Chauncey DeVega takes the news about Trump’s deplorable ‘eulogy’ at the memorial service following the death of Lynnette Hardaway, who was the ‘Diamond’ to her sister’s ‘Silk’ as part of a duo who appeared prominently on conservative media as ardent Trump supporters, to examine the role that the current generation of what he calls ‘professional black conservatives’ play in American politics.

“Black conservative” is a specific type of character and performance in post-civil rights America (although the archetype long predates it). In the white right-wing imagination, these are black people who fulfill a fantasy role in a type of new-age race minstrel performance where they denigrate and insult the intelligence, dignity, and political agency of other black people for the pleasures of white “conservatives” and white America. These black conservatives claim that other black people are lazy, have “bad culture”, “can’t think for themselves”, are trapped on a “Democratic Party plantation.” If they “knew better,” black conservatives argue, more black people would actually be “conservatives.” Black conservatives also elevate themselves as exemplars of “hard work” and as “proof” that America is a meritocracy where anything is possible — “if you just stop worrying” about racism.

In what is perhaps their most important role, black conservatives are professional “best black friends.” They serve as mercenaries, human racism deflection shields who are deployed to tell white people some of the most grossly racist and vile things about other black people.
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