From a longtime reader:

I am black, I am a conservative, grew up poor (and depending on the metric am either upper middle or upper class now) and a member of the republican party- black liberals of which there are many, but exaggerated by black voting patterns for democrats, do not speak for anyone but themselves. Like any other ethnic group, blacks are allowed to hold (or supposed to be able to hold) any view we wish and none of it makes us less black. Though black conservatives do develop a thicker skin for being attacked by black liberals and other liberals as not really black, please note that most blacks are very socially conservative as evidenced by the polls on abortion and gay marriage opinions by blacks regardless of political affiliation. There is this notion which is often displayed by white liberals that all blacks must be liberal and subscribe to whatever the NYT is promoting as the liberal line du jour, and if you don’t – well then the gloves can come off and liberals are free to say the most racist things about blacks so long as that black is a conservative. I refer as example to maureen dowd’s opinion piece on Clarence Thomas in which she could have saved a lot of space and just called him an ungrateful uppity [negro] who needs to learn his place and vote as all blacks are required to per liberal directives. I was very offended as were all of my moderate to liberal black friends. Somehow liberals believe that the civil rights movement gained blacks the right to hold only certain opinions and anyone leaving the ideological plantation -basically make such black an uncle tom and that black deserves what he/she gets. It does not help that many blacks do the same, see the idiotic stories about obama not being black, or anything Jesse or Al say or do re: black republicans.
BTW, the references to Justice Thomas’ white wife by Patterson were digs on how confused Justice Thomas is re: Patterson’s gross misunderstanding (purposeful) of Thomas’s jurisprudence on the issue of Loving vs. Virgin., and amongst blacks a not very sly shot about him being a race traitor (he is a conservative, and uncle tom and see he married a white woman, as the final proof). Its very tired but nothing new to successful black conservatives. You would not believe the grief i get for holding conservative views and apparently i am wrong, my success to date is due from not my hard work but white liberal largess- i should at least be grateful enough to keep to the party line.