Amanda Seales, an actor, comedian, and self-described Black radical, recently took part in a Jubilee Surrounded debate. Surrounded is a web series produced by the political YouTube channel Jubilee Media. Its title is derived from the debating format. Twenty individuals gather around a guest debater, ready to counter the guest’s four claims.
Seales’ segment was titled “One Radical vs. Twenty Black Conservatives.” Her debating claims were: 1) It’s undeniable that reparations are just and necessary. 2) Black-on-Black crime is a result of underinvestment and over-policing. 3) Systemic racism isn’t a theory—it’s our lived reality, backed by data and history.
For the past decade, these three topics have been over-debated. Most concerned citizens arrived at their conclusions. Many people are still willing to have their viewpoints challenged by new arguments, but Seales and the twenty conservatives fell short of that task.
After the debate, online critics called it terrible, claiming that both sides relied on decade-old talking points. As expected, social media commentators on the left praised Seales for “destroying” the conservatives, while those on the right praised the conservatives for outsmarting her.
Several times during the debate, Seales reminded the conservatives that she was a radical, not a Democrat or a liberal. It was clear that the conservatives had failed to recognize that crucial distinction, rendering them incapable of refuting Seale’s last claim that Black conservatism fails to meet the needs of the working class.
Seales identifies with the Black Radical Tradition.
Professor Cedric Robinson coined the term in his 1983 book, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. A Black radical is someone who opposes imperialism, capitalism, and colonialism while advocating for collective liberation and the protection of workers against ruling-class exploitation.
The working class is defined by the general public as workers who earn their living outside of an office. The work is often physical labor that does not require a college degree and is considered low-wage. Radicals like Seales also believe that employers always exploit workers and advocate for collective liberation. Therefore, when Seales claims that “Black conservatism fails to meet the needs of the working class,” she indicates that its proponents embrace the status quo and do not fight against capitalist exploitation by opposing minimum wage increases and unionization.
Seales is correct that notable Black conservative thinkers such as Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams have long opposed minimum wage laws and labor unions, but she is incorrect in claiming that their opposition makes them against the working class.
Sowell remarked, “Advocates of minimum wage laws often give themselves credit for being more ‘compassionate’ towards ‘the poor.’ But they seldom bother to check what the actual consequences of such laws are. One of the simplest and most fundamental economic principles is that people tend to buy more when the price is lower and less when the price is higher. Yet advocates of minimum wage laws seem to think that the government can raise the price of labor without reducing the amount of labor that will be hired. When you turn from economic principles to hard facts, the case against minimum wage laws is even stronger. Countries with minimum wage laws almost invariably have higher rates of unemployment than countries without minimum wage laws.”
To make his point, Sowell presented the story of John L. Lewis, whom he called “the world’s greatest oil salesman.”
Lewis was actually the head of the United Mine Workers from 1920 to 1960. Lewis secured wages and benefits for the coal miners that were far beyond what they would have gotten out of the free market based on supply and demand. However, Lewis’s strikes for higher wages interrupted the supply of coal and led to wage increases that raised prices, causing many individuals and businesses to switch from using coal to using oil, which reduced employment for coal miners. The higher wage rates also led coal companies to replace miners with machines. The net result was a tremendous decline in employment in the coal-mining industry.
Sowell and other Black conservatives criticize Seales’ economic ideas because research shows that those policy prescriptions disproportionately damage the working class over time.
The primary problem with Seales’ final claim is that it is ahistorical.
Black conservatism’s ethos is rooted in the working class. It was best articulated in Booker T. Washington’s 1899 book, The Future of the American Negro. He wrote, “In my mind, there is no doubt that we made a mistake at the beginning of our freedom by putting the emphasis on the wrong end. Politics and the holding of office were too largely emphasized, almost to the exclusion of every other interest. I believe the past and present teach only one lesson: there is just one way out and one hope for a solution. This is for the Negro in every part of America to resolve from now on to discard all non-essentials and focus solely on essentials—specifically, his guiding principles shall be property, economy, education, and Christian character. To us just now, these are the wheat, all else the chaff. The individual or race that owns the property, pays the taxes, and possesses the intelligence and substantial character is the one that is going to exercise the greatest control in government, whether he lives in the North or whether he lives in the South.”
Seales should study Howard professor Kelly Miller’s 1908 article “Radicals and Conservatives.” What Miller said then is true today: no thoughtful Black American is satisfied with the present status of the race. Radicals and conservatives agree on the end goal but differ on the most effective ways to achieve it.
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