He brought a book that he had published more than a year previously, not my book, and put it on the table. And I thought, “This is unbelievably rude.” But then the second part — and this really speaks to what you were talking about — any time I was trying to convey the substance of the book and the substance of the issues that I think are really confronting black America today, he was off on his own rant.

Barber: I’m sure your critics have said this is a “conservative” book. When was the first time you were accused of being conservative and in what context?

Williams: I was working at The Washington Post for many years and covering Marion Barry, and people would say, “How can you write critically about Marion Barry? You’re writing in The Washington Post. It’s a big white newspaper. White people will see it.”

I mean, obviously, if you are writing about … Jesse Jackson … and you don’t hold the party line that Jesse is king and the next Dr. King and all that, you’re accused of being a heretic.

Barber: Airing dirty laundry.

Williams: Exactly. So I remember in those situations being sort of “drummed out of the corps.”

Barber: Bill Cosby was obviously a big influence on you before and while writing this book. You said that he took a big chance putting himself out there, and you’re doing the same thing. Is the reaction to you and your book similar to what you say Cosby has had to deal with?

Williams: Well, the book has had wider circulation, obviously. It’s a topic of discussion on television, on radio. [P]eople are attacking me. Sharpton said I’m “the black Ann Coulter.” I found that offensive. It’s all about personal attacks. [S]omeone will belittle you, and the way that they went after Cosby … they said Cosby was dumb. “He’s just a comedian. He doesn’t understand the power of systemic racism, institutional racism.” [As though] Bill Cosby doesn’t live in the world. And then they said he’s a rich man and he’s lost touch with the people.

Barber: It would be very refreshing if they at least tried to come up with opposing evidence, contradictory statistics.

Williams: You know, I’ve heard it put this way: “Join the debate.” If they joined the debate then you [could] say, “OK, let’s talk.” But it’s not about joining the debate. In the [Michael Eric] Dyson case, it’s about ranting at you, and using the same old arguments. And then in the case of the of the Sharptons and the Jacksons, it’s more … about personal attacks and kind of a whispering campaign to undermine your credibility.

Barber: You quoted George Bush’s Urban League speech, where he asked why should blacks vote for one party in such high numbers instead of leveraging their votes between both parties. In that regard, I’m sure you’ve been accused of being a “black Republican.” Are you a Republican?

Williams: No … I’m not. Literally, I think I would probably be registered as an independent in most places, but here [Washington] I’m registered as a Democrat because it’s a Democratic-controlled city, so you don’t have a vote in the primary [if you’re not a party member]. My son is running for city council here in the District of Columbia, and he is running as a Republican.

Barber: What advice do you have for the black people who agree with you and Cosby but are too intimidated to speak out?

Williams: I think it’s time to say, “Enough.” That’s enough of the silence. See what the silence has brought us. Kids dropping out of school, babies having babies, so many black and brown faces in jail. I find that there are a couple things going on. Obviously, as we spoke about earlier, there’s kind of an enforced silence in the black community. [I]f you dare to break with us, you’re a heretic, you’re a black conservative, you’re a Republican, you’re a buppy, you’re a bourgeois, whatever.

Barber: Do you read blogs?

Williams: I read them only … in the course of doing research. [I]f I’m doing a political story, then I’m looking toward the political blogs to see the reaction, to see what people are saying. And of course I use Web sites also for research, looking at polls, looking at data that’s available.

Excerpt from ‘Enough’

A streak of self-determination rises at every turn in the history of black American leadership. But since the stunning success of the modern civil rights movement — the steady rise since the Brown decision in the number of college-educated black people, as well as the concurrent growth in incomes, home ownership, and black elected officials — the strong focus on self-determination has faded, at the moment when its impact could have been the most powerful. In its place is a tired rant by civil rights leaders about the power of white people — what white people have done wrong, what white people didn’t do, and what white people should do. This rant puts black people in the role of hapless victims waiting for only one thing — white guilt to bail them out. …

The most prominent voice for black liberation before the Civil War belonged to Frederick Douglass, a former slave who secretly taught himself how to read, then became a skilled worker in Baltimore’s shipyards, before escaping to the freedom of the North. … It was Douglass who first called on black people to do for themselves when he wrote an editorial titled “Learn Trades or Starve.”

Douglass hammered this self-determinist ideology deep into the black American mind. By the end of the nineteenth century, as the government’s many promises to help former slaves turned out to be mostly empty words, a new black leader emerged. Booker T. Washington picked up on Douglass’s legacy by proposing defiant black self-determination as the best strategy for black advancement.

LaShawn Barber is a member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors and blogs at LaShawn Barber’s Corner.