Posted on 07/15/2004 6:46:46 PM PDT by neverdem
COMMENTARY
Why should Bush speak to a hostile group that has outlived its usefulness?
Last week, for the fourth year in a row, President Bush declined the NAACP's invitation to speak at its annual convention. Predictably, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume railed that the Bush administration failed to recognize the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group as being significant or important in any way.
The sad thing is, the Bush administration's attitude toward the group is justified.
The NAACP is stuck in a mind-set that worked 30 years ago but makes little sense today. Mfume and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond boast that the organization is committed to "speaking truth to power," continuing the whistle-blowing tradition that the organization was founded upon in 1909. This was urgent in an America where lynching was commonplace and segregation was legal.
But almost a century later, black America's main problem is neither overt racism nor more subtle "societal" racism. Lifting blacks up is no longer a matter of getting whites off our necks. We are faced, rather, with the mundane tasks of teaching those "left behind" after the civil rights victory how to succeed in a complex society — one in which there will never be a second civil rights revolution.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The NAACP CAN'T allow blacks to advance. If they did, they would soon be out of a job! It's like Federal Air Polluiton Standards. They keep making the standards just a little highter than the technology can achieve, that way the government environmental workders can keep their jobs.
McWhorter is a very good speaker and a man of reason. He has a great future in front of him
No, what Bush recognized is the complerte irrelevance of the black KKK NAACP.
So True. If they advanced, they would become self dependent Republicans instead of government dependent democrats.
Bump for later read.
I love how those race hustlers claim to speak for not only African-Americans, but for all minority groups. The NAACP doesn't speak for me.
This man used to be a prof at a CA Univ--Berkely, I think. He was pre Bill Cosby in saying the same things Cosby has said lately.
I disagree that they haven't stood for anything in a long time, unless you call being shills for the far left wing of the Dem party nothing.
vaudine
I believe George Bush realised that 90% of blacks voted against him in the last election, 90% of blacks will vote against him in this election. The 10% who voted FOR him dont belong to the NAACP. Why waste time and effort and put up with the abuse with no way to gain a vote. Let them cheer Kerry-Edwards who will promise them everything and give them nothing. Bush will not lose one vote by skipping the NAACP meeting.
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Not even close. The National Rifle Association (NRA) our nations largest and oldest civil rights group if you define "civil rights" as those rights defined by our Constitution.
The only thing I've seen the NAACP do effectively is successfully manage to prejudice every person who has a CBF emblem with total disregard to character.
"This man used to be a prof at a CA Univ--Berkely, I think."
I believe it's spelled Berkeley, but otherwise, I agree. I'm not sure if he left Berkeley, but I vaguely remember that he's associated with the Manhattan Institute.
I vaguely remember that he's associated with the Manhattan Institute. Read it twice tonight, and it's still vague?
He was the only voice of sanity at Berkeley when my friends were at school there! BTTT
bTTT
Someone really ought to notify the NAACP that noone uses the term "Colored" anymore.
True! We are a REPUBLIC, NOT A DEMOCRACY. The NAACP and its running dogs are hell-bent on implementing a comprehensive "progressive" agenda that requires the maintenance of PERPETUAL POVERTY AND IGNORANCE. The shakedown artists and race-card activists blackmail and extort rich and powerful corporations, and harass individuals who are seen as detrimental to their pathetic agenda - socialism, the redistribution of POVERTY - poverty of body, mind and soul.
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