There are a growing number of black conservative organizations getting attention in the news and in politics - but just how representative are they of blacks in America? That might sound like a strange question to ask until you consider that a significant number of the most visible ones are run and financed mostly by whites. So whose organizations are they, really?

Joshua Holland writes in Gadflyer:

I tuned into C-SPAN with interest to hear what a leading voice in the black conservative movement had to say. But then a funny thing happened: the African-American spokesperson for Project 21 caught a flat on the way to the studio, and the group's director had to fill in. And he was white. As the segment began there was an awkward Wizard of Oz moment as C-SPAN's Robb Harlston – himself black – turned to Project 21's Caucasian director, David Almasi, and said, "Um...Project 21... a program for conservative African Americans...you're not African American."

Project 21 is a subsidiary of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), which, according to the liberal watchdog Mediatransparency.org, was formed in the 1980s to support Reagan's military interventions in Central America. NCPPR's leadership – president, vice president, executive director – are all white. Amy Ridenour, former Deputy Director of the College Republican National Committee and the organization's president, also sits on the board of Black America's PAC, an organization that claims to be nonpartisan but whose IRS filings state that its mission is to elect Republicans.

Perhaps the most visible black conservative in the campus wars is Ward Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI). ... When asked what he thought about Trent Lott's comments about segregation in 2002, Connerly told CNN: "Supporting segregation need not be racist. One can believe in segregation and believe in equality of the races."

Every black conservative group I've mentioned – without exception – receives a significant portion of their funding (in some cases all of their funding) from at least three of four ultra-conservative foundations (the Lincoln Institute gets its share funneled indirectly through the conservative Hoover Institution). The four are the usual suspects of the Right's political ATM: Richard Scaife's family foundations, Adolph Coors' Castle Rock Foundation, The John M. Olin Foundation, and the Linde and Harry Bradley Foundation. What's striking about these groups' underwriting of "minority organizations" is that some of them have at times displayed what many would consider a frankly racist agenda.

The boards of these foundations aren't exactly "multicultural," if you know what I mean. But they have a message to get out: they're coming after affirmative action, the minimum wage, social welfare programs, pre- and after-school programs and, indeed, multiculturalism itself. And when that's the message, it's good to have it delivered by an African-American.

When an organization is specifically focused on general civil rights issues or even just civil rights for a specific minority in particular, having a multi-ethnic and multi-racial staff or board isn’t odd and probably shouldn’t raise any eyebrows. This, however, doesn’t seem to be the case here. Project 21, for example, exists to “promote the views of African-Americans“ not usually represented by other organizations. That sounds like something where most of the people would be expected to be black, not white.

Upper Left notes:

For instance, the African American Republican Leadership Council, has a 15 member Advisory Panel. 13 of them are white, including the Free Congress Foundation's Paul Weyrich, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, the Reverend Lou Sheldon, Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council, David Keene of the American Conservative Union, and Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Uh-huh. Champions of civil rights, each and every one.

There's nothing wrong with white folks, of course, but something here's not right.

Something is, indeed, not quite right here. I don’t think that anyone would pay much attention if these groups have some paid white staffers or a couple of white people on their boards, but when they are run almost entirely by whites and are funded almost entirely by conservative groups run by whites, then it may be time to start asking some pointed questions about them. Maybe there are good reasons for it all, but it would be hard to deny that it at least looks strange.

Read More:

• Religious Right
• Religious Right News