Upon becoming the chairman of the NAACP, former Georgia state politician Julian Bond declared his number one agenda would be pursuing "the new racists." What does that mean and why is that the number one priority? Is racism the biggest threat to minorities in America today?
Seventy percent of black children today are born out of wedlock; 50 percent of the prison population is black, black kids drop out of urban high schools at a rate of 50%, 25% of black youth are under the criminal justice system, and the overwhelming percentage of violent crimes against blacks (especially rape and murder) are committed by blacks themselves. With all of this, and the fact that we have institutionalized preferential treatment for minorities concerning hiring, promotion and college entrance requirements, how is it that the NAACP can declare that racism is their top issue to tackle?
The problem is not that the NAACP leadership is blind to the fact that they won their battle for equality. The problem is not that America is racist, as they define it, any more. The problem is that the poverty pimps of the NAACP want to keep emotions enflamed so as to keep justifying their existence. Not that working on the real issues that black Americans face wouldn’t justify their existence, but those issues don’t bring the news cameras around or stir people to give as much money as these guys need to maintain their elite lifestyles.
The NAACP is a partner in crime with the Democratic Party. They are two arch-liberal organizations promoting socialism. They are using the bogus "racism" claim to attack the conservative stronghold of the South. The problem here is that the socialist tendencies of Democrats and the NAACP leadership go in direct contradiction to what the average black person believes when it comes to social and cultural views. Contrary to the image painted by liberal blacks, most minorities aren’t at the mercy of white Americans. They may have to suffer the controlling tendencies of the elites, but no more than the average white, red, or brown American does.
The NAACP also ignores the fact that conservative blacks are just as successful in business and politics as liberal blacks. Maybe ignore isn’t the right term. Discredit might better describe how they view and comment on conservative blacks. The constant whipping up of emotions with false accusations of racism, ignoring the real problems average blacks face, and constantly attacking those successful blacks who don’t pay homage to them and their ideology is taking its toll on the credibility of the NAACP.
Just as it took years for Southerners to realize that their traditional political party, the Democratic Party, had turned its back on their values and political views, black Americans are starting more and more to realize that the NAACP is not out to defend their rights, but to agitate and play the political games of the Democrats.
It is natural for anyone, when looking to get involved with any kind of organization, to ask the question, "What’s in it for me?" Black Americans need to ask that question concerning the NAACP. Are they attempting to help improve education for your kids? Are they attempting to keep youth from going astray, stay in school, and develop sound moral principles to guide their lives? Are they working to help keep families together? Or are they screaming for more government handouts, like the ones that have made so many people welfare slaves? Are they promoting true opportunity or just looking for quotas without the foundation to support those claims?
Where is the focus? Is the NAACP promoting ideas of integrity and personal responsibility, or are they looking around for someone to blame? How many years and how many generations will we have to see be wasted before the problems of minorities can no longer be blamed on others and personal responsibility eventually has to be accepted? That time has come and gone. Anyone today can make it on individual merit if they want to. Why isn’t the NAACP addressing this, rather than attacking the South and non-existent boogey men?
More and more blacks are waking up to the fact that the NAACP doesn’t speak for them and doesn’t work to help them. More and more blacks are no longer willing to let these people speak for them and won’t support them. Recently Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson declared a boycott of the NAACP. This is a black man who heads up Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (B.O.N.D.). Other black leaders, mostly ministers, are boldly stepping forward to declare that the emperor (the NAACP) has no clothes. Hopefully, more will come forward and do likewise. In time, the NAACP will admit the same and will run back inside their castle, embarrassed at walking the streets naked. I won’t hold my breath as these people seem to have no shame, but we can hope.
Jeff Adams
1 August 2001