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  Posted By:
  vet44nb2 at 07/26/2008 8:55:41 AM
  Comment:
  When did the Civil Rights Movement End?
  
  The Democratic Party has openly led the minority community from an age of gaining equality to an age of complacent acceptance. They have been successful in leading the minority community to replace its own movement, with other movements that the Democratic Party needs to enhance its political power base.
  Now, minorities can march, sing, and hold signs of support for the many Democratic Party movements that have replaced their own. Minorities are supporting the democratic party???s agenda concerning the ???Environmental Movement???, ???Gay Rights Movement???, and the ???Civil Rights for Illegal Immigrants???, to name a few. Unfortunately, the civil rights for minorities is not a concern that needs attention.
  Here are some of the Democratic Party???s beliefs being offered to minorities instead of equality.
  We are now asked to believe that the issues related to poverty are ???race neutral???.
  We are told the struggle for justice is to dismantle ???big??? government.
  We are asked to believe that businesses and government are now ???color blind??? when it comes to equal opportunity.
  We are asked to believe that institutionalized discrimination no longer exists or needs to be addressed.
  Are we also to believe, that the Civil Rights Movement is over?
  There is an old saying,
  ???where the broom don???t sweep, the dirt don???t move???
  Steven Santos
  
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  Posted By:
  theoriginal MissZ at 07/25/2008 4:52:19 PM
  Comment:
  Sometimes I think about Ghandi and what he helped the Indian people overcome, the entire British colonization of their nation. My mother sent me and my siblings to see very specific movies and the 3 hour version filmed in the 70's was one of them. One of the scenes from the film stands out in my mind to this day. It was of rows of hundreds of colored folk waiting patiently in line to get clubbed in the head by the British Military, some who were of Indian ancestory. Instead of running away when they were attacked, Ghandi had a fellow protestor picked them up and attended to their head and skull wounds. Though they witnessed what was going to happen they still waited for their turn. Now the British officers in charge of the operation got the message and closed down the doors after witnessing the poor dogs just wanting a handout. It was a bloody mess at they would call it.
  
  Another movie I would recommend is the Rabbit Proof Fence about the abduction of 3 young girls by the Austrailian goverment. The children were of mixed Aboriginal parentage because they were raped or prostituted by whites had their children taken from them and placed in work training camps, so based on their skin color would steralize or could eventually breed out the Native Austrailian, half caste. The 3 daughters of an Aboriginal woman escape and cross 3000 mile of the Outback to return to their home, it is another great adventure story based on real peoples lives.
  
  The reason I mention this is because the NAACP is not growing to include other minorities of color in their representation and might as well start calling themselves Black Advancement Rights Movement or BARM for short. The illegal immigrants in the USA make more noise for their people, through the Latino and Chicano organizations.
  
  There will never be 40 acres and a mule for any race in America, and as a people we need to understand the rules of Monopoly to even play the game. Just look at the Native Americans now, on the worst land they are proving to use what rights they have been given. It is sad to me that so many of Americans of African ancestors are still willing to buy into the race card and not willing to learn the rules, educate themselves out of the ghetto mentality.
  
  If we want an Uncle Tom Oreo and his finally proud to be an American wife in the white house we must always remember that he is a figure head puppet actor of the powers that be and that is rich mulit-national corporations who run the world, not based on skin color, but on money.
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  Posted By:
  politricks at 07/24/2008 8:02:41 AM
  Comment:
  Here is why the NAACP is irrelevant:
  Never took a stand on the war
  Doesn't use technology well. Needs a technology agenda. Where is NAACP TV
  Has no health care agenda i.e. Universal Health Care
  Was late jumping into the housing crisis
  No agenda to battle drugs. Drugs are devastating our community
  No economic agenda. The impact of Black businesses on our community is diminishing.
  Ignores the plight of women
  Extreme moral failures..Hip Hop "thugginess" is drowning Black America
  Where is the Senator from Washington DC? The NAACP should be fighting for that.
  Darfur, Congo..No impact on these issues
  It doesn't even have a National voters regisration project. I could go on and on!..
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  Posted By:
  anti-anti at 07/23/2008 7:14:56 PM
  Comment:
  do you know why certain people dont rise against the odds- cause youre too busy complaining about the score. noone is stopping you from living your life freely, or without human rights. equal rights have taken us plenty far, but to ask for advancement still is outrageous. try living your life without holding yourself down. as far as a black cia director focusing on black people, why not ask for a PERSON who will help everyone. dont be so blinded by color, it helps noone.
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  Posted By:
  Patra at 07/23/2008 6:13:41 PM
  Comment:
  I have my issues with the NAACP. They ignore women of color, black women. I have yet to hear this organization speak out regarding the disappearance of black women across this country, and they have been strangely quiet about the rape and abuse of the Haitian woman and her 12 year old son. In fact, black people, in general have been strangely quiet about that case....
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  Posted By:
  soloalpha03 at 07/23/2008 2:14:26 PM
  Comment:
  We're always going to need the NAACP, which is why it will always be a step behind. Why? Because it insists on working within a fundamentally flawed, racist system that can't be fixed if Black people remain complicit in their oppression. How can you take something to court, when the people in charge of the courts are part of the problem? There's a word for that...stupidity. The NAACP can raise all the hell it wants, but the same old issues will not die until we have the resolve to kill them by demanding our HUMAN RIGHTS. They think that with enough struggle and effort we can appeal to the moral conscience of the majority. This assumes that the majority society is not morally bankrupt. In reality we should only assume that they will act in self-interest...as they should. "To be white is not to have to think about it." To have any chance of remaining relevant this century, the NAACP needs to move from the middle and go left. Not white liberal, we-feel-sorry-for-those-darkies left....Black nationalist, we'll-take-our-40-acres-or-die-trying left.
  
  The Obama phenomena is nothing new. Same movie, different scene. White people have always had Black leaders that they "approved" and allowed to reach a certain level. Since Obama has shown no interest in improving the lives of any type of colored people in this country or anywhere else in the world, he's safe. Let him step out of bounds just once, and we'll see how much they love him. I'll take a Black CIA director that's interested in helping Black people over a corporate-sponsored, "good" Negro President any day.
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  Posted By:
  fsilber at 07/23/2008 1:54:51 PM
  Comment:
  Yes, the subprime housing crisis is an outrage; however, I suspect black people were targeted not out of racial hostility (many of the offending brokers were themselves black), but rather was motivated by the belief that black peole cannot read legalise, cannot understand the mathematics of compound interest, and don't hire lawyers to check out their contract before they sign. I support any measures black leaders take to improve these skills among black people and to make them wiser users of credit. (I also support beating the crap out of deceitful mortgage brokers.)
  
  What I do NOT understand is the NAACP's outrage over the strangulation murder of 19-year-old Ronnie White in a Prince George's County, Maryland jail last month. Yes, his killing was illegal, but there was no doubt that he was a cop-killer. The writer claims that incidents like this still happen all the time, but police cannot be murdering black cop-killers all the time unless you first have blacks _becoming_ cop-killers all the time (is that also happening?). If black shoplifters and J-walkers are also being strangled in prison, then why not focus on _those_ incidents?
  
  
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  Posted By:
  Darryl Cox at 07/22/2008 6:49:05 PM
  Comment:
  This is a generalization but I still feel the letters NAACP stands for the National Association for the Advancement of CERTAIN People, not the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
  
  I have felt this way since the late 1960s and I have not had any reason to alter my views. What defenders of the NAACP too often overlook is that for many of us who are black our perceptions of the NAACP are shaped largely by our contact and interactions not with the national office and the organization's national leaders but with the leaders and members of its local chapters. There is a longstanding disconnect between what the NAACP declares it is about and what happens down here on the ground.
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  Posted By:
  caroaber at 07/22/2008 10:57:06 AM
  Comment:
  @ Folic Pollen:
  I appreciate that we're from the same generation and similar backgrounds. Yes, our advances took years to happen, and I do respect the role the NAACP has played. Drug abuse and criminality do affect other communities, but I'm focusing on ours because this community is my touchstone. I have had a bird's eye view of the criminal justice system and correctional institutions in NYC for the past 15 years. Trust me when I say Black people have a larger stake in change and reform than most other groups. The younger folks I know have no illusions about the hurdles they still face, and they know full well that discrimination is extant and not going away any time soon.
  
  I have in the past supported the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, but this is a separate entity. Indeed, it was led by a Jewish attorney for years, something that sparked controversy, but like many I'm concerned with results, and this gentleman had the backing of many respected Black leaders. I still believe we could start our own political action committee and make our presence known. (Jews and Cubans have done this, and the Irish successfully fought for more spots on the immigration lotteries and made it easier for their kinfolk to emigrate to the U.S.)
  
  Yes, many of our people are becoming college graduates, but even so we still face hurdles in the social realm, economically, and in the halls of power. I don't feel the NAACP is reaching our vast middle class or even our vulnerable working class and poor. What was their response to Hurricane Katrina? What do you suppose the Jewish or Cuban response would have been to the deaths of hundreds in their community?
  
  I really feel the NAACP is too genteel and polite to actually get angry--except when they're snubbed by candidates seeking the presidency, like John Kerry. Only then do they raise their voices in outrage.
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  Posted By:
  Folic Pollen at 07/22/2008 9:47:55 AM
  Comment:
  I too grew up in a Chicago housing project, and will turn 49 in a couple of weeks. I am a college graduate and have married grown children. However, I hardly feel the NAACP is a self serving, bureacracy. Those accomplishments sustained in the past took years to happen. Before Brown vs. Board of Ed., the Dred Scott decision and Plessy vs Ferguson lead up to this monumental change that highlights Brown vs. Board of Ed. Rosa Parks, the civil rights marches, and Brown vs Board of Ed. were all supported by the NAACP. The problem that exist here is younger African Americans have been mis lead in thinking that racial inequality and civil rights abuses don't happen any more. Endeed, a false euphoria exist within the younger generation. Older individual like myself become bitter because the advancements made in the past seem to some how get overshadowed by trivial scandals and and it's organizational structure. Women, and Hispanic have favored greatly from the accomplishments of this historic organization. Thank goodness that thoses old fogies like Julian Bond who still exist. They help remind newcomers of the struggles of the past that had to be overcome to get here, and point in the direction of the struggles that need to be address now. Racial profilling, racial steering, police brutality are just a few issues that confront these young recruits. Without a stable foundation, like the kind that Julian and others like him provide, those younger members would be lost. Drug abuse and crime confronts all communities, not just Black. Oh, and by the way, more African Americans have graduated from college than any other time in history.
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  Posted By:
  Tampa Diva at 07/22/2008 9:41:54 AM
  Comment:
  I believe the quotes are because it's a direct quote from the organizations' name.
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  Posted By:
  caroaber at 07/21/2008 9:15:34 PM
  Comment:
  The NAACP's scandals were not occasional but seasonal. They put their efforts toward helping death row inmates--arguably some of our least deserving citizens--yet failed to engage our middle class. The efforts described in this brief article (compiling statistics, lobbying Congress) could be done by a P.A.C.
  
  While the NAACP does have a stellar past, I am now 45 years old and I never sought to join, never felt engaged, never once thought this organization was for people like me. (For the records, I grew up in a NYC Housing Authority project in the Bronx. I am a college graduate who's been married for a decade and has a child. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and expect others to at least try to. I am bitterly disappointed by the rampant drug abuse, criminality, and lack of higher education among Afro-Americans. I hate to see people squander their opportunities.)
  
  This organization is a fossil, a self-serving bureaucracy.
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  Posted By:
  charisse at 07/21/2008 5:39:57 PM
  Comment:
  out of curiosity, why is "colored people" in quotations? what keeps them from being colored? and why is "colored people" inappropriate while "people of color" is ok?