There's also this August 2000 interview with Powell by Gwen Ifill on PBS:

GWEN IFILL: Watching the first night of this party's convention, did you get the sense that maybe the Republican Party from four years ago when you also had tough words for your own party is coming around more to where you are?

GEN. COLIN POWELL: I hope so. They didn't do so well in 1996 by not moving in this direction, and I hope that our party has enough wisdom gained over the last four years to realize we are becoming more and more of a party, more of a nation that has more people of color, more people coming in from lands around the world where the people are not white, and that if we are going to stay relevant, if we are going to be talking to the America of fifteen, twenty years from now, we have got to have not only a better face on our party but we have to have programs to support that face. It just can't be let's have an event once every four years and say we're for inclusion and then everybody goes home again. We've got to work in housing. We've got to meet with leaders of the African-American community, dialogue with them, understand the dimensions and the struggle that still exists in this country, a struggle that is not over. You can't tell me it's over when 52 percent of all men in jail are black men. There's something wrong. They're in jail because they committed crimes. Why did they commit those crimes? Where did the hopelessness creep in? What did we fail to give them in this American society of ours that we talk about all the time?

Clearly, Colin Powell, a man that rose in the ranks through the support of mostly White guys (Whites are in the majority) and who White guys eventually appointed to one of the highest offices in the land, places racial concerns at the top of his list. He's a natural to support a fellow Black over any White guy buddy.

I don't know about the the rest of you in America who are not Black, but I've "had it up to here" and totally fed up with being called a racist and seeing Black Americans given far more than any other culture. Every single other race and culture has come to America and made the cut. The one culture that has been treated as victims and forced to grow up with a victim mentality, mostly at the insistence of Black leaders and liberal whites, is the only one that still plays the race card and hasn't made the cut.

"Color" me mad as hell and I'm fed up with hearing about slavery in America. It doesn't exist now, it hasn't for a hell of a long time, and Blacks aren't the only race and culture that has been mistreated in one country or another. The rest of our ancestors got over it, and it's damned past time that Black Americans do also! Why don't liberal Democrats and Black leaders ask themselves why it is that other cultures with as bad or worse a beginning here in America have made it and never considered themselves as victims? (BTW - None of them are voting for the messiah)

Take a look at the fact that Americans of Chinese heritage are among our country's most successful -- despite being the first ethnic group to be specifically excluded from legal immigration to America, by laws enacted in 1882, and despite mistreatment and discrimination including many anti-Chinese laws passed in places like San Francisco, which were designed to protect the "native" laundry business.

And as was pointed out in the same above linked Larry Elder piece, "A Black Conservative Lament" (need I remind you that Larry is Black?):

[...] ... think about the "experience" of Japanese-Americans, also some of the most prosperous of all Americans -- despite the World War II "relocation" camps and California's anti-Japanese laws, once passed to prevent them from owning farmland?

... (this may not compare) in kind or in degree to slavery, but it's 2008 -- with a black man possibly on the brink of attaining the presidency of the United States. Can we move on? The problems of the "black community" have to do with the welfare-state-induced breakdown (or, more accurately, non-formation) of the family. This causes a disinterest in education, and leads to poor values, reckless and irresponsible breeding, as well as a lack of the job skills necessary in an information-age society. We also have grievance groups -- black "leaders"; the oh-so-sympathetic media; fear- and guilt-laden whites who refuse to say (as they do to their own children) work hard and play by the rules; and many reluctant blacks who refuse to preach the message of "no excuses, hard work" for fear of being labeled "Uncle Toms."

... nearly half of Harvard's black freshman class consists of blacks from the Caribbean or Africa -- areas less prosperous with far less opportunity. Care to explain that?

... I bet many of the "talking heads" live comfortable middle-class lives or better -- some, no doubt several, tenured college professors who, not so deep down, believe that they were smart enough or worked hard enough to have made it, but the other poor SOBs, well, they need a more compassionate government, a less racist society to pull them through.

And by the way, one hundred percent of my Black friends feel the same way as I do (or I'd laid the same line of thought on them too) and resent being treated like victims. They aren't, they know they aren't, and they're not the least bit willing to be told that they've been held down when they're successful as hell in their own right - not through affirmative action, not through any special grants or programs, and not through being special accommodations. They're men and women that made it because of who and what they are, determined to succeed, and weren't willing to let anyone or any situation - historical or existing, hold them back from pursuing their ambitions.

The take home message here; no one should be surprised about Powell's move, should they? As commenter "Maetenlochat" posted at Ace, "Much as we like to pretend otherwise, racial solidarity among minorities trumps class, culture, and ideology." I strongly believe that he's right.

AS for Powell jumping on Obama's bandwagon, when it comes to politics among many Black Americans, the old saying that birds of a feather "color" flock together, holds very true. Especially with Black Americans, who have had more money, special programs and considerations thrown their way than the average non-Black American could even remotely dream about.

Related post: Could The Colin Powell Endorsement Be The Moment That We Jump The Shark On The Idea Of A Blind America?