Progressing Backward Is Not Advancement – From My Vault

The following is my syndicated column that first appeared in print March 1, 2005. I post the question; has anything changed since I first wrote this article?
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For all the advancement the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has made in recent decades, the group could just as easily be named Edgar or Bob. For those names represent as much advancement as the NAACP can be credited with in the last 20 to 30 years.

Attacking conservative blacks and blaming Republicans for a lack of day-care centers – as they defend a woman who told no one she had left her toddler abandoned in an apartment without food or water, while she was incarcerated for three weeks – may be a cause celebre for the NAACP, but for most Americans it suggests something else.

Threatening protests and boycotts of TV networks because in their minds there aren’t enough blacks on television (BET-Black Entertainment Television notwithstanding) is hardly a noble cause. It certainly isn’t one that advances the interests of the people they claim to represent.

[adsanity id=8405 align=alignleft /]Waging a boycott over a state’s right and the rights of its citizens to fly a flag that many blacks themselves died to support is to show forth the arrogance of ignorance that presupposes to know what is best for others – regardless of what the individuals deem best for themselves.

The NAACP recoils in horror at the very mention of a Confederate flag, but promotes a pedophile and child molester for its Image Award.

Claiming the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is “High stakes testing [that] has the potential and definitely has negatively impacted black and minority students,” is in and of itself sufficient cause to oust all current leadership (in my humble opinion) but there stands the leadership nodding their heads “Dat’s what we believe.”

Apparently this group for the advancement of colored people not only views being able to read and write on a commensurate grade level as optional for black youth, but offensive to expect such ability. Being unable to pass a test with the required 40 percent – a test that gives the student multiple opportunities to retake and pass it – is not an insult to those favoring the advancement of coloreds. In their jaundiced view, the test is corrupt.

What we observe from these and the encyclopedia of examples that could be cited is twofold: First, we observe the extent of the leadership’s dementia, if these are the types of civil-rights threatening actions they oppose. The other is just how anti-advancement the group has become.

The examples I have cited are akin to a dinosaur that somehow survived the Ice Age and now runs amuck through our city streets wreaking havoc, with wildlife control unwilling to eliminate it because of its age.

The reign of Julian Bond as chairman of this one-time vibrant and worthwhile organization is another reason for its decline. Now the obnoxious autocrat of hatred and immiseration is leading followers into another area of advancement for colored people (sarcasm intended) – that being opposition to Social Security reform.

It bears noting that the president has not developed a particular plan for said reforming, he has only (and most agree) said it must be done.

President Bush said in his State of the Union address: “I have a message for every American who is 55 or older: Do not let anyone mislead you. For you, the Social Security system will not change in any way.” But mislead is exactly what this group and its leadership are doing.

The questions that should be demanded of this so-called civil-rights group is why they are so adamantly opposed to any effort that requires or promotes self initiative and meritocracy? Why do they blame the exams instead of the National Education Association, the parents and the pupil? Is one more black face on a network really important?[adsanity id=11817 align=alignleft /]