I Condemn the NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is expected to pass a resolution condemning the “racist elements” of the Tea Party movement. The organization claims that Tea Party members have used “racial epithets,” and have engaged in “explicitly racist behavior.”

What saddens me is that this organization chooses to focus on imaginary slights, while real threats to this country exist in the form of New Black Panther members who have been caught on tape intimidating voters with billy clubs. Rather than condemning this behavior, it is largely ignored by the NAACP and a presidential administration that continues to refuse to prosecute such.

The Tea Party uses “racial epithets?” I soundly condemn the NAACP for failing to rebuke the New Black Panther members for inciting racial hatred (“explicitly racist behavior”) and, yes, actually using racial epithets as evidenced by the ranting of King Samir Shabazz caught on tape.

“We’re deeply concerned about elements that are trying to move the country back, trying to reverse progress that we’ve made,” said NAACP spokeswoman Leila McDowell. “We are asking that the law-abiding members of the Tea Party repudiate those racist elements . . . that are within the Tea Party movement.”

This statement reeks of the hypocrisy that has really held this country back.

It is ironic that the NAACP includes the word “advancement” in its name. I wonder what it is advancing? A political party that has kept its people dependent upon it? An ideology that in its myopic vision strains at the Biblical gnat of perceived wrongs, but swallows the proverbial camel of communal apathy?

Thus, I say to the NAACP: Instead of wasting precious time and resources on resolutions that are nothing more than thinly veiled political machinations in a climate unfavorable to you, why not resolve to really make a difference in the Black community? Resolve to address educational disparity. Resolve to make adoptions more affordable for the potential families of the millions of Black children in the foster care system. Resolve to learn your own history so you realize the political party you are cozying up to is not the party that worked to free you from slavery or the one that worked to offer you the civil rights you now enjoy. Resolve to return to the spiritual roots that taught you that taking an unborn life was wrong. Resolve to “repudiate those racist elements” in all communities, including our own! Most of all, resolve to develop the internal fortitude to call right, right and wrong, wrong!