ABSTRACT
Two political traditions are black politicians representing majority-white political jurisdictions and black politicians representing majority-black political jurisdictions. However, in terms of the meaning of black politics as it emerged from the civil rights/black politics movements, black leadership of white majorities is not properly speaking to be regarded as black politics. Thus the press's need to evaluate one tradition in terms of the other and to place a higher value on moderate, nonconfrontational style and deracialized politics is consistent with their expectations of white political representation. In short, the blacks have a right to demand a useful product from the political system in exchange for their participation and to evaluate the worthiness of politics on that basis. The attempt to "normalize" or "mainstream" the theory of social change is paramount to divorcing the rationale for black demands from their political strategies.
