Blacks face a bit of a conundrum in voicing their very human diversity of thought. Since blacks are a minority in a Republic, their political leverage is greatest when their voice is unified.

The Civil Rights Era had a natural unifying theme to it, and much was accomplished by that unity. When contemporary citizens stray into issues that don’t affect all blacks equally, it becomes harder to maintain a uniform voice. Even on issues that affect everyone, it is to be expected that there will be a diversity of opinion on how best to resolve the problem. However, it is inescapable that if blacks begin to manifestly voice (and vote) in a way that is diverse, there will be a corresponding decrease in political clout for that disparate grouping called African-Americans. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Civil rights “Old Guard” resents dissenting opinions as disloyal because (perhaps) they see that political clout as something they created. There has to be a tipping point where there is more to be gained by the group by manifesting a diversity of thought than is lost in political clout. Has that tipping point arrived?

It also should come as no surprise that after a few decades of whites hearing a unified African-American voice that those whites are behind the learning curve in perceiving that there is a wide diversity of African-American opinion. And, yes, a bit of cross-cultural exposure (the barber shop, etc.) would certainly speed things along. Keep in mind, though, that there are huge swathes of land and population in this country where there are no black barber shops, etc. A personal example: The 12 years I lived in rural Indiana. You might even argue that a black raised there would be equally out of touch with his counterparts raised in urban ghettos. Before going on to college, my son’s best friend in our lily-white high school was a second-generation Ghanian. Other than his very dark complexion you couldn’t pick him out culturally from any of the other white students. He didn’t “act black,” (I don’t like that phrase, but it suffices here.)

There is also the problem of cultural identity, and cultural evolution. No matter how much naturally occurring diversity of thought there is within any culture, there must be some unifying characteristics with which that culture identifies itself, or else you don’t have a distinct culture. There is no belonging. It is fine for multiple African-American cultures to emerge (or, more accurately, to manifest differences that have been there all along), but all those involved need to feel comfortable in whatever culture they are in and let others do likewise. It should also be acceptable for an individual to choose to adopt themselves into another culture without their former culture seeing that action as disloyal.