republican who appointed the first Black Secretary of State and first black woman to hold the office.
When confronted with this information the person just waved it off and said "I can't believe anyone who is black would want to be a Republican" I just walked away knowing I wasting to many brain cells trying to talk to this person, quick to denounce my political beliefs but yet unable to defend theirs. The sad thing is that there are many in the black community who think the same way that somehow black people are somehow obligated to vote Democrat.
Instead of felling sorry for me or wondering what's wrong with me for being a Republican, why don't you give me good reasons why I shouldn't. They are quick to denounce me as some kind of "sell out" but when asked why they are a Democrat I get blank stares and broken answers. Yes I am a Republican and I can defend my reasons why, can you?
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