Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9406190081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Jeff Artis' friends josh him that soon they'll be seeing him on "Nightline."
After all, Artis already follows all the current-event talk shows - often providing his own running commentary to anyone within earshot. "My wife gets upset," he says. "I watch all those shows and I'm debating along with them."
So if you see the satellite trucks parked along Highland Avenue in Southeast Roanoke some night, it could be because Ted Koppel needs some instant analysis from the publisher of the Black Conservative Newsletter.
Although, as a novice to the commentary business, Artis is willing to consider something less high-brow.
"You know," Artis says, enjoying the thought, "I wouldn't mind being on Oprah. That's what I tell my kids: `Honey, one of these days your daddy's going to be on Oprah.' "
For now, though, Artis will simply settle for getting his newsletter out on time - and out into the hands of the untapped constituency he believes is waiting to hear a message of black conservatism.
By day, Artis is the in-school suspension teacher at Roanoke's Patrick Henry High School.
You misbehave in class, you wind up in his - where, he says, he always gives students a choice. Either do the classwork he assigns, or do the manual labor the janitorial staff needs done. "They usually choose the work detail," he says.
But by night, Artis is an aspiring writer, with a keen socio-political bent.
Over the years, he's written "four or five" books, though so far he hasn't found a publisher willing to take on titles such as "Black Progress and Other American Fairy Tales" or "The Rotten Apple," about the nation's educational system.
"But I do get very nice rejection slips from publishers," he says, and that's what keeps him going.
"First and foremost, I consider myself a writer," Artis says.
This spring, Artis launched his latest writing project - his monthly Black Conservative Newsletter.
At $6 a year, he's now up to 500 readers, from Tennessee to Pennsylvania. This summer, Artis plans a trip to Washington to go knocking on doors in the nation's capital, hoping to find stores willing to sell his newsletter over the counter.
In its four pages, readers who plunk down their 50 cents per copy will find Artis holding forth on a wide variety of social topics from a black self-help point of view:
He zings black parents who "are more concerned with their kids scoring baskets and touchdowns than they are about the number of D's and F's their children bring home on their report card."
He scores young black males whose "definition of black manhood is determined by the gun they own, the make of car they drive, the ability to bash someone's head in, the ability to make money by any means possible and the number of sexual partners they have."
He promotes school prayer. "Parents should go to local school boards and ask them to schedule 15 minutes of free time each day . . . Once this time is granted, parents can encourage their children to form prayer groups to meet and pray during this time."
But on other subjects, Artis' concept of black conservatism is more akin to what he calls "practical liberalism."
He's in favor of welfare reform, but "let's start with the slumlords who bilk the system by charging incredibly high rents for apartments I wouldn't let my dog live in."
He backs colleges for toughening academic standards for athletes. But he says "their academic integrity is nothing but a sham" if they let in white kids "who could have the academic ability of a rock" just because their parents are influential alumni while denying admission to poor black kids with a grade point average just as low.
As you may have gathered, Artis knows how to drive home a point. `My writing style is about as subtle as a punch in the face," he says. "If someone does something stupid, I want to say it. That's the approach of Rush Limbaugh. That's why Rush drives liberals crazy. He calls a spade a spade."
Artis is trying for a somewhat softer touch. "I used to tick a lot of people off with what I wrote. Now I put a little more sugar in it."
But not much, mind you.
Artis says he sometimes riles up his students by the advice he gives them.
"The black community has done a poor job of handling drug abuse and teen-age pregnancy," Artis says. "I was talking to a kid the other day [about teen pregnancy]. She said, `The white man has created an environment where to feel good about yourself, you have to have babies.' I said, `You mean, the white man came to your house, put a gun to your head and made you have a baby?' She said, `No, I didn't mean that.' I said, `Well, it's your fault.' "
Discrimination by whites may have created a bad environment for blacks, Artis says, but it's up to blacks to solve their problems themselves - and not look to government to do it for them.
It's a point of view Artis says he's evolved over the years, from growing up in Winchester to his first job as a history teacher at William Fleming High School in the early 1980s.
"I realized that you can't blame the white man for everything that has gone wrong in the black community. I think generally the black community is conservative. The stereotype is we're a bunch of thieves and drug addicts, but we have very conservative family values, the same values Dan Quayle talked about."
Also, Artis says, "I got sick and tired of liberalism."
"Liberals think black people are mindless people who need to be helped. There appears to be a missionary complex among a lot of liberals out there. Quite frankly, it's insulting."
When he went to college at James Madison University, "I had people compliment me because I'm articulate. Or I'd go to a job interview and people would say I was very well-spoken. Am I supposed to be talking in slang all the time? I once had someone tell me I was even-tempered. What's that mean? They're surprised I didn't come in and slap 'em up against the wall?"
The idea of turning his political thoughts into a newsletter came to Artis one day while listening to Rush Limbaugh - and the bombastic conservative radio talk-show host mentioned his "Limbaugh Letter."
"I made a mental note of it," Artis says. Then he got another rejection slip in the mail, this one about his proposed newspaper column from a black, conservative point of view. "I thought, there's got to be a market for it," he says.
So now he's trying to find it.
He's talked his relatives into subscribing. And he's persuaded friends to pass on copies of his newsletter to their friends. Now, he's starting to get subscription orders from complete strangers. "Last night, I got a couple subscription forms from people in Tennessee," he says.
Some black political scientists think Artis may be on to something.
"I think the potential is there," says Toni-Michelle Travis of George Mason University. "A number of blacks, particularly younger blacks who are too young to have lived through segregation, think black liberals are wrong-headed. These people are looking for something to reaffirm their views."
It's hard to pinpoint the number of blacks who consider themselves conservative, but Avon Drake, who teaches a course on "black conservative thought" at Virginia Commonwealth University, believes it's a growing constituency.
"If written with sophistication, I think there would be a great market out there for the articulation of these views in written form," Drake says.
As for whether Artis meets Drake's "sophistication" test, that's another matter. Drake thinks Artis, rather than soften his touch, needs to toughen it somewhat. "I think I see a little ambivalence in what he's saying," Drake says, noting Artis' description of some of his views as "practical liberalism."
If Artis focuses more sharply on his black self-help theme, "I think it could really catch on," Drake says.
Artis hopes so.
He dreams that in five years, he'll have 100,000 subscribers.
"But if in five years," he says, "the only subscribers are my wife and my mother, I'll still write for them."
Subscription information
The Black Conservative Newsletter
823 Highland Ave. S.E.,
Roanoke 24013
$6 per year
by CNB