26 Apr 2014 Black Conservative Calls Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy “Retro, Not Racist”

Project 21 member Nadra Enzi has these comments about the rise and fall of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the reaction to him among conservatives:

After listening to – and laughing at – Cliven Bundy’s infamous interview it was obvious that his frame of reference regarding black folks is stuck in the 1960s.

Such comic cluelessness makes him retro, not racist.  I didn’t hear any of menace usually associated with other statements that deserve to earn the racist label.

Black folks are understandably incensed, and conservative ones are no exception.  Alan Keyes is a notable dissenter on this topic.

This reminds me of the break in right wing ranks after Nelson Mandela died.

Many white conservatives (with the notable exception of Newt Gingrich) denounced Mandela as a terrorist.  Despite the state-sanctioned terrorism of apartheid, conservatives couldn’t forgive him for taking up arms against white people.

His Marxism was also another epic sore point.

Bundy now offers a similarly seismic dividing-line moment.

Bundy’s white conservative supporters criticize black peers for reacting more to loaded phrases such as “colored people” and “negro” than loaded federal guns and suspected government overreach.

Charles Krauthammer, however, is a notable white conservative exception.  He doesn’t support Bundy and questions why anyone would.

My original take on Bundy remains the same: he’s a befuddled senior citizen uncomfortable in and unprepared for the national spotlight.

The fact he shares retro racial nomenclature with Harry “Negro Dialect” Reid only reinforces this perception.

Cliven Bundy is a “Mandela Moment” for conservatives.  We should agree to disagree on him and move on up to other issues!