Stacey Dash
Since recent events are causing a new national conversation about race, let’s speak truth to true black power. And with the Republican National Convention coming up, let me assert that true black power has a home in the Republican Party and has a champion in Donald Trump.
True black power and safe, strong black neighborhoods grow in an economy that is a roaring engine of job creation. Much of the violence we see in black communities today comes from the tragedy of black men—many of them young—who are jobless, poorly educated and feeling hopeless. They are lashing out and committing a disproportionate amount of serious crimes. As Heather Mac Donald reported in The Wall Street Journal, “According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks were charged with 62% of all robberies, 57% of murders and 45% of assaults in the 75 largest U.S. counties in 2009, though they made up roughly 15% of the population there.”
On whose watch is this happening? The nation’s first black president. What is the legacy of the Barack Obama years? Even liberal black broadcaster Tavis Smiley admits that, “black folk, in the era of Obama, have lost ground in every major economic category.” And Hillary Clinton wants to give us four more years of that! That is a recipe for disaster. Economic devastation creates social demolition. Continuing failed policies that are failing our black citizens will only lead to more anger, confrontation and wasted lives.
Here’s what matters and here’s what we need: true black power.
True black power flourishes by giving black parents and black children a choice in education—the opportunity to move out of dangerous, dysfunctional schools and into schools that produce true learning (not just social promotion), true safety (not just metal detectors), true character development (not just cowardice when kids run wild) and true college preparation (not just the hard bigotry of no expectations). Hillary Clinton actually said these words to the teachers union: “It is time to stop focusing on, quote, failing schools.”
Black America, open your minds and your hearts to the truth! Hillary Clinton is only interested in her own power. She is a traitor to true black power.
True black power grows with dedication—to intact families (not broken homes), to the tough love of holding our children and our adults to lawfulness (and fiercely rejecting gangs, drugs, and other forms of self-destruction), and to faith (emulating what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature”).
I know false black power because I spent too many years struggling with it. I endured hardship and made mistakes but I learned from all of it.
I grew up in the South Bronx. My friends were hustlers, hookers and gang members. My parents were drug addicts. My mother’s brother—my Uncle Freddy—helped to steer me on the right path with advice like this: “You can do anything you want. You’re special.” His encouragement—and my talent as a ballet dancer—helped me to break out of the ghetto and into bit parts in commercials, then starring parts in Hollywood.
While I was a hit on screen, I was being hit off screen—in abusive relationships with men. In 2008, when Barack Obama ran for president, I followed the crowd and voted for the hope and change he promised. Four years later, I looked at the economic and social wreckage in the black communities across our country and I not only questioned the Obama bumper sticker on my car, I did something that changed my life.
I sent out a tweet saying, “Vote for Romney. The only choice for your future.”
The reaction from many in Hollywood and from blacks in the Twitterverse was fast and furious. I was called every obscene name you can imagine and was told to kill myself. I was, literally, blacklisted. I had committed the crime—ironically—of diversity. I had veered from the Democratic dictate that all black Americans must think and vote as Democrats—with no diversity of opinion or action tolerated.
But in my South Bronx upbringing I learned one life lesson that saved mine: stand up to bullies. A man who claimed to love me tried to kill me. The only thing that spared my life—and my children’s lives—was that I owned a gun and fired it in self-defense. I missed hitting him. But I scared him away and out of my life.
In my professional life, while Hollywood and Democrats vilified and ostracized me, opportunities opened to me to begin speaking my mind—mainly on Fox News. I launched a new public platform. I began speaking truth to the lie that liberals and Democrats were actually helping black Americans.
In discovering my own true black power, I discovered a truth that Democrats fear and deny.
True black values are Republican values.
The siren song of the Democrats to the black community has always been a song of disrespect. Democrats want you to see yourselves as victims. They want you to see yourselves as dependent. Democrats want you to see yourselves as perpetually aggrieved, unable—and powerless. They depend on keeping you bitter rather than focusing you on how to get better.
For black Americans who overwhelmingly give Democrats their votes, all they get in return are promises and patronizing—not progress.
Democrats like Hillary Clinton take you for granted. They play you for fools. Meantime, in Democrat-run cities like Chicago and Detroit your children are dying, your men are unemployed, your streets and schools are war zones. The Democrats never take responsibility. They are too busy distracting you from their dereliction by blaming Republicans.
But Republican policies and Trump practices help you to embrace true black power. We believe in you being victors—not victims. We believe in you being advocates—not abdicators. We believe in you being role models—not rolled over.
We believe in improving the quality of your educational choices and the quantity of your employment opportunities, so that you can succeed. Republican policies give more power to you and your loved ones.
Meantime, every election cycle, Democrats throw you the line that they really, really care about you. Then they send you to the back of the line after the votes are counted. That is betrayal. That is a lie. Hillary Clinton walks that crooked path. She does not deserve your vote!
My black brothers and sisters, you are meant to achieve—not acquiesce.
Black America, come home to the Republican Party and join hands with a builder and a battler—Donald Trump.
Together, we will make America great again.
True black power is truly beautiful.
Stacey Dash is a Fox News contributor, offering cultural analysis and commentary across various daytime and prime-time programs. She is the author of the best-selling book, “There Goes My Social Life: From Clueless to Conservative.”
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