In addition to increasing criticisms of the NAACP being ancient, irrelevant, reactionary, impotent and senile, it is also seems to be an organization in desperate need of a hearing aid.
When Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP took part in a hastily assembled press conference to demand an apology from Hallmark for an alleged racist greeting card, it confirmed both its critics’ allegations and its supporters’ worst fears: that it suffers from dementia-type symptoms, a lost vessel in search of a cause and destination, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality and that perhaps it should be euthanized for its own sake and others.
My colleagues and I were suspicious when we heard that the graduation greeting card in question, the one the NAACP and Respect Me organizations said uttered “black whores.” But when we listened to the audio of the greeting card, we all heard, without question, “black holes.” We were appalled that not only did the NAACP needlessly slander a reputable corporation, but I am personally distraught that the organization appropriated the entire weight of the organization over something so trivial and frivolous.
This is an embarrassing and dangerous misstep by NAACP leadership, making black people in general look like fools. It is an affront to the likes of the legendary W.E.B. Du Bois, who co-founded this organization 101 years ago. And it makes it harder to be taken seriously when something really happens.
And that brings up another point. The centennial celebration of the NAACP last year had all the excitement of a wet firecracker. One hundred years of anything should have been a monumental commemoration. But instead, the leadership spent most of last year repelling the accusations of being an organization that has outlived its usefulness.
While the NAACP was wasting their time at that press conference, another two or three black boys got probably shot in Chicago. Another young black girl or two is being permanently damage after being abused in Newark. Dozens of other kids are dropping out of school in Cleveland and Detroit. More liquor stores and cash-checking establishments are being erected in black neighborhoods in Baltimore and St. Louis. Families with subprime loans are having their homes foreclosed on in Los Angeles, Phoenix and all over Florida. There are a plethora of issues that the NAACP could be fighting for. Close your eyes, walk in any direction and you’ll bump into an issue that commands redress, or an injustice that needs to be reconciled.
When you fire all your bullets on frivolity, it makes it hard to mount an impressive offensive against major and legitimate issues that imperil our community. One of the major criticisms of organizations like the NAACP and Rev. Jesse Jackson is that the entities are bottom-feeding, ambulance-chasing race baiters who peddle in racial politics in order to shake down corporations to subsidize their operations.
When they devote their resources on outlandish foolishness like the Hallmark graduation card debacle, it makes it hard to defend them.
–terry shropshire
