Posted on 07/17/2004 5:04:27 AM PDT by Puzzleman
I have a message for the NAACP's Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume, who have accused black conservatives of being the "puppets" of white people, unable to think for ourselves: You do not own, and you are not the arbiters of, African-American authenticity.
I am a lifelong member of the NAACP. I have a great respect for the organization. Its historical leaders, all visionary thinkers, have been responsible for helping to advance the struggle of African-Americans over the past century, making our nation a more equitable and race-blind society. Sadly, the current NAACP leadership has managed to take a proud, effective organization in a totally new direction: naked partisan politics, pure and simple.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Bump to read later.
When 90% of blacks vote Democrat because their so called leaders tell them to---who are the puppets ? They or the people who think for themselves?
When mobs of blacks go on a rampage and the leaders of the community try to calm things down before taking more drastic steps they like to call in "leaders of the black community." The NAACP wants to make sure they are the ones called in because they are the ones that get the bribes, goodies, control of programs or jobs even though they have nothing to do with resolving the problem. The rampages end after all the liquor stores, dry cleaners and TV store have been looted.
Then, the leaders of the black community get control of the on-gpoing programs and their friends and relatives get all the goodies. The NAACP leaders are like the old political bosses and they want no local copetition because it might cost them.
Should they allow their continuing slide into oblivion and obscurity, or remove these chattering race baiters from their leadership?
"You can pay me now, or you can pay me later".
I can't find the list on the home page.
Great article, but just how many blacks subscribe to the Wall Street Journal or have internet access? Hope this reaches them somehow.
BUMP!
We have a young black intern (15 year old high school student) supplied by the Boys & Girls Club working in my office. She is very much an activist and lets every one know what is wrong with President Bush, how he started a war to get people killed and that President Kerry would be a much better President.
So I asked her where she got all these ideas? Her answer: school and parents.
What I see is an entire race of Americans being indoctrinated by the worse kind of anti-American propaganda. And our public schools are a breeding ground.
The NAALCP is as corrupt as any political party in America today, and is responsible for keeping blacks on the liberal-demokkkRAT's "plantation", and in the gutter for the past 35+ years.
Political favors, payoffs, corruption at all levels, bribes, gifts, nepotism... yep, just like the pols.
And since its a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, their actions are illegal.
NAACP tax status questioned
By Steve Miller and Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People claims to be nonpartisan, but it uses its millions of dollars to promote the Democrat's agenda.
Conservative critics question its claim to nonprofit status, arguing that the exemption shelters its $14 million annual budget from being taxed, and note that in the most recent presidential campaign the NAACP, which once derided big money as a corrupting influence, established two independent fund-raising organizations to conduct the kind of political warfare it once denounced.
The NAACP National Voter Fund and Americans for Equality drew on a combined $10 million to finance get-out-the-vote efforts and issue ads that energized Democratic voters.
"This is a group that, because of its politics, has become far removed from its constituents," says Phyllis Berry Myers, executive director of the Center for New Black Leadership, which leans Republican. "It survives through teachers unions, labor unions. . . . They allow themselves to be the sole subsidiary of the Democratic Party, and it has done a great disservice to black voters. It makes us politically impotent."
Forbidden endorsements
The NAACP leaders declined numerous requests for interviews. The organization's communications director, John White, agreed only to respond to questions in writing. "The NAACP takes positions on public policy issues that further its goal of achieving the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of the United States," Mr. White wrote, and takes positions "regardless of whether such positions are associated" with either party.
Mr. White says the NAACP's 500,000 members are drawn from both parties, and the board of directors is bipartisan. Further, "NAACP national and local staffs are strictly forbidden from endorsing candidates for public office."
Some members dispute this. Shannon Reeves, a Republican and chairman of the Oakland, Calif., chapter of the NAACP, is one of them. "Just because you're a Democrat doesn't make you any blacker than me," he said in a dispute last year. "For decades, black leadership has been compensated for how they deliver black voters to Democratic candidates."
In Virginia last year, the NAACP's national leadership suspended Paul C. Gillis as president of the association's Suffolk, Va., branch after he endorsed Republican George F. Allen for the U.S. Senate.
Mr. Gillis was later reinstated after he was told to "serve the larger goals and policies of the NAACP in a manner that will not require us to revisit this issue." The national NAACP, which ran radio ads criticizing Mr. Allen, said Mr. Gillis had engaged in partisan practices that violated NAACP policies.
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, a former Democratic member of the Georgia legislature, stoutly defends the NAACP claim of nonpartisanship, but in a speech to the NAACP national convention last year disparaged Republican politicians across the board. He tried to link Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott to the Ku Klux Klan and referred to opponents of affirmative action as "neo-fascists."
In 1999, Mr. Bond said that "Republicans remade themselves as the white people's party." He, too, declined to be interviewed.
But the NAACP remains the most vital civil rights organization in the country, said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard. "It is essential to the life of many black communities," Mr. Orfield said. "The basic problem that they face right now is that there is not much sympathy among the white population. But under this current leadership . . . that is the most powerful they have been since the 1960s."
An octopus of activism
Accusations of partisanship —and in some cases support of the Democratic Party — have never been challenged by the Internal Revenue Service, which has the authority to revoke tax-exempt status if it finds evidence of partisan lobbying.
"The NAACP has always had a legislative agenda," says David Woodford, who was chief financial officer for the association from 1994 to 1999. "But it did not fit the definition of lobbying as outlined by the IRS. I wouldn't want to comment on anything they do now."
With 500,000 members nationwide, the NAACP, based in a multistory, red-brick building in the northern suburbs of Baltimore, was established in 1909 under the leadership of W.E.B. DuBois. It receives funds from membership fees and private donations.
With 75 employees at its Baltimore headquarters, the NAACP maintains a legislative bureau in the District and a network of 2,200 branch offices in 50 states, Japan and Germany, which are divided into seven regions and governed by a national board of directors.
The NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which has been an independent organization since 1957, is based in New York City and declared net assets of $39.2 million on its 1999 tax form. The fund spends much of its resources on civil rights-related lawsuits.
The association's Special Contribution Fund is a separate trust created in 1964 to collect tax-deductible contributions for the organization. The fund's tax-deductible grants and contributions support a variety of NAACP programs.
NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, a former Democratic congressman from Baltimore, was unanimously elected by the 64-member board of directors in December 1995. At the time, the NAACP was struggling against revelations of financial mismanagement and accusations of sexual harassment.
Mr. Mfume promised changes and said the "focus of this new agenda must be increased political power [for minorities] by energizing voters in every congressional district in the country, emphasizing educational excellence and individual responsibility" and achieving "economic parity."
"The extreme ultraconservative policies of the far right are Draconian and punitive" and hurt the elderly, "restrict the poor and deny opportunities for our children," he said.
Presence in election 2000
With his appointment, Mr. Mfume entered the nonprofit, tax-exempt world, a maze of alliances, related organizations, fronts and foundations. Directors of one enterprise often serve as directors of another. For example, when the National Voter Fund was established last summer to rally the black vote, it was Mr. Mfume who was named to chair the group's board of directors.
Tax returns for 1998 reveal that Mr. Mfume received a salary of $238,364, and the top five officers received a total of $410,639 in salary. Overall, the NAACP in 1998 spent $6.3 million for wages and benefits with direct public income of $21.9 million.
The National Voter Fund and Americans for Equality sought to register and rally black voters around several core issues: racial profiling, affirmative action, hate crimes legislation and prospective Supreme Court nominations.
The NAACP maintains that these are separate organizations that act independently of the NAACP and the NAACP says it does not provide funding to either the National Voter Fund or Americans for Equality. Targeting states where "black voters may be a deciding bloc," the NAACP authorized expenditures through the two organizations for the get-out-the-vote effort. The result was that Vice President Al Gore won 91.3 percent of the black vote in those targeted states.
In an internal memorandum, the NAACP said the number of black voters had declined, leaving elections to be determined by "wealthier, better educated and mostly white voters." The memo said elections were decided "as much by who did not vote as by those who actually voted."
"The NAACP will take steps to prepare its constituency to speak loudly, in a way that politicians will hear."
The memo noted that while the NAACP's long-standing policies prohibited the endorsement of specific candidates or parties, a review of Internal Revenue Service tax codes showed it could participate in nonpartisan voter activities without jeopardizing its tax-exempt status.
The NAACP's board of directors initiated the National Voter Fund to carry out large-scale voter registration programs, an extension of the Democratic "motor voter" plan, which automatically registers voters when they renew their driver's licenses. The fund in turn created Americans for Equality as a lobbying arm.
The National Voter Fund was organized under Section 501(c)4 of the federal tax code, which gives tax protection to organizations whose revenue is used solely for charity, education or recreation. Americans for Equality is called a 527 committee, named for a part of the federal tax code that defines a political organization as one that exists to accept contributions or make expenditures to influence an election at any level.
Together, the two political arms of the NAACP make a formidable force. NAACP officials said that $7 million in seed money came mostly from an unnamed, single donor.
While the effort to bring down these "mostly white voters," in Mr. Mfume's words, did not work for Mr. Gore, the NAACP's tight hold on its donor list has been successful.
Several groups have tried to identify NAACP donors. Except for corporations that make their contributions public, the list of benefactors has been kept from public view. "People have been trying to do this for a long time," says David Almasi, a spokesman for Project 21, a black conservative group. "It has been a big question that arose recently with the Jesse Jackson thing. Where did he get that money to pay off the mother of his [illegitimate] child? That was presumably money that people intended to go towards civil rights."
Groups that have attempted to identify donors include several Southern heritage organizations, which have clashed with black activists over the display of the Confederate battle flag on public property. "We have tried to get a list, and they don't want you to know where their money is coming from," says John C. Hall Jr., an accountant and member of the Southern Party of Georgia. "But I do know that most of their money is coming from corporations who think they are helping race relations."
He accuses the NAACP of violating the reporting requirement of the 990 tax return, the form used by nonprofits to report their earnings. "They lobbied in South Carolina to get that flag removed from the statehouse," Mr. Hall says. "They attempted to influence legislation. And they refuse, on their tax return, to disclose how much money they spent doing that. This is to me a flagrant violation of the reporting requirements."
The NAACP insists it keeps the donor list confidential to protect privacy. The Supreme Court ruled in a 1950s case that forcing disclosure would infringe the NAACP's First Amendment rights.
Some of the contributors are known, prominently including the Ford Foundation, which has bestowed millions of dollars in grants over the years, and the Bell Atlantic Foundation, which last year gave $500,000 to improve the NAACP's Internet-based communications system. But many others are not.
Miss Myers, of the Center for New Black Leadership, argues that conservative blacks are often cited for partisanship when the NAACP is not. She cites the experience of the Rev. Herbert Lusk, a black pastor in North Philadelphia who endorsed George W. Bush from his pulpit during the Republican National Convention in July. Mr. Lusk was chastised by the Americans for Separation of Church and State, a watchdog group that sent a letter to the IRS in protest.
Said Mr. Lusk: "There is definitely a double standard as far as nonprofit status is concerned."
AND DON'T FORGET, HE HAS A SPEAKING SLOT AT THE GOP CONVENTION. I HOPE HE TEARS IT UP; MIX IN A FEW COSBYisms.
NAACP = the DNC plantation
A Prayer for Equality
Mark Rigsby - Knoxville, Tenn.
I am a 25-year-old white man, and, since I was a child, I have had a pricked conscience about the equality of all people. With all my heart (and mind), I believe that God created red, yellow, black and white to be equal.
I have felt powerless because the same politically correct, powers that be (the NAACP, et all) that have such a stronghold on American blacks also has the same power to render concerned American whites powerless.
Thank you for saying what I would like to have said in such an eloquent, soundly logical way.
In the meantime, I will continue to earnestly pray that Americans will work together to overcome on behalf of all God's children starting with education.
Oh, and I'll be praying for you, too.
Stop Whining and Start Working
Reid Corcoran Jr. - Collierville, Tenn.
I am a conservative republican who, unlike my father, has grown up in school, worked and lived alongside blacks all my life. But as a result of the hatred and cynicism of black leaders, I am unmoved by the "black experience" arguments. I look out at the multicultural spectrum of Americans--Arabs, Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Mexicans--all working hard to overcome hardships most blacks of today would shudder at. Just ask a Vietnamese boat person. Over this buzz of industriousness, I hear a faint screech that sounds like complaining and excuse-making. I have no patience for it; and I know for a fact that many in the "industrious buzz" I hear who are black are similarly annoyed.
So I'd just like to know to whom are these complainers advocating?
A Personal Thanks
Dwayne Felder - Covington, Ga.
I would like to personally thank Mr. Paige for his powerful rebuke of what I see is a subtle attempt of the NAACP to overstep its bounds as a civil rights organization.
I am an American, and a political conservative, who happens to be black and I extremely offended by the current NAACP leadership who has taken upon themselves to supposedly represent me and my family.
Please offer up my thanks to Mr. Paige, who in this matter does speak for me, and I am quite sure of many other black Americans.
The Sharpton Regency
Oscar H. Atehortua Sr. - Brooklyn, N.Y.
Mr. Paige has stated in a forceful way the truth about some organizations that founded with the sole purpose to advocate for those forgotten by our political institutions, once they made the connection, forget the main reason they got there in the first place and become another demagoguery tool for a particular political party.
Making the point is the affinity between the NAACP and the Democratic Party. Before the U.S. Supreme Court a fine black American, Thurgood Marshall, advocated for fairness in Brown v Board of Education. He asked for the same opportunities afforded other American citizens--he just wanted equality, justice for all.
Living in America for over 35 years, it surprises me to see that at every election cycle, Democrats and liberals if trying to regain the White House use institutions like the NAACP and other groups to attack any Republican administration with the same tired cry of the need of more money for education, that the government is trying to keep minorities down, that our civil rights are being taken away.
The likes of Mr. Bond and Mr. Mfume are relevant to liberals and the Democratic Party as long as they continue to cry bloody murder, but for the people that have placed their trust on these supposedly civic rights leaders, the truth is of another color.
Their lives continue the same because in their foolishness they believe the baloney being fed to them by demagogues. Our government has poured billions of dollars down the drain of an education system that has been run for many years by liberal institutions. Many administrative layers had been created, and high performance from educators and students has not been demanded.
When a particular proficiency test is deemed too hard, the same civic leaders demand that it be watered down to help our "poor kids" attain passing grades so their self-esteem is not damaged for life. Yet when the same kid, now a young adult, fails to properly fill out an employment application or pass a simple job interview thus being rejected, they blame a government that supposedly is racist and out of touch with the needs of our people, specially minorities and blacks.
When a black American by his own efforts attains a prominent position within our society, groups like the NAACP ignore them. If by chance they may have to talk about them, they are called "uncle Toms" and puppets of the right.
Black Americans and minorities better wake up and smell the coffee. They are being taken for granted for far too long and their sweat, blood and tears is being used to pave the way to easy street for a few of the so called minority leaders. You won't see the Rev. Sharpton having breakfast at a Harlem's McDonald's with his brothers; no, more likely you would find him at the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue breaking bread with the "whites" he hates so much.
Inner-City Kids Can Learn Too
Joy Loth - Houston
Ron Paige was the superintendent of the Houston public schools, one of the largest systems in the country, which has suffered from white flight because of forced busing rather than allowing parents to choose the schools their children would attend in their own neighborhoods. This has been a tragedy for the public schools in every major city in our country and one that No Child Left Behind could begin to solve. As a governor here in Texas, George W. Bush was always interested in improving education, and we were among the first states to begin means testing so that illiterate students did not graduate from high-school and end up on the welfare roles
Mr. Paige certainly did his best to bring our inner-city schools up to standard but a problem created by impatient liberals will take a long time to solve, especially since the National Education Association and NAACP oppose any realistic effort to allow black children to willingly engage in attending a school of their choice or receive special tutoring in subjects in which they are failing. As a former teacher, I resent black leaders who oppose such programs for reasons of sheer politics.
In my view, the greatest enemy of inner-city blacks making progress as opposed to the multitudes of their counterparts who thrive in our society is that both political parties see them as a separate group with special needs. This anomaly has been created by the organizations of the left, specifically the NAACP and the Rainbow Coalition.. My experience as a teacher is that all children can learn. After 50 years, the attitude of many black leaders including the Congressional Black Caucus is separate but equal.
Ron Paige was selected as Secretary of Education by President Bush not to fill a quota or as a token black. Like Bill Cosby, he sees the plight of the inner-city blacks and faces it realistically. However, the militant and obstructive blacks like Jesse Jackson and Kweisi Mnfume perpetuate a plantation mentality in order to maintain their own power as well as a superior lifestyle. Because of their superior attitudes, the inner-city children are indeed left behind.
Too Nuanced for Me
Jack Crowley - Ocala, Fla.
The NAACP has me confused. It seems that only certain black people are allowed to advance. Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Rod Paige, no. Ludacris, Snoop, etc., yes. They viciously attack the president, then complain because he won't appear before them. Black kids are stuck in underperforming schools, but they don't seem to want to give them the opportunity let them out. Bill Cosby speaks out about the current situation in the black community and he is roundly criticized. President Bush, who has instituted good programs for minorities is bad, while John Kerry, whose actual accomplishments (not just promises) are nonexistent, is good. I guess I'm not nuanced enough to see the good they do.
How the KKK Terrorized Whites
Duane Speight - Prosperity, S.C.
It is oddly ironic that Secretary Paige writes an excellent column of dissent about the self-destructive behavior of the NAACP while at the same time he is careful not to offend the "civil rights" organization's "tender" sensibilities by not utilizing their latest "you're racist if you don't say it" label, African-American.
As a 50-year-old white man born and raised in the deep South, I remember well when public racism was rampant and the NAACP was truly necessary and it's leaders courageous and just. Back then, the Ku Klux Klan did not derive its power through persecuting blacks but by persecuting whites who did not persecute blacks. In those days, the accusation of "nigger lover" was the ultimate insult, and the unfortunate recipient of the profanity was in danger of ostracism if he did not aggressively defend his "honor." Thus, the vast majority of whites knew racism was stupid and evil but were afraid to express their views publicly. Naturally, if the Klan said to vote for this or that politician, one had to either comply or refuse and lie that one complied. So most elections in the old South, sans black suffrage of course, were decided by mostly dishonest good citizens and honest bad ones. Quite a moral tangle, wasn't it? Sadly, the soft terrorism of such strategically applied racism was very successful in keeping the South firmly in the hands of the Democratic Party for many generations.
Am I making my point here?
String Theory
Thomas E. Miles - Brooklyn, N.Y.
Why, oh why, does black America still vote overwhelmingly Democratic? Do people like Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume have a giant voodoo doll? How can the people who would benefit the most from school choice vote for the people who will never, ever bring it about?
These questions and understanding string theory will have to wait for my retirement to ponder. I'm way too busy now to give serious thought to these mysteries of the universe. I have three kids and millions of other people's kids to feed and house because their parents are too busy pointing fingers and abdicating their personal responsibility per the party line of these two jesters. I think I'm the puppet here and short of big floppy shoes and big red noses Messrs. Mfume, Bond, Sharpton, Jackson and the like are truly clowns, good for a laugh noir and that's about it.
Mr. Page, brace yourself, those invested in the illusion of an emperor in fine raiment are not ready to admit that it's not the case. They are going to protect their position with fervor that Bill Cosby is well aware of now. The only advice I can offer is to duck because the only thing worse than a KKK member is an Uncle Tom. Great, spot-on article, though.
A Well-Advised Snub
Thomas Dillard - Escazu, Costa Rica
Secretary Paige tells it like it is. The good work done for the black people for ages by the NAACP is now nothing but a weapon to be used by Kweisi Mfume and Julian Bond against Republicans in general and the president in particular. Their purpose seems dedicated toward keeping the least educated down on the Democratic plantation, and parading their disgusting behavior before as big an audience as possible. The more objectionable, the better.
If one wants to understand the real attitude of the inner circles of the Democratic Party, which lays claim to 90% of black votes, he only need look at the number of black members in the leadership of the party, and those scheduled to speak in prime time at the upcoming convention in Boston and compare them with those holding important posts in the Republican Party. I misspoke; not uneducated, but most gullible.
I am not conscience-stricken by the president's refusal to repeat the roast of his last visit to this unrepresentative gathering of our black citizens, but if he had accepted, a good share of the respect I have for both him and his office would have been lost. Instead, he should have delegated the duty to another person close to him to suggest the same acrobatic oddity suggested to a certain senator who belongs to the same club as Messrs. Mfume and Bond, and shares their sentiments.
What said just as much, was the mainstream giveing pages and hours on the fact that the President was not talking at the naacp convention, but barely a whisper that he would be talking to the Urban League.
Again,where is the NAA(L)CP???
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.