Los Angeles homeless advocate Ted Hayes is a Republican. He’s also black. This is problematic, because according to today’s racial politics, you can be black or you can be a Republican, but you can’t attempt to be both without sacrificing your racial identity:

American blacks who are affiliated with the Republican Party are vigorously vilified by Democrats, especially black Democrats. Uncle Tom, sell-out, Oreo—the list of slurs is long.

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We see this across the country. Michael Steele, the lieutenant governor of Maryland and a Republican candidate for the Senate, has been crudely disparaged on racial grounds. A prominent leftist Web site, for instance, depicted him as “Sambo,” among other aspersions. When Condoleezza Rice was nominated as secretary of state, she faced similar treatment: editorial cartoons depicting her as a racial caricature, personalities calling her “Aunt Jemima” on liberal talk radio, and so forth. Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerly, Colin Powell, Thomas Sowell and other black conservatives regularly face similar smears.

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It is time for American blacks to have a conversation about the phenomenon of Democrats persecuting black Republicans. Why is this happening? What is it that the Democrats don’t want black folks to understand about Republicans? What is it that the Democrats don’t want black folks to know about Democrats? And how is it that we have come to this point—after having endured so much—where we have ourselves curtailed the freedom of political expression through the threat of retaliatory consequences?

Mr. Hayes knows of what he speaks. His Dome Village homeless shelter will itself be homeless soon. Why? He says it’s because he’s a Republican. As a black homeless advocate, he’s got a lot of nerve being a Republican. More power to him.