Old, new issues blend in NAACP’s second century

The Kansas City Star ^ | DAVE HELLING

[Huskrrrr]

As the NAACP gathers in Kansas City for its national convention today, members will confront a to-do list that’s depressingly familiar — and disturbingly new. Longtime concerns such as legal reform, civil justice and access to quality education now jostle for attention with a health and childhood obesity crisis, soaring urban home foreclosures, even climate change and immigration reform.

[Huskrrrr]

The NAACP. Anyone still use the term "Colored People"?

[wolfpat]

I remember when NAACP meant Never Anger Adam Clayton Powell.

[Gaffer]

I will accept the NAACP when black people say it is okay for me to call them ‘colored’.....

[smokingfrog]

“The NAACP, as a national organization, can lay out the vision,” said Roland Martin, a columnist and CNN analyst. “But they have to be able on a local level to say, ‘We have to do this brick by brick, house by house, street by street.’ ”

You mean having people running around like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, constantly ranting about how blacks are being mistreated or excusing their bad behavior somehow doesn't manage to actually get anything done?

[going hot]

If they took out the C it would be NAAP, which would probably not be cool, you know.

[ebersole]

“In order to get our country back up to the top of the hill and re-establish our country as a beacon for … investment in people, we have to address each of those issues,” said Benjamin Todd Jealous, the NAACP’s president”

What country is he talking about? It surely can’t be the USA he speaks of.

[ebersole]

“In some places the African-American unemployment rate is almost triple that for white Americans,”

Always implying it’s whitey’s fault. I guess the NAACP doesn’t quite get the concept that the lower level jobs are not only be taken by previously unemployed higher skilled individuals, but by illegal immigrants!!! The continued ignorance is what continues to make the NAACP not relevant

[Cheetahcat]

I will NEVER accept that hateful bunch constantly Bashing my race and destroying my country while their home land is in shambles,The NAACP should be called the plague of America and the producers. These ungrateful Pukes were educated on the white dime as well.

[Dilbert San Diego]

The NAACP achieved their major triumphs with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

They have achieved everything that they originally set out to do, in terms of changing laws and establishing favorable policies such as affirmative action.

Whatever the current state of Black America, are the remaining problems really due to not having enough laws being passed, enough executive orders on affirmative action in employment or college admissions?

Is it due to discriminatory laws that 70% of black babies are born out of wedlock?

Is it due to discriminatory laws that black unemployment is so high?

Is it due to discriminatory laws that there are high rates of high school dropouts in the black community?

Is it due to discrimination that too many young black men join youth gangs and sabotage their futures by doing so?

How many of the problems in the black community are due to discrimination, vs. how many are due to “self inflicted” injuries which hamper them in becoming productive citizens? Let’s talk about that at an NAACP conference.