Patrice Lee Onwuka, Senior Fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum and Director of Communications at Generation Opportunity, has made it to BlackBerry Radio’s Most Beautiful Black Women List 2017. Onwuka has contributed for Red Alert in the past.
We consider this big news. It is rare for black conservative women to get recognized by black Democrats and liberal media, who typically view those women as a threat to their political identity narrative, which says black female women can’t have conservative views. In fact, when a black female conservative did make the spotlight this year on a conservative show, black Twitter responded by ridiculing and cussing her out. The Blaze‘s Antonia Okafor told Red Alert she was slammed as an “Uncle Tom” and a “disgrace” to black women.
But this might be the start of a new trend. BlackBerry Radio featured Onwuka as part of its “acknowledgement of beautiful Black women worldwide.”
Onwuka tells Red Alert she is flattered.
“I’m amazed to be featured alongside so many talented black women,” she says. “Working on bipartisan issues like criminal justice reform and expanding working opportunities for young people, women, and people of color is all about good ideas – no matter what side of the aisle they come from.”
The exciting part for us is not that BlackBerry Radio found her beautiful — anyone with working eyes would note Onwuka’s kind and feminine beauty. But the fact that they are willing to publicly recognize her despite her political views is a big step forward.