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We must fight intolerance, racism and the far-Right.

However, while we should certainly celebrate the demise of overt official racism, we must also critically examine where we are at this historical moment, recognize the many challenges ahead and reaffirm our commitment to making Brown v. Board a reality.

Today in America we are no more 'post-racial' than we are 'post-partisan.' We have a long way to go.

Even as someone who's labeled a conservative - I'm a Republican I'm black, I'm heading up this organization in the Reagan administration - I can say that conservatives don't exactly break their necks to tell blacks that they're welcome.

No day passes without a Democratic politician, a left-wing commentator, or, if I may be excused a redundancy, a left-wing academic labeling Republicans and conservatives racist.

The statement that I made and that I think I will continue to make is that racism and bigotry isn't just relegated to the Southern region; it permeates the history of our nation. It's not to say that we haven't made progress. Obviously we have with our first African American president, and I never thought that would happen in my lifetime.

African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open-minded, not even considering a conservative point of view. I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. So it's just brainwashing and people not being open-minded, pure and simple.

I think that there are some people on the so-called Left who might say we have to circle our wagons around the first African American president, and to me that is racism in reverse because his policies are actually still the racist policies of empire.

I think we have erred on the side of being too conservative so far, to tell you the truth.

As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people's struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism.