A few years ago I sardonically wrote an op-ed piece for New York Press, “The Politics of Pet Negroes.” I used the term “Pet Negro” to mark the rise of a post-civil rights type: black Republicans or black conservatives who can do no wrong in the eyes of white conservatives. The term was originally coined by Zora Neale Hurston (also a Republican) who was commenting on the southern phenomenon of whites that had their favorite Negro and would protect them from other whites or from blacks.

I wrote then:

The fundamental job of today’s Pet Negro–usually black intellectuals or media mavens, conservative, MOR or so-called oppositional–is either to interpret black culture to niche-market whites, or to make the kind of statements about blacks that would label a white a racist. In short, legitimate the policies of the White Overclass whether it’s liberal or conservative. After all, a PN has to work for somebody. 

A previous letter of mine to New York Press regarding blacks  in the Republican Party raised the ire of a black conservative, a radio host named Mike Green:

My critique of the Republican Party raised Green’s hackles because some blacks have to answer an internal question: What the hell am I doing with these people? The politics of Pet Negroes is predicated on the need to distinguish "good blacks" from "bad blacks." Said Negroes know that, as Dan Carter noted, there’s a "growing tolerance among whites for blacks who share their conservative values." Usually such Negroes have to compensate for the fact that they are not white by sounding more redmeat Republican than whites. (Now you know why Alan Keyes exists.) They’re like "wiggers" in reverse: they have to be more white than whites themselves. This is multiculturalism gone berserk. 

Now, within that critique I would include Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, of whom I said in The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome:

Conservatives, generally, are interested in power, not theory, and black conservatives tend to provide rationalizations for Republican domestic polices. However, with Condoleezza Rice as George W. Bush’s National Security Adviser and Colin Powell as his Secretary of State, we’re now witnessing black conservatives providing the same kind of service for policies in the international field.

My essential point was that is tendency for some whites, regardless of what side of the political spectrum they hail from, to allow “their” blacks to either say or get away with statements that ought to bear further scrutiny. I’ve heard some whites allow  Cornel West to get a pass when they clenched their teeth at the mere mentioning of any black who is a Republican. A case in point is a New  York academic (who will remain anonymous since it was a private conversation between us) who said to me that he was very disappointed in West because "he doesn't take any risk." I interpreted that as meaning that West had decided to play the safe game of being an academic celebrity rather than offering the public any real substantive insight regarding today's issues. (If you seen one of the Matrix films, you know that West is more interested in being a pop star than a so-called public intellectual.)

On the other side, Fox News is the basic stable of conservative PNs who are allowed to mouth the neo-racist pieties of the right or justify their rationalizations for implicitly racially oriented domestic policies.

We all know what kind of service that Rice and Powell have provided to one of the most incompetent and criminal administrations in American history. To varying degrees of involvement, they where around when the policy of torture was discussed and implemented by the Bush administration. Rice has often been seen as a woman in deep denial and willing to go along with the whole enterprise. Powell, on the other hand, is seen as having greater prestige due to his military background (America loves a man in uniform), and is often viewed as the one man who could have stopped the War in Iraq by questioning the rationale for the war. But this view (shared by yours truly), perhaps, is just another example of people "misoverestimating” his influence.

But Powell was a good soldier, and a good Pet Negro, often lauded as the right kind of black person: a non-threatening Negro. Powell went along with the war, and was rewarded by being dumped by Bush at the beginning of his second term. He was replaced by Rice, the ultimate Pet Negro, whom some people wished John McCain had picked as his Veep (at least she could answer questions before a press conference).

Now the Pet Negro has become the Bad Negro. He has endorsed Barack Obama, and what really makes him a Bad Negro is, according to some conservatives, is that his endorsement of Obama is solely based on race. However, Powell on “Meet the Press” explicitly stated his criteria for not endorsing John McCain as based McCain's constant shifting on the country’s economic turmoil; his selection of Sarah Palin; and the inflammatory tone of Republican Party campaign rhetoric during the election.

He said nothing about race until Tom Brokaw brought up that some people would say that his endorsement is one motivated by race. Powell responded if that were the case, he would have endorsed Obama earlier.

But, as indicated by a Huffington Post piece, some conservatives know better.

For instance, Rush Limbaugh said: "Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race... OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."

Pat Buchanan offered the following: "Alright, we gotta ask a question," he declared on MSNBC, "look would Colin Powell be endorsing Obama if he were a white liberal Democrat..."

And a GOP activist in Maine said: "If Obama was a white man, Powell would not have made the endorsement."

And of course these people truly know the heart of minds of their Pet Negroes (and blacks generally ) more so than those Negroes themselves, and their support for John McCain isn’t based on race but good conservative social and economic policies.

So the general consensus among ideological conservatives is that Powell only supported Obama because he's black, but wouldn't support a white liberal, inexperienced candidate. But Powell did support a very inexperienced, white conservative candidate eight years ago: George W. Bush. Back then Powell was a Pet Negro in good standing.

Colin Powell is now a baaaad Negro, a very baaad Negro.