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Yvettep
Veteran Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1784
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 04:07 pm: | 
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From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032001431. html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
I know we have beat this issue to death here on this board. But I was particularly interested in this viewpoint:
Gordon sought to extend the reach of the NAACP to include another form of African American dissent: the politics of self-empowerment. Regrettably, the NAACP was not inclined to alter its long-standing approach. Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP board, rejects even the notion that we are in a post-civil-rights period, which requires imaginative and innovative struggle for social justice. Indeed, many current civil rights leaders fetishize the form of dissent most associated with the civil rights movement. They confuse principle with tactics. They behave as though marching and petitioning the government for redress of grievances is the only principled response to the maldistribution of burdens and benefits in our democracy. And they bristle at other forms of dissent, tactics designed to reach the shared goal of equality under law for all Americans. For many, it is either the old way or no way at all.
Are we, indeed, in a "post-civil rights era"? If not, what hasn't changed to make us still in the "civil rights era"? If so, what does that entail?
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8967
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 04:56 pm: |
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I think what marks the conclusion of the Civil Rights Era was the wholesale destruction and abolition of any laws/regulations that were created and enforced strickly to denegrate, repress and disenfranchise Blacks (then Negroes). |
Chrishayden
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Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3930
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 04:58 pm: |
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We are in the sense that we are no longer facing a massive overreaching system of aparthied that applies to everyone high or low.
That is, when they had a fountain that said "Colored Only" that was everybody--lawyer, doctor, nurse, criminal, crazy, infant, old person, etc.
Now the struggle has changed--but many would say that race doesn't matter there is no more racism and we don't need to worry about that but just about the things which face the rest of our citizens.
The struggle has become struggles--for instance, Blacks on wall street or blacks in corporate America still deal with racial issues--but these are different than those facing the truck driver, or the student, or the black cop, or the black in the military.
I believe that the era of the mass Civil Rights organization has passed--we should replace them with black guilds, clubs, associations, like that that fight the battles of their members. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8971
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 05:12 pm: |
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There's still very much a need for the NAACP and organizations of it's ilk. But although I think Gordon's a weasel for so quickly bailing, I believe he's right that some of the NAACP'S focus and tactic must change if it's to remain a relevant, viable organization. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7933
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 06:15 pm: |
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I think we are in another phase of the civil rights struggle, as well we should be, because a stagnant movement eventually reeks with inertia. For one thing, we have divested ourselves of the white liberal element who have served their purpose in the fight to gain our rights. We are also seeing a decline in the power and command of black leaders who can no longer claim to be the spokesman for their people. And this might be setting the stage for a declaration of independence wherein the black individuals begin to act in the own interests, fighting their personal battles, invoking civil rights laws that are already in place. And dammit, this is why I am again in agreement with Chrishayden when he says that "the era of the mass Civil Rights organization has passed--we should replace them with black guilds, clubs, associations, like that that fight the battles of their members." |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2024
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 06:25 pm: |
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I haven't read the entire article, but civil rights generally pertains to the 14th and 15th amendments.
The journalist is mistaken [and historian Glaude]; the NAACP isn't just about "marching and petitioning the government for redress." I would also argue that considering the last two presidential elections, I don't think our civil rights have been protected.
In fact, before MLK and the SNCC, the NAACP generally rejected civil disobedience.
In addition, people erroneously equate blacks' struggle in the US with the civil rights movement. By doing this, people have identified the problems that black confronted in the past and now-economics, healthcare, political rights, etc...--with one movement--the civil rights movement.
Robeson, Malcolm, A. Philip Randolph, R. Bunche, and others wanted more than that.
Thus, if you are gonna address civil rights, then you should do so on the NAACP's terms, for that is what it was established for--not "self-empowerment." Thats foolish!
If you want to buttress and promulgate self-empowerment, then speak to the National Urban League, the Boys and Girls Clubs, etc...and all the other social service agencies.
ChrisHayden, the organizations that you have suggested are already in existence.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7939
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 10:50 pm: |
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I would argue that the "black struggle" is a generic term, one that encompasses any type of organization that fights for equal rights and oppportunities. |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4946
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 11:21 pm: |
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Combating Racial Discrimination in the 21st Century: http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-3-5/52428.html
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Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 4124
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 11:24 pm: |
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The question of what era we are in is a historical one, one that cannot be answered for another 100-200 years. In the meanwhile, we still don't have equality, and we still don't have the same basic human rights as white people and so we're not post anything.
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Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2027
Registered: 01-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 12:45 am: |
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cynique: historically, the term black activists used was the 'black freedom movement.'
My point was, however, that since the black struggle has never been limited to civil rights, Gordon and others who want to promote black self-empowerment should not accept CEO position in a civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP.
As important, there are other organizations past and present that sought to promote self-empowerment.
The NUL [1910] and NAACP [1909] emerged to address social service issues-self-empowerment and civil rights, respectively. The NUL's programs focused on teaching blacks proper language, dress, and behavioral skills. This also included what they called domestic training for women[homemaking, sewing, and childrearing], as well as typing, stenography, etc....and for men, this often included makeshift apprenticeship training in the building trades or something, as well as proper etiquette [also for women], and religious training. In other words, it was the Booker T. Washington's program [who played a silent role in the leadership of the organization].
This is what many blacks say that we need now--Washington's program...blacks need to either obtain college degrees or vocational skills; more importantly, as the NUL promoted, they need improved behavioral skills that would curtail child delinquency, teenage pregnancy, and single parents.
I don't completely disagree, but I disagree more than I agree...
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8978
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 08:08 am: |
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The MISSION of the NAACP:
"Our Mission
The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.
Vision Statement
The vision of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure a society in which all individuals have equal rights and there is no racial hatred or racial discrimination.
Objectives
The following statement of objectives is found on the first page of the NAACP Constitution — the principal objectives of the Association shall be:
To ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all citizens
To achieve equality of rights and eliminate race prejudice among the citizens of the United States
To remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes
To seek enactment and enforcement of federal, state, and local laws securing civil rights
To inform the public of the adverse effects of racial discrimination and to seek its elimination
To educate persons as to their constitutional rights and to take all lawful action to secure the exercise thereof, and to take any other lawful action in furtherance of these objectives, consistent with the NAACP's Articles of Incorporation and this Constitution."
http://www.naacp.org/about/mission/
I'm not going to assert what the purpose of the NAACP should be. But I know enuff about how America works to know that it's virtually IMPOSSIBLE to achieve and maintain Civil Rights & Justice in America SANS Economic Empowerment. And it's virtually IMPOSSIBLE to achieve and maintain Economic Empowerment SANS Self-improvement/enlightenment. |
Tonya
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Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4949
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 09:42 am: |
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All of that printed above falls under civil/equal rights. I agree with Yukio. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8979
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:14 am: |
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Yukio: "In fact, before MLK and the SNCC, the NAACP generally rejected civil disobedience."
Dr. King (and Malcolm X) 'evolved' as time went on too.
Moreover, cite the number of instances that civil (NON-violent) disobedience was even attempted, much less WORKED, ANYWHERE in the world prior to Ghandi.
The NAACP was created during a time when if Black foks spoke up too much, their entire dayam TOWN was burned down.
It was only after Truman, Eisenhower and, especially, JFK began to make (largely token) gestures to defy Jim Crow and protect Blacks, were it even POSSIBLE to effectively protest and march.
Tonya: "All of that printed above falls under civil/equal rights. I agree with Yukio."
Oh. You're just saying that cause you WANT him.
Hahahahaha!!! |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4951
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:19 am: |
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No I'm not  |
Chrishayden
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Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3937
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 11:06 am: |
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What all of you are ignoring is that it doesn't matter what black folks think the NAACP ought to do. White people control it. They put most of the money in it. White people started the NAACP.
It was started to control the black drive for freedom and equality that they knew was coming. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8985
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 11:24 am: |
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Chris,
And in what way would that make the NAACP different from most any OTHER major American kneegrow organization & institution? |
Yukio
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2030
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 12:20 pm: |
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ABM: whats your point? I'm not criticizing the NAACP; i'm just stating its purpose, and it aint self-empowerment.
I stated the fact that the NAACP did not advocate civil disobedience to illustrate how the authors of the article misrepresented the NAACP, and wrongly criticized the NAACP for not embracing "self-empowerment." And that now that civil disobedience is an accepted tactic used by the NAACP, it will still be used for civil rights issues [though during the 40s and 50s the NAACP tried make the case that African Americans' plight was a human rights issue to the UN].
non-violence was just a tactic, and it worked only sometimes. if it wasn't for the cold war...it probably would not have had any success. All Americans knew black folks were being lynched, and killed. But once Asians and Africans learned at the same time that the US and USSR were trying to attract them, then these public demonstrations began to take effect...but again, what is your point?
Chrishayden: it wasn't started to control a damn thing, although at the end of the day, thats what it did....you should not mistake origins w/outcomes...sloppy thinking!
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7946
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 12:41 pm: |
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Well, splitting hairs over what the NAACP represents is academic because whoever is at the helm is faced with the task of steering a sinking ship weighed down by its bureacracy and obsolescence. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2031
Registered: 01-2004
Rating:
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 01:27 pm: |
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obsolescence? I don't know about that...part of the problem is many of us have confused laws with the enforcement of laws...
the experiences of black voters in Ohio and Florida would disagree w/you cynique.
in fact, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the
federal agency that is suppose to address civil rights has always been a site of conflict, primarily because it is controlled by which ever party is in the White House, and in my opinion, both democrats and republicans are shady when it comes to the rights of black people and 'minorities' in general, so that leaves us unprotected. Before C. Thomas began a Supreme COurt Justice, he lazy ass was Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, 1981-1982; Chairman U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Com mission 1982-1990....and he didn't even do his damn job!
Again, the presence of affluent blacks in the media and the absence of jim and jane crow signs has bamboozled the majority of us and them.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8991
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 02:02 pm: |
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Yukio,
My point is that I don't believe a Civil Rights organization that does NOT address and help facilitate improvement in personal development, education and commerce can or will remain a VIABLE organization.
That's WHY the NAACP is struggling.
The issues of +50 years ago - where Blacks couldn't attend certain schools, have certain civil service jobs, live in certain places as a matter of LAW - no longer exist.
What we have now are manifestations of racism that can NOT be addressed simply via asserting Civil Rights doctrine that was explicitedly designed to overturn laws and practices that no longer overtly exist.
These problems can only be addressed via foks acquiring the necessary individual skills/resources that when combined with those a collective yield lasting, meaningful impact.
Simply: How can you garner the resources to thwart racism if you're chronically unemployed & incarcerated, illiterate, rife with STD's and myriad babymommas/daddies? |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4959
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 02:23 pm: |
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Just grabbed this off the web, without taking sides I thought I'd share.
Nearing centennial, NAACP ponders mission
Local residents reflect differing views of group's relevance, appeal BY ROBIN FARMER TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Thursday, March 22, 2007
Ulyssee Benson thinks NAACP President Bruce Gordon's announcement this month that he was quitting, in part over the organization's direction, is part of a larger problem.
"I really don't think they tap into today's youth and where they are going," said Benson, 39, who runs a hot dog stand near the main branch of the Post Office.
Gordon, on the job 19 months, cited growing strain with board members over the group's management style and future operations. In his assessment, the advocacy organization also needed to focus on social services and finding solutions.
Nicholas Burr, vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter at Virginia Commonwealth University, disagrees.
"Change never comes overnight," said the 22 year-old senior from Woodbridge.
"I don't know how quickly Mr. Gordon was trying to implement these changes . . . but we have a specific mission statement" that includes eliminating racial prejudice in politics and education and improving the social and economic standings of minority groups, Burr said.
As the NAACP nears its centennial, some area residents expressed uncertainty about the relevancy and direction of the civil-rights organization. Issues have swung from basic rights, liberties and indignities to more subtle problems, often rooted in economics.
How does the organization respond? Should it change its mission and name?
"There is no reason -- and no demand, except in nonscientific Internet polling -- that the NAACP do either," said Julian Bond, NAACP Board Chairman and a history professor at the University of Virginia.
Bond said that when he was younger he thought the words "colored people" were outdated.
"But I have long since realized that the initials [NAACP] and the name are an American franchise -- as well-known as Coca Cola. We'd be fools to change it.
"Similarly, there's no need -- and no demand, except from those who want us to halt our anti-discrimination activities -- for us to change our mission," Bond said. "While many American organizations thankfully provide social services, we are one of the very few that fight for social justice, and therefore are all the more needed now."
Benson, the vendor, said the name doesn't matter to him as long as the organization addresses issues such as the Iraq War, import/export opportunities and reparations.
Timothy Hogan, 57, a Richmond resident, said the organization is stuck in the 1960s.
"They are losing a lot of support," he said. "Back then, it was great at the time -- but now they need to step up." He said the organization's name is fine because of the country's diversity and the growing number of "colored people."
While critics say the organization is out of touch with young people, students said its numerous youth and college chapters are evidence to the contrary. Burr pointed out that the VCU chapter won a statewide award in 2005 for its campus and community activities. VCU senior Shannon Christian, 22, said the NAACP "is very relevant, especially on a diverse campus."
Betty Stewart, 65, is a retiree from New York who relocated to Richmond in October. She said she agrees the organization is relevant and thinks the name should remain. But she wants it to connect to a younger generation and take the lead on addressing issues involving them.
"These black kids walking around and calling people [the n-word] -- it grates on me," Stewart said. "They don't know their history. I don't think the NAACP has addressed the issue," she said.
Honore Winfree of Richmond said there are so many problems affecting black people that the NAACP can handle only so much. Still, there's room for improvement, she said.
"We'd all like to see more action take place," Winfree said, "and probably a little less talk."
Dennis C. Hayes, the NAACP's general counsel, is the organization's interim president until a permanent replacement is selected. Hayes filled the same role after Kweisi Mfume resigned the presidency in 2004.
Contact staff writer Robin Farmer at rfarmer@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6312.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_Ba sicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173350346402&path=!news&s=1045855934842 |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7949
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 02:24 pm: |
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Well, a common complaint about the NAACP is that it is no longer relevant to the younger generation, Yukio, and that it is mired in out-dated traditions, complaints that do, indeed, point to it being an ineffective organization that is obsolete as it presently exists. Many would even go so far as to say that the NAACP needs to be overhauled. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2032
Registered: 01-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 02:51 pm: |
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ABM:
The issues are different, but as I stated above, the presence of laws on the books doesn't mean that they will be enforced. This is true in the case of Present cases of re-segregation that apply to jerrymandering, for example.
I've made your point already, in fact. As I said, the NAACP is for civil rights, but civil rights and combating racism is not the same. Civil rights is one way to address racism, just one way.
My point, again, is that if you want to addres these issues "ia foks acquiring the necessary individual skills/resources," then go to another organization that was established for that....like the NUL.
Again, this is why i stated, however brief, the origins of the NAACP and the NUL. They knew long ago that one organization couldn't do everything.
Excuse my cynicism, but it is futile to believe that black criminality, drug use, and illiteracy can be eliminated. All societies and groups folk in that condition.
The issue is really, how do we identify the problem...
and it is varigated, requiring a variety of strategies from a variety of organizations...
If we look at the civil rights movement, the NAACP did not do what the SCLC did; the SCLC did not do what CORE did, and CORE did not do what SNCC did[although the latter did share some tactics].
All of these groups are identified as "civil rights groups," but they all used different strategies and often had different goals.
WHy harp on what the NAACP need to do when its objectives haven't been met.
You and others keep stating that the NAACP is in a state of "obsolescence," but there are still issues relevant to civil rights that we need to address, such as healthcare for blacks, voting rights, etc....
The NAACP is struggling because people think that battle is won, and this belief hurts them more than their reluctance to embrace "self-empowerment." This means that they are always on a defensive...
Its like hanging w/ whites, africans, and west indians in Macy, and the black folk--african and west indians too--are followed. I mention all of them that we are being followed but not our white friends, and all of them-yes the africans and west indians--say no body was following us.....
Thats what the NAACP gets from whites, blacks, etc...and both the Democratic and Republican parties...so when black voters in florida and elsewhere are cheated it is seen as the exception not the rule, or the police beat our ass or murder us, it too is seen as the exception and not the rule....or the fact, as I stated above, that the federal agency that protects our civil rights is known for NOT responding to cases of civil rights, and that it is controlled by the political party in power, we don't know anything about that...
Wny? because we see high rates of teenage pregnancy [i this it has gotten lower actually], and male and female incarceration, the affluence of Oprah and others, and we get to celebrate Black history [really MLK and black inventors] in february, and a few of our actors have won oscars...
We have been Bamboozled!
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Chrishayden
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Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3945
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 02:56 pm: |
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Excuse my cynicism, but it is futile to believe that black criminality, drug use, and illiteracy can be eliminated. All societies and groups folk in that condition
(Yukio. Now you're talking. You must have added some red MEAT to that brown rice you keep eating)
WHy harp on what the NAACP need to do when its objectives haven't been met.
(It's objectives HAVE been met. It has kept Negroes quiet and divided)
We have been Bamboozled!
(Funny--YOU seem to know what's going down. Are you the only one?
Blacks have not been bamboozled. They been beat down)
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Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2033
Registered: 01-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 03:01 pm: |
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Cynique: lets me clear, do the majority of those folk who make the claim that is it obsolete known really what civil rights is beyond access to public accomodations?
Also, my claim is that people are criticizing the NAACP because they equate the elimination of racism w/civil rights. As long as the civil rights issues remain, then the NAACP should remain.
If the issues of civil rights is won, then they should fall...
So, the question is, are civil rights issues relevant to black people? I say yes.
Another, do black people know anything about civil rights issue as it pertains to healthcare, environmental racism, etc....I don't think so. I maybe be wrong and/or too much of a cynic...LOL!
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7952
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 03:09 pm: |
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As long as civil rights laws are on the books, Yukio, all any body needs is good Jewish lawyer. heh-heh |
Chrishayden
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Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3948
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 03:12 pm: |
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Another, do black people know anything about civil rights issue as it pertains to healthcare, environmental racism, etc....I don't think so. I maybe be wrong and/or too much of a cynic...LOL!
(How come you're the only one who knows about this--at least you say you are--and I hear and see and read black people talking about this all the time?) |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2034
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 03:13 pm: |
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by the way, to be fair, there has always been the communist party, and black socialists and communists that have organized their own organizations without the anti-christian rhetoric, such as the Panthers [especially in Chicago] DRUM in Detroit, and many, many others....
They lost out! Why? Because the government repressed them! And organizations like the NAACP and SCLC were safe alternatives...
Again, as i stated, the NAACP is for civil rights, and there were and always have been other organizations. The NAACP has been the most successful because it has been able to attract liberal whites, therefore more money, and more importantly, it is the second most conservative...the first is the National Urban League. What has happened is that folk on the left have had to join predominantly white membered organizations, or/and join the NAACP and try to change its politics internally.
Also, those on the left organize small organizations that often have local influence but little else....
We talk about economics, but white folk aint tryin to deal with that....they'll let us sleep in their hotels, dine in their restaurants[w/inferior service], and work for them [often w/lower salaries] and get our wages, tips, and labors....
bamboozled!
All of this true...but a nigga gotta work! LOL!
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Yukio
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2035
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 03:18 pm: |
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chrishayden: i didn't say i was the only one...did i?
i am speaking in generalities, i don't know what folk know...but i do read the newspapers, have black friends, etc...and what I often read and hear is that civil rights is about ending jim crow--segregation, but they can't talk about much else!
for example, one can argue that Katrina was a civil rights issue. what about garbage pickup etc...in the hood? that too can be addressed a civil rights issue. |
Yvettep
Veteran Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1801
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 09:51 pm: |
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An example of a current day, actual action that NAACP is taking on one issue: http://www.naacp.org/get-involved/activism/alerts/Bush_Budget.pdf
What do you all think? |
Yvettep
Veteran Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1802
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 09:54 pm: |
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Here is information about their legal fellows program: http://www.naacp.org/legal/fellows/ |
Yvettep
Veteran Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1803
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 09:58 pm: |
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ANd here is some info from the website on the National Prison Project: http://www.naacp.org/programs/prison/ |
Yvettep
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:02 pm: |
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I guess my point with all this is: Let's assume they are correct (or, at least, not 100% incorrect) that their mission is still relevant. Then could part of the problem with the perception of irrelevance by many be a matter of the NAACP not doing a good enough job of getting word out about what they are doing? I think the most visible thing they do is the Image Awards. Obviously they are up to a lot more. Local branches are often even more involved. Do they just need better PR???? |
Cynique
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Could be. Because there used to NAACP branches and youth councils in all of the Chicago suburbs and now the only one I know if is the Chicago one, and I never hear or read about anything they are doing. |
Yukio
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Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:38 pm: |
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Yvettep:
I guess its the NAACP's failure to "doing a good enough job of getting word out about what they are doing." But, I think that part of the problem is, poor people [the masses], black and white and red and yellow, are generally uninvolved in politics in the first place.
And if you think civil rights only means desegregation then once you hear anything related to civil rights you'll think of MLK, the I Have a Dream Speech, and more importantly that civil rights is unrelated to economics...which clearly this campaign shows that it is not!
So part is PR, the other part is basic civics...I bet you conservatives know what the NAACP is doing!
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Tonya
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 11:43 pm: |
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I came across this earlier today. I’m always stumbling upon articles involving the NAACP and something they’ve done or are a part of.
Re-Opening US Civil Rights Cases
By Marc Morial
Urban League President Marc Morial
March 22nd, 2007
During the summer of 1960, when the body of 12-year-old Freddie Robinson washed up on the shore of a local creek in Edisto Island, South Carolina, (USA) law enforcement authorities in Edisto Island, S.C., concluded that he must have drowned accidentally. But Robinson's family suspected otherwise - that he had been murdered for dancing with white girls.
Seven years later in Memphis, Tenn., and just a few days after participating in a civil rights demonstration, 16-year-old Larry Payne was found shot to death in a city housing project -- allegedly by a police officer who accused him of looting.
The deaths of Freddie Robinson and Larry Payne are just some of nearly 100 unsolved civil-rights-era deaths that the U.S. Justice Department in conjunction with the FBI will consider reopening as part of a widespread agency initiative announced last month.
The National Urban League, NAACP and Southern Poverty Center will also be working with federal authorities to help produce evidence and witnesses that and who could be helpful in solving some of these "cold" cases from a bygone era when, to quote a recent Seattle Times editorial, it was open season on Blacks in the South.
Recent successful prosecutions of three high-profile civil-rights-era murders brought out of the cold-case file prompted national law enforcement officials to consider taking another look at unsolved deaths of blacks from the 1950s and 1960s.
In 2001, a jury convicted Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry for the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. In 2003, Ernest Avants got life in prison for the 1966 murder of Ben White, an elderly black farm worker.
And Edgar Ray Killen was sentenced in 2005 to three 20-year terms for his involvement in the 1964 deaths of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.
And I have to say it's about time our federal government took comprehensive action to wash the stain of the senseless violence against Americans of color throughout the South in the 1950s and 1960s out of the fabric of our society.
But better late than never. Interestingly enough, the news of the new Justice Department initiative, interestingly enough, came down on the same day that a grand jury failed to deliver an indictment against Carolyn Bryant, the wife of one of the suspected killers of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Chicagoan who made the fatal error of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi.
Bryant was thought to have been in the truck that hauled Till off to his death. Her husband Roy and J.W. Milam, the two main suspects in Till's killing had died long ago.
The Till case illustrates just how difficult it is for the justice system to deliver indictments let alone convictions in murder cases in which the witnesses are getting on in years and/or the evidence has been lost or damaged or has aged.
Attorney Doug Jones, who in 2001 won convictions against two of the Birmingham 1963 church bombers, expressed skepticism over whether the initiative would break down the reticence of witnesses of murders from so long ago and bring about a deluge of new information in these cases.
"We brought tons of people to the grand jury (for the church bombing case), some of whom I'm absolutely convinced committed perjury, saying they didn't know about something. Could I prove it? No way," Jones told the Birmingham News recently.
"But if there was ever a case for people to step forward to do some reconciliation or right a wrong, it was one when four innocent girls were killed in a bomb in a church. And guess what? We didn't have anybody like that."
But I must respectfully disagree with Mr. Jones. Reopening these cases may seem like a waste of time and resources to some in light of the years that have lapsed.
But even if the Justice Department's initiative garners no new indictments or no new convictions, it is well worth the effort.
At the very least, it serves as a symbolic gesture of a nation trying to come to grips with a tumultuous past.
African Americans who lived in the South before the civil rights movement know all too well about terrorism - decades before the nation witnessed Muslim extremists slamming commercial jets into the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001.
The brand that affected southern blacks came packaged differently - or rather euphemistically - in the form of "Jim Crow" or "the Southern way of life."
In the century after the Civil War, southern blacks endured a reign of terror.
They watched their homes, businesses and churches burn to the ground.
They grieved for their loved ones and friends who were beaten and murdered by lynch mobs. Not in a million years would the federal government resist seeking justice in the World Trade Center terrorism case.
Why should it be any different in the cases of innocent African Americans taken out by lynch mobs in the South?
With so many years passed, closure may not come for all the civil-rights era lynchings but at least we as Americans can say we tried to right a grave wrong from our past.
That way we are much less likely to repeat it. Let me applaud the Justice Department and FBI for attempting to prove, to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
Morial is President of the National Urban League.
(Source: Maximnews.com)
http://blackstarnews.com/?c=123&a=3147 |
Yukio
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 11:52 pm: |
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the problem with this article is that it limits terrorism to the South, first of all; it also limits civil rights and violence in general to pre-1960s...this is what I'm talking about...even though you are 'in the know,' can't think beyond popular histories of the past!
how then do we expect the masses to know anything about civil rights? |
Tonya
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 01:09 am: |
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LOL, Yukio,
It was the news of the day re: The NAACP et al - and so it caught my eyes.
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Yukio
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 02:11 am: |
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sorry, my love...i'm not hatin on the NAACP or the journalist, jus sayin how uninformed some of our 'advocates' are... |
Abm
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 08:37 am: |
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Yukio: "But, I think that part of the problem is, poor people [the masses], black and white and red and yellow, are generally uninvolved in politics in the first place...And if you think civil rights only means desegregation then once you hear anything related to civil rights you'll think of MLK, the I Have a Dream Speech, and more importantly that civil rights is unrelated to economics...which clearly this campaign shows that it is not...So part is PR, the other part is basic civics..."
You've basically supported the argument I made earlier:
If people are not prepared to fight for their rights, they will not be ABLE to fight for their rights. And that preparation must include their developing and obtaining the information, resources and training that makes such possible.
It's as if you expect the NAACP to be able to build a good road without being involved with ensuring the quality of the concrete, stone and tar from which the road is to be constructed. |
Yukio
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 11:15 am: |
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I don't think there is disagreement, here. Just that we are talkin about different issues concerning the same organization.
I don't know what you're talkin about, and you don't know what I'm talkin about...LOL!
Let me say first, I don't have any expectations of the NAACP.
Secondly, I have always been talkin about the NAACP from what its purpose is.
You, on the other hand, it seems, have been talking about 'self-empowerment' from the stand point that both civil rights and economic power are mutually reinforcing. This I agree with. But, from an organization stance, and resources, and actual outlook, one organization can't do all of that....this observation was made in the 1910s, as I stated. And it is still the case now.
In your list of three variables, the only one that the NAACP does not address is personal development.
Lets me practical, here. One organization can not do everything...this is my point. The NAACP can do civil rights, and the other organizations can teach people better behavior skills, how to balance a check book, how to garner wealth and the like. Each organization can equip people with the skill set necessary to the stated purpose of the organization, and its members.
And the NAACP equips its members with information about how to fight civil rights be they economic or health concerns. It teaches people about the issues, its relevance their situation, and how to get their representatives to become involved.
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Abm
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 11:38 am: |
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Yukio,
If people do not believe what you're doing WORKS for what's CURRENTLY needed, it really does not MATTER what your mission and objectives are. You will fail and cease to be a viable, relevant organization.
And THAT is what has befallen the NAACP. |
Yvettep
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 11:46 am: |
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One organization can not do everything
True. So I have another question. Is it possible that the NAACP actually has too much on their plate? I have been exploring their website ever since this Gordon thing broke and it does appear as if they're into a LOT.
Additionally, as they are the most prominent and well known "Black organization" might they also have a role in maybe being some sort of "clearinghouse"? In other words, might they gather information about the various organizations, missions, etc and make that information available on-line or something?
Just some questions and thoughts. I'd like for us here on this board to solve this issue for our NAACP ! LOL |
Abm
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 12:05 pm: |
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Yvettep,
I agree that perhaps the world has grown to complex for the NAACP to be all things to all Black foks.
Maybe they should focus on the some core, major issues (e.g., education and/or prison reform) and avoid more frivolous issues (e.g., whether their are enuff Black foks on primetime TV). |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 12:43 pm: |
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Yukio,
So basically our so-called Black leadership is one huge mediocre, listless, bloated mess whose inefficacy is born in large part from in-breeding? |
Yukio
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 12:45 pm: |
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ABM. You aint neva lie! And thats the NAACP's business. But methinks that its also the responsibility of citizens to know thing about the workings of their own country...beyond this discussion of the NAACP it is often said that folk , in general, are just dumber these days, that in the past people were more so politically acute, etc....
Anyways, I'm not bothered by what has 'befallen' the NAACP. If it dies, I say too bad. We're misinformed, and again we have been bamboozled. LOL!
Yvettep: Perhaps, it is trying to do so much...but remember, that the NAACP has been in existence for a long, long time. So in some communities, and some local chapters its roots run DEEP. And, therefore, they are using the institutions that are already there. I people tend to confuse what happens at the national level w/the local level.
For example, when I was living in PA a few years ago, the local NAACP seemed immobilized by the liberal whites interested more in multiculturalism than civil rights issues. Part of the problem was, these liberal whites were too battling a very conservative school and business community...
And so, it seemed to me, that the mere presence of blacks in certain positions among whites, as well as blacks, proved to the majority that there was no racial problems at all. Thus, the local was in a quagmire because both, though different, liberal and conservative whites were able to establish that in their town and region there were NO racial problems. Part of this had to do w/the self-interests of some blacks not to do anything, and as Cynique has argued, many blacks, poor and middle-class, believed that since some of them had gained a measure of economic mobility, it was possible for all...
And thus, the concrete success of the very, very few blacks and their proud relatives w/their rosy anecdotes of affluence and inspirational stories of obstacles that they overcame through hard work, these blacks were able to both legitimize the conservative whites and, to some degree, allay the liberal whites.
It was a very interesting, interesting experience, for I had read about this in the case of the civil rights movement, and other histories, but had never seen it happening in my face....
Anyways, concerning the clearinghouse:
I think it is a clearinghouse, as are the majority of national organizations. Most are aware of the work and activities of other organizations. Also, these people often chair on the boards of multiple organizations.
Remember, the Gordons and Bonds of the black world, generally belong to fraternities, political parties, professional organizations, etc..., and these men and alike women, are the real black elite. Bond's history of political activity is very, very old..., and so he have connections, as I am sure Gordon does, that go way back. These are very powerful, relatively speaking, black people.
Consider the National Association of Colored Woman:http://www.nacwc.org/intro.htm
National Council of Negro Woman: http://www.ncnw.org/
Also the Prince Hall Masons:http://www.princehall.org/
These are very old and revered organizations, and many of our "elite" belong to these organizations, and they marry, vacation together, etc..., and they also are on the boards of all of other organizations...so, with that said, yes...LOL...the NAACP is a clearinghouse, and they are never doing all of the work themselves; their efforts are always coordinated.
Actually, checkout if you haven't already: charles m payne's i've got the light of freedom: the organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle. |
Yukio
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 01:01 pm: |
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ABM:
LOL! I don't know about "inefficacy." MLK comes of of this same tradition. He, however, "overcame," the conservatism of his own familial heritage and class.
But yeah there is a black old boy and old girl's clubs...if you join a fraternity or lodge you will see...and more or should i say fresh blood is brought in, but I suspect, that ideologically things can change but so much...
as you said the NAACP was radical in its day...but not as radical as the communists, of course. I am reading a book by Carol Anderson called Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955.
Anderson explains how the NAACP initially began to support Human Rights, but as the Cold War and McCarthyism blacklisted communists and alleged communists, the NAACP had to jettison the human rights campaign for civil rights in order to circumvent red-baiting.
If the NAACP would have continued the HR campaign, perhaps, they would have placed the issue of black exploitation at the court of the united nations, making it an international issue rather than a domestic. If this worked, and I am almost done with the book...LOL, Anderson argues, we would have gotten more than 'political' rights--civil rights. We would have gotten human rights--political, economic, cultural, and social rights.
Anyways his is more info. about this very interesting book:
As World War II drew to a close and the world awakened to the horrors wrought by white supremacists in Nazi Germany, the NAACP and African-American leaders sensed an opportunity to launch an offensive against the conditions of segregation and inequality in the United States. The "prize" they sought was not civil rights, but human rights. Only the human rights lexicon, shaped by the Holocaust and articulated by the United Nations, contained the language and the moral power to address not only the political and legal inequality but also the education, health care, housing, and employment needs that haunted the black community. The NAACP understood this and wielded its influence and resources to take its human rights agenda before the United Nations. But the onset of the Cold War and rising anti-communism allowed powerful southerners to cast those rights as Soviet-inspired and a threat to the American "ways of life." Enemies and friends excoriated the movement, and the NAACP retreated to a narrow civil rights agenda that was easier to maintain politically. Thus the Civil Rights Movement was launched with neither the language nor the mission it needed to truly achieve black equality. Carol Anderson is the recipient of major grants from the Ford Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, and numerous awards for excellence in teaching. Her scholarly interests are 20th century American, African-American, and diplomatic history, and the impact of the Cold War and U.S. foreign policy on the struggle for black equality in particular. Her publications include "From Hope to Disillusion published in Diplomatic History and reprinted in The African-American Voice in U.S. Foreign Policy.
http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521824311
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Yukio
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 01:07 pm: |
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I didn't mean to include her biography...she teaches at the University of Missouri-Columbia; i think thats ChrisHayden's neck of the woods! |
Abm
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 01:29 pm: |
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Yukio,
If I correctly intepret your summary above, should I conclude there was a time with the NAACP purpose was more aligned with that of what Gordon is alleged to have attempted to do? |
Yukio
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 02:05 pm: |
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Not sure. I don't know what Gordon wanted to do...from what I understood, he was only talkin about results, making sure people are registered to vote, and that people have been tested for aids....that isn't what Anderson's book is about nor what the NAACP was trying to do in the 1950s.
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Tonya
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 04:08 pm: |
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Sounds like we’re blaming the NAACP for the failures of the public school system. Why not blame the government? Because, nowadays, it's easier to beat up on a Black organization, especially one that has it's roots in traditional Black causes, perhaps? Just throwing it out there…
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Abm
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 04:12 pm: |
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Yukio,
This is what I'm referring to:
"As World War II drew to a close and the world awakened to the horrors wrought by white supremacists in Nazi Germany, the NAACP and African-American leaders sensed an opportunity to launch an offensive against the conditions of segregation and inequality in the United States. The "prize" they sought was not civil rights, but human rights. Only the human rights lexicon, shaped by the Holocaust and articulated by the United Nations, contained the language and the moral power to address not only the political and legal inequality but also the education, health care, housing, and employment needs that haunted the black community." |
Cynique
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 04:40 pm: |
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Well you'd think that after almost a 100-year in existence, the NAACP would've accomplished its mission. But like most black organizations, it has become an industry and it is to its advantage to perpetuate a need for its existence. All the laws are in place for black citizens to fight injustice and The Legal Aid Society and the EEOC and ACLU are there for that purpose. IMO |
Tonya
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 05:37 pm: |
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The argument between Bond and Gordon is as old (and simple) as Democrat vs. Republican.
Bond wants more government, Gordon wants less.
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Yukio
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 09:29 pm: |
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ABM:
Ok, I got you. Yes and No. Yes, in the sense that Human Rights would have made these issues--education, health care, housing, and employment--both international issues and potentially a constitutional issue. Also, yes because the NAACP has always attempted to address education, health care, etc...but through political rights, specifically due process and the like, i.e. 14th amendment.
No, because Gordon wants to address these same issues by programming directed at individuals.
In other words, BOTH the NAACP and Gordon want to address health care, employment, housing, etc...BUT they address the problem DIFFERENTLY.
Cynique: Right and Wrong. you're right in the sense that the laws are on the books, and there are agencies that are suppose to protect citizens civil and economic rights.
Wrong, because voting rights act of 1964 and the 1965 are nothing but constitutional amendments--the 14th and 15th. Thus, the civil rights movement did nothing but force the government to do what it was suppose to have done since Reconstruction.
Wrong again, since these federal agencies are controlled by the administration that is in power. Now, personally, I think Democrats are as shady as Republicans, so it is bad with a Democratic administration and worse with a Republican administration.
Consider this story:http://www.imdiversity.com/Villages/Careers/articles/pns_bush_vs_berry_1204.asp
Bush vs. Berry -- Battle Over Future of Civil Rights Panel
A Look at the History of the Controversial Panel
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
December 6, 2004 - The clash between President Bush and Civil Rights Commission chair Mary Frances Berry over when Berry's term expires is more than a head bump between two strong-willed public officials whose views on civil rights differ wildly. It's about what the rights panel should be about, and how tightly its commission should be under the thumb of the White House.
Bush may dump Berry any time now; the White House says her term and that of Vice Chairman Cruz Reynoso expired Dec. 5. Berry, ever the defiant gadfly, publicly defied Bush and said she won't leave until Jan. 21, when she reckons her term is up. The eight commissioners have six-year terms, and under an agreement with Congress the White House can appoint four commissioners.
Berry is an unabashed liberal Democrat who hails from the older 1960s civil rights oriented generation of blacks in the South that experienced segregation first-hand. During her quarter century on the commission, Berry tried to make it a fighting agency that exposed and rooted out racial and gender discrimination.
The problem is that the commission has always been hamstrung by money and politics. It has no enforcement power, and its paltry budget of $9 million is one of the tiniest of any federal agency. Bush has proposed lopping off another $1 million for 2005. Conservatives have railed against the commission as a racially divisive, Republican bashing, liberal advocacy group. They want Congress scrap it altogether. A House Judiciary Subcommittee is currently investigating the commission for alleged financial hanky-panky.
Berry and Bush bumped heads well before Bush was re-elected. The Commission under Berry's tutelage virtually accused Republicans of stealing the Florida election through vote fraud, tried to sandbag the seating of a Bush appointee to the commission and touted affirmative action programs at college campuses in Texas, Florida and California. Three weeks before the presidential election, Berry infuriated Republicans by authorizing the posting on the commission's Web site of a report by career staffers that accused Bush of miserably failing to provide leadership on the enforcement of civil rights laws. Republicans screamed foul. They charged that Berry released the report that they hadn't read or approved to embarrass Bush and help tip the election to Democratic presidential contender John Kerry.
Bush's civil rights record is not as terrible as Berry claims. Nor is it as terrific as Bush claims. Bush's Justice Department initiated more lawsuits on education and voting rights cases than during Clinton's final years. And former Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a directive and guidelines in 2003 to all federal law enforcement agencies banning the practice of racial profiling. But prosecutions of police abuse and hate crimes plunged during Bush's first term.
Berry's greatest fear, though, is that Bush will pack the commission with conservative hard-liners who will turn it into a do-nothing, rubber-stamp agency. Berry should know about that. In the 1980s, Berry and the commission lambasted President Reagan for backing a decision by the Justice Department to overturn an IRS decision denying a tax exemption to Bob Jones University, which bans interracial student dating. Berry also relentlessly opposed Reagan's anti-affirmative action stance. A piqued Reagan promptly fired her and three other commissioners. Berry sued in federal court and got her job back, and Congress backed away from its threat to take the power to appoint commissioners away from Reagan on the grounds that he abused his authority.
It was a pyrrhic victory. Reagan's choice for commission chair, Clarence Pendleton, proved an embarrassment, with his shoot-from-the-hip attacks on civil rights leaders, his blatant opposition to affirmative action and his refusal to aggressively investigate civil rights abuses. Pendleton was also dogged by scandals involving government contracts and expense padding. The commission degenerated into a squabbling, toothless shell. In the next decade, other than issuing the occasional bland and innocuous report, the commission was rarely heard from. Ironically, the controversy over Bush's election breathed life back into the commission, and brought it, and Berry, back onto the public's radar.
There was never any doubt that Bush would oust Berry from the commission the first chance he got. But will the commission, as Berry fears, become an inert panel of Bush administration yes-persons? Bush says no, and promises that it will uphold his strong commitment to civil rights. We'll know if that's true when we see Bush's replacement for Berry. We won't have long to wait. |
Yukio
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 10:06 pm: |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Lee_Peterson
I knew he looked familiar...that is the "brotha" that is always on FOXNEWs...he is the very person on that video that some posted on one of the threads here....let me find it! |
Tonya
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 10:06 pm: |
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Peterson criticizes black leadership in America
By: Matthew Varley
Posted: 3/21/07
Problems facing the black community in America are primarily due to the breakdown of the nuclear family, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson told a half-filled MacMillan 117 Tuesday. His speech was followed by a heated question-and-answer session.
Though he cited personal experiences with segregation during his childhood, Peterson said the major perpetrators of racism in America today are organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and black leaders like the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
Peterson said such leaders proclaim racism where it does not exist in order to promote themselves - and in the process, he said, they anger black Americans and contradict the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of a society in which individuals would be judged "not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
"Once (King) was assassinated, Jackson and others took his dream and perverted it - they took good and turned it into evil," Peterson said. "The battle we are fighting has nothing to do with color and everything to do with character."
Peterson - a conservative, nondenominational minister - was born and raised on what he described as a plantation in Alabama. He is the founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny - a group dedicated to, its motto proclaims, "rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man" - and author of "Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America."
"We're trying to wake black folks up so they can overcome their anger and move forward," Peterson said of BOND, a nonprofit he said receives no government funding. Peterson was sharply critical of the federal government, which he called "godless" and pointed out that "prior to the civil rights movement, families were together" and helped one another without depending on the government.
Peterson, who advocates a boycott of the NAACP and hosts an annual National Day of Repudiation of Jesse Jackson in Los Angeles, attributed the rise in single motherhood, incarceration and educational discrepancy among blacks to the absence of stable, two-parent households and the tendency to blame white people for problems.
"That state of anger is destroying the black family, the black community itself," Peterson said. In an infrequent invocation of religion in his speech, Peterson said "there's so much anger between the black man and the black woman that I think it's going to take Jesus Christ to come and restore" peace in relationships.
Peterson went on to criticize the use of the term "African American," which he called "ridiculous in itself - because if you're born in America, you're an American."
Peterson also spoke of the presence of "white fear" in American society - white people, he said, have become intimidated by the notion of being labeled racist or threatened with lawsuits for speaking out about issues related to black America.
"White Americans have allowed themselves to be intimidated" into not speaking their minds about race, Peterson said. "White folks who are living today are not responsible for the past. … They need to get rid of the false guilt that they have," he added.
The theme of dwelling on the past became a major issue in the heated question-and-answer session that followed Peterson's lecture. In response to a question about his tendency to speak about black America in the third person, Peterson said, "I don't identify as a black man. I identify as an American, a Christian, a conservative and a Republican. My color doesn't matter to me - it gets me nowhere. It's my character that counts."
"What good is it doing you to identify with your color?" he added, followed by several seconds of silence from the crowd.
A question responding to Peterson's criticism of black welfare families noted the Wagner Act, past policies of the Federal Housing Authority and other forms of government handouts that the questioner said favor white Americans.
"Intelligence is overrated," Peterson responded. "What we need more of is wisdom, because if you were a wise man, you would let the past be gone and live today."
When the same student noted that accumulated privilege would still be inherited by future white generations, Peterson dismissed the student, saying, "I've already wasted too much time on you."
The lecture was organized by the College Republicans and co-sponsored by the Young America Foundation and the Department of Africana Studies.
© Copyright 2007 Brown Daily Herald |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7987
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 10:11 pm: |
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Come on, Yukio, using voting rights as an example is not really pertinent, especially considering all of the black folks who have been voted into office in the southern towns and cities where their right to vote was a problem 40 years ago. What new relevant legislation would you suggest needs to be put on the books, ones that have been overlooked in the year 2007. If black people are denied justice is not because of the law, it's because of racism and corruption. |
Tonya
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Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4988
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 10:13 pm: |
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Yukio, sorry I had to re-post it because the link stretched the entire thread but yeah that's him; the (VERY) conservative commentator.
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Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2065
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 10:18 pm: |
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I dont understand your first sentence, cynique.
I'm not only talkin about putting legislation on the books, but also, and more importantly, the enforcement of what is already there.
The civil rights movement was not radical, for it did nothing but force the government to political commit to the 14th and 15th amendments.
And as Hutchinson's article says, "The problem is that the commission has always been hamstrung by money and politics. It has no enforcement power, and its paltry budget of $9 million is one of the tiniest of any federal agency."
Thus, having laws on the books is only the beginning...but you know this! I hope! |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7988
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 11:08 pm: |
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Didn't I say, Yukio, that the laws are already on the books, and that all that was needed was to enforce them? Didn't I cite what agencies were available to do this? Your response was to tell me I was wrong as you proceeded to start talking about voting rights.
I am inclined to think that the agenda of the NAACP is superfluous, but it has to set some goals to create the illusion of being important. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2068
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 03:25 am: |
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Cynique: You didn't say anything about enforcing anything to my knowledge...if I have missed it point it out to me.
This Your statement that I responded to:
Well you'd think that after almost a 100-year in existence, the NAACP would've accomplished its mission. But like most black organizations, it has become an industry and it is to its advantage to perpetuate a need for its existence. All the laws are in place for black citizens to fight injustice and The Legal Aid Society and the EEOC and ACLU are there for that purpose. IMO
*The word nor the notion of enforcing anything is nowhere to be found in that statement above.
I don't know if you read my post or the article, but both stated that the agencies aren't doing anything because the Republicans have control over them!
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Toubobie
Regular Poster
Username: Toubobie
Post Number: 239
Registered: 08-2005
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 09:41 am: |
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two things wrong with black folks... religion, black leadership, and hi yellas (ok three)
of course it couldn't be a post civil rights era, why then, these high yella bureaucrats and their uncle tom self-hating wanna-be's would be irrelavant. what would a pitiful and irrelavant white man like julian bond do if he didn't have the naacp to affirm his minute trace of african blood?
to hell with all of these self-serving 'black' motha f*ckas. they aren't civil servants, naacp and organizations like it are their springboards to prominence. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7993
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 10:41 am: |
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I challenge your statement that the Republicans control the union supported EOC and the radical ACLU, Yukio. And as I said, any good lawyer can fight a case utililing laws already on the books. Class action suits also have no problem attracting legal assistance because the lawyers have a vested interest in winning these cases because of the large fees they collect. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2072
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 12:45 pm: |
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ok...now, you're saying something different. I made a general comment, that is, these federal agencies are controlled by the party in power. And that neither the dems. or repubs. are trustworthy on the civil rights issue.
I do not know specifically about the EOC and the 'radical' ACLU. I think you're wrong about the EOC, however. But, I will do some checking, and get back to you.
On the qualities of lawyers, what you say is ridiculous! Of course, they have a vested interest in winning these cases...but first of all these cases are always political more than purely a question of a lawyer's qualification....ask any lawyer, and they'll tell u it not qualifications it clout w/the judge, the politics of the judge, and fundamentally the issue...
Also, even when cases are one...winning a case that is tried by a federal agency established specifically to both investigate these cases and try them is more information than winning a class in local court...WHY?
Because that local court case goes unnoticed, and is seen as the exception....if, however, it is investigated and eventually tried as a civil rights cases, it can be counted as part of the rule rather than the exception....this is what made the NAACP effective, because they were trying to identify cases that would made structural changes in federal law....
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8003
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 01:06 pm: |
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I didn't say that class actions lawyers were good lawyers! A lot of them are shysters. And how do you figure the ACLU is controlled by the party in power? The ACLU is privately funded and has a long history of supporting radical causes. The Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC)is self explanatory. I still contend that if justice is denied it is because of the corruption and racism that circumvent the laws that are in place. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2074
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Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 01:19 pm: |
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My comments said nothing about what is good or bad, elder. I said "I do not know specifically about the EOC and the 'radical' ACLU."
What i meant was I can not speak about them beyond what they do, so I'll not comment. I know about the ACLU's activism too...but I would call it liberal not radical, and I can not think of cases wherein they were 'radical,' at least as it pertains to black people.
Right,"if justice is denied it is because of the corruption and racism that circumvent the laws that are in place."
SO....then we are not protected! The presence of laws have no meaning...
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8004
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 01:31 pm: |
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ACLU involves itself in any cause dealing with a violation of civil liberties, and this has on one occasion included arguing for the right of Nazis to hold a parade. We are not protected when corrution of racism prevail. But in many cases these factors don't obstruct justice and the laws in place are obeyed. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8005
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 01:34 pm: |
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And the EOC is always the back-up for trade unions when they argue job discrimination cases. |
Yukio
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Post Number: 2075
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 02:21 pm: |
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cynique: I know what the ACLU and the EOC do, when they were established and the general issues of these bodies.
But, I do not know enough about them, less about ACLU and more about the EOC, to 'adjudge' them.
My point is all of this is:
We are not protected!
The ACLU and the EOC are no different from the NAACP or any other organization, agency, or institution...its efficacy is determined by the political party in power, its resources, and its friends and foes!
And, after I go to the library....I will answer your "challenge." When I used control, if you reread my post, I was talkin about federal agencies, first of all. Secondly, in the case of private organizations, like the ACLU, they are actually powerless if they dont to some degree fall in line with which every administration that is in control...this doesn't mean that the ACLU in controlled by republicans, for example, but it does mean that it will have less effect while the Republicans are in power....
Concerning the EOC is too powerless....while you are cynical, you seem quite ideal w/regards to the integrity of these organizations!
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8009
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 02:37 pm: |
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So what you are saying, in effect, is that this is a country not governed by law, And that black people are totally disinfrancished, that justice is always denied us because the laws are not enforced. And who we gonna call? The NAACP. I'm sick of the subject. You believe what you wish and I'll believe what I have seen in action. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2077
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 04:57 pm: |
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LOL! You funny....i'm not even an NAACP advocate...you're just anti-NAACP...LOL!
I haven't mentioned the NAACP in the last 3 or so posts...LOL!
I just said, and believe, that they still have work to do. And of course, on a day to day basis, this country is governed by law. But in matters of race, the law is very shaky...whether it is related to the incarceration rates of black men and women to whether or not the federal agencies are willing to investigate civil rights cases.
It is so funny to me how you "americans" look down upon "third world' countries because of their poverty and corruption, and you can not see the same thing in your own country....blind, brainwashed, and bamboozled!
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Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2078
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 05:04 pm: |
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Checkout this criticism against Berry:
Mary Frances Berry, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, is a bully. Her most recent escapade -- last Friday -- involved her refusal to seat Peter Kirsanow, the man appointed by President Bush to a commission seat that became vacant on Nov. 29. Berry told White House counsel Al Gonzales he'd better send federal marshals if he wanted Kirsanow to take his lawful place on the commission. But her outrageous behavior in this incident is nothing new. I've watched her in action for years, even before President Reagan appointed me staff director, the chief executive officer of the commission, in 1983 when she served as vice chairman. She once bullied a member of the commission staff so badly -- in words not fit to print in a family newspaper -- I had to threaten to have her removed from the building. "Your use of intimidating curses and vile language as well as your overall abuse of a subordinate go far beyond permissible behavior," I informed her in a memo. "If you repeat such abusive behavior in the future, I will ask you to remove yourself from the premises and will seek to have you removed if you do not comply." "Call It Uncivil" The New York Times dubbed the conflict, one of many in our stormy tenure together. Berry was first appointed to the commission in 1980, largely to get rid of her at the then Department of Health, Education and Welfare, where she served as an assistant secretary. Berry had embarrassed the Carter administration by returning from a trip to China extolling the Maoist education system there, including its use of ethnic quotas in higher education. So President Carter passed over Berry when he created the new Department of Education, shipping her off to the Civil Rights Commission instead. She's been getting even with presidents ever since. In 1983, President Reagan fired Berry and two other commissioners. At the time, commissioners were appointed to serve "at the pleasure of the president," like all presidential appointees of executive branch departments and agencies. But Berry refused to go -- until I changed the locks on the door. She then went to court to fight her removal, and got a favorable ruling from a liberal District Court judge. But in the meantime, the Congress re-wrote the law, authorizing the president to appoint four commissioners for six-year terms and Congressional leaders to appoint an additional four members with the same conditions, thus mooting her court case, which had moved to the U.S. Court of Appeals by then. I was with President Reagan in the Oval Office when he signed the new law, but he did so with strong reservations. The Justice Department had issued a legal opinion questioning whether the new commission structure was Constitutional. Article II, section two clearly gives the president exclusive right, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint ambassadors, judges and "all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for." The Constitution limits Congress' role to vest the appointment of "inferior officers" by law in the president alone, the courts or the heads of departments -- but not to assign such powers to itself. Ignoring such Constitutional niceties, the Democrats in Congress proceeded to appoint four commissioners, including Berry, for six-year terms. And she's been reappointed every time her commission expired since then. President Clinton appointed her chairman when he took office, but even he had reservations about Berry. When he decided to initiate what he called a "national dialogue on race," he kept Berry out of the picture, appointing a whole new commission to oversee the enterprise. President Clinton also appointed Victoria Wilson on Jan. 13, 2000, to fill the unexpired term of a commissioner who had died. The presidential appointment Wilson received clearly states her term expired Nov. 29, 2001. It's Wilson's place Kirsanow should have taken last week after President Bush appointed him and he was sworn in by a federal judge. But Berry believes she -- not President Bush nor President Clinton -- determines when commissioners' terms expire. The White House says they'll take Berry to court to force her to seat Kirsanow. The president ought to fire Berry at the same time. As long as this issue is going to wind up in the courts, why not settle the question left unanswered in 1983? Since when did the Constitution permit Congress to limit the president's right to appoint and remove officers of executive branch agencies anyway?
Linda Chavez is chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics . |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2080
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 05:18 pm: |
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source of the above article: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/LindaChavez/2001/12/11/mary_frances_berry_civ il_rights_bully
My point?
These federal agencies, lobbyist groups, etc...are a contested terrain. Politics is always around, and we need protection!
So, am I saying that we need the NAACP. Maybe not, but we need an advocate! To trust that this government will protect your rights is foolish!
Mary Frances Berry understands this...why else would a conservative, Linda Chavez, call her a bully? Why else would Chavez slander Berry?
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Frances_Berry
Berry was first appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights by President Jimmy Carter. During her tenure she became involved in legal battles with presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. When Reagan attempted to remove her from the board, she went to court to keep her seat and won. In 1993 she was elevated to the chair by President Bill Clinton, who then reappointed her in 1999. During Berry's tenure, Peter Kirsanow sued Commissioner Victoria Wilson claiming her tenure had expired and he had been validly appointed to replace her by George Bush. She won in federal district court but ultimately lost on appeal and the court ordered the sseating of Kirsanow. The dispute determined which political party would have a majority of the board's members. Berry left office before the expiration of her term in late 2004 and was succeeded by Gerald A. Reynolds.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8012
Registered: 01-2004
Rating:
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 06:03 pm: |
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I don't know that you are that immune to being brainwashed and bamboozled yourself, Yukio. You never seem to grasp the contradictions that are at the core of your mind-set because your whole premise is based on blacks having power even as you lament their impotency; which is to say that you accuse The System of being unresponsive and then think that you can demand more than what it has already given you. And as much as you criticize conservatives and the middleclass, it never seems to occur to you that anything you advocate requires black unity. You seem to imply that the work done by blacks who came before you needs to be finished but refuse to admit that your generation is who made things worse. You carry on about entrenched racism yet believe that you can deconstruct the infra structure of this nation just because justice is on your side. You are the one brainwashed because you think a crippled democracy is alive and well in this country. And you are apparently patriotic enough to believe in the promise of America even as you put down what Americans think. And so it goes. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8013
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 06:13 pm: |
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BTW, I am not anti-NAACP. I am just not impressed by this organization. All of the above that you have cited supports what argument? If the laws weren't on the books then Mary Francis Berry wouldn't have had redress. If you she lost her case, it is probably because of racism and corruption. What is the solution to that problem? Do you think you can reform the powers that be? We are just talking at each other, Yukio, discussing a subject that keeps morphing into something else. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2084
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 11:38 pm: |
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Goodwine v. Taft
U.S. District Court Southern District of Ohio, No. C-3-75-304
This longstanding school desegregation lawsuit was filed by the Dayton NAACP and individual plaintiffs against the Dayton, Ohio school district and the State of Ohio. It was settled and the District Court made a finding that the district was unitary. The Defendants agreed to fund and implement certain programmatic initiatives. In this post-unitary status case, the Dayton NAACP is currently attempting to obtain certain data from the School District in order to assess the District’s performance under the terms of the settlement.
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Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2085
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Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 11:40 pm: |
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Of course, I am not immune. I was born and bred here, in the US of A. I actually grasp, and embrace, what you call 'contradiction.'
*This contradiction is called faith in black people.
I thought we were talkin about the NAACP and the efficacy of federal agencies to established to protect civil rights...some how you have wavered from that discussion into making an overall, and i'll say poorly constructed, evaluation of my general politics, so let me correct you.
1.You never seem to grasp the contradictions that are at the core of your mind-set because your whole premise is based on blacks having power even as you lament their impotency.
No, I would argue, if asked, that blacks have power that is unfocused, and consequently impotent.
2.You accuse The System of being unresponsive and then think that you can demand more than what it has already given you.
Of course, I demand more. I didn't say that it was unresponsive, I said that it is a contested terrain. In other words, I posted the above articles to make the point that the battle wasn't over once the laws were on the books. And I used the best example I could think of, that is, Mary Frances Berry's continual advocacy as an official in the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and her battles w/Reagan and Bush. If that doesn't show that we have progressed--hence a federal agency for civil rights--BUT, we can not be complacent--cause that agency aint gonna work w/out force and activism.
3.And as much as you criticize conservatives and the middle-class, it never seems to occur to you that anything you advocate requires black unity.
Of course, it requires black unity. But the fact of the matter is, black unity means neither that all black folk will agree nor that all blacks need to join forces for there to be black unity. And at the end of the day, all blacks can't come for the ride...Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Condeleeza Rice, and Colin Powell are black folk, but they can't come...the presence of melanin doesn't outdo your political agenda!
4.You seem to imply that the work done by blacks who came before you needs to be finished but refuse to admit that your generation is who made things worse.
Is there a question here somewhere? Worse? I don't know about that! I'll said that they don't know what the hell is going on because their parents haven't parented them and taught them what to do...and I will say that they aren't doing well, but neither is yours now and in the past....
Lets not forget, everyone in your generation was not involved in the civil rights movement...the majority of you were watching it on TV, criticizing folk comfortably in your homes.
5. You carry on about entrenched racism yet believe that you can deconstruct the infra structure of this nation just because justice is on your side.
Your point. You are saying that justice is on my side....anyone can sit and talk shit about this...the shit I spew is no different than yours...shit...LOL!
6.You are the one brainwashed because you think a crippled democracy is alive and well in this country. And you are apparently patriotic enough to believe in the promise of America even as you put down what Americans think.
It seems like I hit a nerve...LOL! I was calling you brainwashed, I was talking about Americans, including myself. But for the record, this aint a democracy, and whether it is or not is irrelevant! What is is how do you fix something for your benefit? Sometimes it bribery, voting, civil disobedience, petitioning, etc...guerrilla warefare! Malcolm X liked to say that the negro revolution wasn't a revolution because a revolution requires what? Bloodshed! Maybe that it!
7.All of the above that you have cited supports what argument?
that laws on the books mean nothing if they are not enforced and that we need to continue to make sure that they are.
8.Do you think you can reform the powers that be?
As long as their are opposing positions, there will be reform but no solution.
9.We are just talking at each other, Yukio, discussing a subject that keeps morphing into something else.
No Cynique, I have continually answered your questions, as you have morphed the conversation into something else.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8014
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2007 - 01:14 am: |
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OK, Yukio, you get an "A" in specious sophistry. And I admit to drawing from my own personal experiences in regard to obtaining legal redress, and nothing you go off on tangents about can invalidate what I have experienced and participated in. I gave some input about what the NAACP has become, but I never really attacked this organization because I gain nothing from doing so. You are citing a lot of high profile cases to substantiate what you say about their advocacy and the ineffectivness of other organizations. But on a-day to-day basis every day people are going into courts with lawyers or public defenders relying on enacted laws to plead their clients cases. They win some and they lose some. Yes, our prisons are full of black men found guilty of crimes but lady justice is fickle and racism and corruption are alive and well. Nevertheless, unions in everday work places are still winning cases for disgruntled employees, relying on the support of EOC to do so. Legal Aid is still coming to the rescue of the indigent, ACLU is still raising hell fighting for civil liberties. But this is all too ordinary for the rarified sphere you rotate in. And so it goes. You have provided answers for my questions but that does not mean that that the answers you give are satisfactory to anyone but yourself because you and I are coming from different perspectives. Me, brainwashed? I think not. |
Yukio
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Post Number: 2090
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2007 - 07:04 am: |
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specious sophistry...LOL! That sounds like something ABM would say! LOL!
My haughty aunty, you, as usual, do me wrong. LOL! If I have gone off tangent, it is because I have followed you. Therein lies the problem; you don't recall what you have written, so that your dis-memory affords your appraisal of my comments specious.
But let me correct your poor read of my posts, again. Since I have faith in black people and do not dwell in a triumphant solipsism, i am not content with the mere day to day triumphs people have in court and with these organizations, including the NAACP.
You know, of course, that not all black folk were disfranchised in the south during the jim crow era. And, of course, there has always been a black middle-class, in the south, mid-west, and the northeast, even before national emancipation [13th amendment]. And while they experienced racism and were jim crowed during and after emancipation, some of they were complacent, and many of them were not. Too among the majority of us after emancipation, many were complacent, and many were not...
The abolitionist movement, mind you, was comprised of the black middle-class, primarily...they had the tools and the resources and the education, but poor folk were involved too!
And within the abolitionist movement, there were real divisions, but it had some effects, to wit, flooding the newspapers of antislavery propaganda--information that often found itself within the grasp of slaves throughout the south...yet, it was not responsible for the emancipation of the majority of our enslaved ancestors but it played a role.
Thus, complacency, acceptance of the day to day workings and happenings of life,love, and law, is a trait of humanity not a particular class.
And so, not everyone can be part of the movement; this is true in all of history, Cynique. Some folk will just embrace what they have--afraid to risk, to criticize, to disagree...
indeed, in any social movement, you find will folk across class [ethnicity and race], but lacking complacency in their endeavors towards improvement and transformation. In deed, as much you claim that I criticize the black middle-class, you have not shown, only claimed, that my points are invalid. LOL! And as I said elsewhere, I do not, as I was accused by you and others, believe that the middle-class is a monolith.
So, if I want and expect MORE out of the NAACP, that fabulous middle-class of liberals, and other organizations, it is my right.
And while people are winning cases in court during their day to day, but these adjudications have no structural effect on the majority of us then yes Cynique, I'll relish in that rarefied sphere in which I rotate.
Finally, elder Cynique, I never said that you were brainwashed; as you said to Tonya elsewhere, the 'you' I used was not directed to cynical Cynique the individual, though if you find some solace in it please do consider getting your self dirtied.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8020
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2007 - 11:01 am: |
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Although you imply that this is a clear cut debate, I am still vague about what we are debating. If I went off on a tangent it was in response to your going into a snit in regard to bamboozled Americans not knowing that they were as bad off as the third world. Early on, I mentioned that the laws were already in place and that all that was needed was to enforce them and you took that observation and ran with it, suddenly becoming the champion of the NAACP, while discrediting other organizations. If I came across as bad mouthng the NAACP, I confess to being guilty of adding my voice to the chorus of criticism aimed at this organization. Your latest explanation just reinforces what I said: we are coming from 2 different perspectives. Your tendency is to expound and lecture about a situation; mine is usually to just draw from my experiences. Maybe it's a generation gap. Who knows? Oops. How could I ask this question? Yukio, knows and if we aren't careful, he'll favor us with an essay on the subject. snicker.
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Yukio
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2093
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2007 - 12:51 pm: |
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Actually, I never championed the NAACP nor discredited the other organizations. I have said that if it dies that is fine, but it would be unfortunate.
IMO, as you like to say, the problem of civil rights needs to be addressed, if they NAACP can do it great, or if the ACLU joins in great, if a new organization that has the resources and skill to tackle civil rights then thats great too! The point is, it--civil rights-needs to be addressed, NAACP or no NAACP.
Anyways, you claimed that the NAACP was obsolete.
I said that as long as civil rights issue exist they are not. simple enough? After this the conversation was no longer, really about the NAACP, because you said:
All the laws are in place for black citizens to fight injustice and The Legal Aid Society and the EEOC and ACLU are there for that purpose. IMO
I interpreted that to mean that the presence of laws effaces the NAACP's purpose. My reply was that the laws are in place, but if they are not enforced what use are the laws.
And you identified EEOC and ACLU; as I stated, i know their histories but not cases wherein I could identify examples to either affirm or disprove my point.
I did, however, use the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in order to:
1. identified an example of a federal agency that is suppose to protect our civil rights [that are on the books].
2. Illustrate how this same agency's effectiveness is embedded in political circumstances.
In conclusion, there is a need for civil rights [with or without the NAACP]. Secondly, the presence of laws, federal agencies, and private social justice organizations doesn't guarantee the protection of our civil rights.
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Yukio
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2095
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2007 - 01:11 pm: |
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Yes...you use anecdotes to explain your experiences. If i use an anecdote, however, it is because it is representative of the general historical experience of the majority. This is why anecdotes are problematic. All of us have experiences and many of them do not parallel. Yet, among these various experiences, we can often identify a common experience.
So, I am less interested in my own...I am more interested in our experience as a people. When I have read autobiographies, I have liked best those who can relate or integrate their experience into the context of the majority of us, while maintaining the uniqueness of the individuated experience.
While I can read the black versions of the Horatio Alger story, when it is so individualistic I can't really enjoy.
For example, I am reading a really good book by Gayle Pemberton called The Hottest Water in Chicago [i think]....she has a PH.D in literature, and I am, at least every 2 mins. looking up a word...LOL.
But as she explains her middle-class, though not affluent, experiences of the 1950s-90s in elegant prose it is often embedded in the majority of our history, going aback as far as the 18th c., even as she explains the fiction of R.Wright and Toni Morrison, and why she is [published in 1992..could be married by now] single and what that has to do with differing socialization among black and white women.
Very good interesting book, though I can't say I agree with all of her conclusions. But the writing is strong and solicitous...speaking of words...C. West called it 'pellucid.' Since word elder Cynique, NO?
Anyways elder, I don't like when we fight...lets make up! Its Sunday! I dote!
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8024
Registered: 01-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2007 - 02:37 pm: |
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I didn't think we were fighting. We were just being Cynique and Yukio. I assumed that was why we were both interjecting "LOLs" and "snickers" into our posts. We still cool. |
Yukio
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2101
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2007 - 02:49 pm: |
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Yes. We did interject those niceties, but just wanted to make sure, elder. |
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