This is fake news. I don't blame MHP for the trite analysis on NAACP's historical significance, its current relevance (it's clearly an attempt for author's relevance), or the inappropriate leadership recommendation, but am disappointed that the NYT editorial staff considered this viewpoint substantive.
4
The more things change; the more they are the same. These discussions and controversies regarding the most effective means and representatives of the African American struggle for life, freedom, and justice precede the present generations. The denigration of past leaders in deference to "new" movements is a slippery slope. How does one learn from the past and incorporate its lessons into the present circumstances and needs? The seductive undertow of institutional racism tells us that the older and younger generations must oppose each other rather than coalesce. Racism in America is a never ending struggle that needs to be fought on all levels from corporate boardrooms to the streets. These challenges are not new (look up "lynching"). The movement, of necessity, must broaden and evolve. Disagreements are expected; compromise is needed; conflict breeds dysfunction or indifference in the black community. This is an old American "trick" in which the oppressed suppress themselves.
Just like the Democratic Party's struggle of the progressives vs the corporate wing, the NAACP is faced with whether it's culture is inclusive or inflexible. Ultimately, all blacks lives matter and this is best honored by all blacks listening to each other. The NAACP has no monopoly on fighting for equality, and its spirit of reaching out in desperate times is not radical or new. The younger generation, who has more at stake, is learning to speak for itself. Can we work together? Yes we can!
Just like the Democratic Party's struggle of the progressives vs the corporate wing, the NAACP is faced with whether it's culture is inclusive or inflexible. Ultimately, all blacks lives matter and this is best honored by all blacks listening to each other. The NAACP has no monopoly on fighting for equality, and its spirit of reaching out in desperate times is not radical or new. The younger generation, who has more at stake, is learning to speak for itself. Can we work together? Yes we can!
1
" Legacy civil rights organizations should have emeritus status just like professors. They should be acknowledged for their past work and allowed to make meaningful contributions in the future. But, in the present, they should step to the side.". This is neither the purpose of, nor the way in which, emeritus status works. and it explains why Harris-Perry is herself, irrelevant.
6
Just as the current Joint Chiefs of Staff might seem “removed and irrelevant” when compared with the battlefield involvement of George Washington and his highest ranking officers two and a half centuries ago, so too is the NAACP when compared with the “Black Lives Matter” movement and other more “militant” organizations.
Is our country any weaker because the highest ranking officers and civilians at the Pentagon are deemed more valuable to our national security in Arlington, Virginia than in the front lines in Afghanistan? The answer is a resounding “NO” and this might also apply to our country’s oldest and most organized civil rights organization, the NAACP, in its century-long fight against racism.
Is our country any weaker because the highest ranking officers and civilians at the Pentagon are deemed more valuable to our national security in Arlington, Virginia than in the front lines in Afghanistan? The answer is a resounding “NO” and this might also apply to our country’s oldest and most organized civil rights organization, the NAACP, in its century-long fight against racism.
3
Ms. Harris-Perry seems to think that the NAACP should start using the same aggressive, reactionary and sometimes violent tactics used by groups like BLM because they have achieved something. The only thing that BLM has accomplished with it's antics is to help elect Donald Trump.
14
She said nothing about employing violence. On the contrary, she stated that the NAACP should be prepared to expect violence from radical right wing opponents just as the organization endured during the bloody decades of the mid 20th century.
1
It seems to me that the same datedness and moderation that Harris-Perry correctly identifies in today's NAACP can also be applied to other previously pioneering activist groups such as NOW. As one who teaches Women's Studies and political science courses at a large Eastern university, I have not found a student in at least a decade who either belongs to NOW or is interested in joining. They frequently are feminists, but rarely share the priorities of their second-wave foremothers. Organizations that do not change with the times will fade. Those who adapt (Planned Parenthood? ACLU? SPLC?).
1
So the solution to make more black people care about the NAACP is to... focus on fringe issues that most black people don't care about and that don't affect most black people (like transgender rights)? Sounds like a winning plan! Keep on winning just like Hillary did by focusing on tiny minority groups
13
I wanted to form a unit for Northeast Tarrant County, TX and was told “NO.” I was told the Ft. Worth NAACP unit represented our area. Unbelievable. Keep in mind to form a unit means we would have brought 100 members and a minimum of $3,000 to the NAACP because of the bylaws to form a new unit. Tarrant Co is the largest "red" urban county in the US. One of our high school's mascot is the Rebels with a confederate flag. One of our local supermarkets will only show FOX on their TV even when asked to show different channels, too. One of the largest Tea Party groups is in our area.
16
I am a typical New York liberal (white, but without the guilt) and I have been consistent in my support of the NAACP for many years, but with one exception. Many years ago the NAACP sued my local school district for defacto segregation and they were right and won. Although this negatively affected my family, I supported the decision (NIMBY is not my style). The school had a gifted and talented program for exceptional students. It was a two-step process: first students had to pass a test and then they had to be recommended by their current teacher. When the race conscious NAACP saw that only white students were making the cut (the district is one third white, one third Latino and one third black) they began a program to increase minority participation. First, they changed the test to broaden the range of students that passed. Then they sent "begging letters" to the teachers to consider qualities other than academic performance (such as "colorful language"). Still only white students made the cut. So then they sent threatening letters to the teachers telling them that diversity was a core value of the school system and that unless they started giving high recommendations to their black and brown students, they risked being fired as hostile to a core value. Here's where I draw the line. Do not threaten my teachers. The result was "white flight" including my family and the school system descended in a third-rate system. We all lost. Did the NAACP overstep? Do you support this?
14
The fact that only white students qualified for the program for exceptional students was something that should concern the NAACP. It did indicate that racial bigotry was having an affect despite the actions to end de facto segregation. But to address it required explaining it. Likely, the long tradition of treating minorities as inferior required some kind of remedial actions to bring minority populations closer to the mean for all with respect to academics. Would simply including some minority students who were not qualifying just to include some of them be an effective solution? Maybe. Smart kids often learn how to do what they could not previously when challenged. But is that fair? Perhaps there should be a program that focused not upon filling the program up with minority students immediately but upon preparing students earlier to perform much better. Set the goal at full representation amongst exceptional students in a few years. The point being that some problems cannot be solved just by improving diversity if the students are too far behind to catch up and to excel in the program. When one does one's best and does not win, it is not devastating, it's a disappointment that will encourage second efforts. When one has no grasp of what one is doing and fails, it is devastating because it makes one feel inadequate not just unsuccessful. One learns that that way of succeeding is a closed option, when it's really not.
8
This story is tragic on many levels. Quotas are bad for quality to be sure. The lack of having found "gifted" black students suggests some flaw in assessment and screening as well. The supposed coercion by black advocates sounds somewhat desperate. The reverse racial attack experienced by whites is an opportunity to learn how the other half lives. How these two communities view each other can provide a blueprint for reasonable cooperation. When you understand another's pain you can empathize and honor equality without sacrificing quality. I want my black pilots to be well qualified. I want my government to honor all qualified black applicants.
1
The NAACP has it purpose as other groups such as Black Lives Matter, we do not need for this organization to be dismantle because the Professor suggest that it is not stepping in blood. I totally disagree with the professor another irrelevant article by her just as the interview she did with white woman wanting to be black.
5
The NAACP receives too much corporate money to be credible, and is too beholden to its corporate sponsorship to say or do anything as dangerous, dark, and rebellious as promoting civil rights.
The organization is so top-heavy that the bulk of its income goes to feed itself. They're not getting any money or respect from me.
The organization is so top-heavy that the bulk of its income goes to feed itself. They're not getting any money or respect from me.
11
There's already a bloody path in black neighborhoods.
Black lives matter not a whit to the drug dealers and gangs who shoot to kill and often murder innocent bystanders. Those young transgendered, vulnerable kids whom Melissa Harris-Perry mentions would be better served by sensible black mentors who can teach them that no matter who they are, an education and a job can get them to a place that's safer and saner than where they are now.
Today's Times features an article on NYPD's slow but sure halting of stops of young black men. I could have told you that. The crowd and noise level in my neighborhood has been ramping up for at least a few months now -- a year or so since the arrest of over a dozen drug dealers, after which quiet descended on our blocks.
A new crew has come in. It'll be interesting to see how things pan out when the old crew is released from jail. Early, of course.
We'll probably have rub-outs again on our corner. We might even have another little girl shot while crossing the street. Does Melissa Harris-Perry ever step out of Wake Forest long enough to see where the politics of understanding have gotten us?
There's plenty of blood in our cities already and no need to call out for more.
Black lives matter not a whit to the drug dealers and gangs who shoot to kill and often murder innocent bystanders. Those young transgendered, vulnerable kids whom Melissa Harris-Perry mentions would be better served by sensible black mentors who can teach them that no matter who they are, an education and a job can get them to a place that's safer and saner than where they are now.
Today's Times features an article on NYPD's slow but sure halting of stops of young black men. I could have told you that. The crowd and noise level in my neighborhood has been ramping up for at least a few months now -- a year or so since the arrest of over a dozen drug dealers, after which quiet descended on our blocks.
A new crew has come in. It'll be interesting to see how things pan out when the old crew is released from jail. Early, of course.
We'll probably have rub-outs again on our corner. We might even have another little girl shot while crossing the street. Does Melissa Harris-Perry ever step out of Wake Forest long enough to see where the politics of understanding have gotten us?
There's plenty of blood in our cities already and no need to call out for more.
14
But isn't the real activism with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund? I hear about this group taking action all the time.
11
Excellent, thought provoking article.
4
With the right to vote constantly being attacked by the republicans, and historically low voter turnout for democrats, its hard to see how the NAACP is in danger of becoming irrelevant.
6
It doesn't have to be either or, but both. All persuasion is welcome! With all due respect to Dr. Harris-Perry, this reminds me of CORE vs SNCC vs SCLC infighting about power or "who is the most oppressed." Support the young. Support where YOUR heart is. We must encourage our young people everywhere. We must encourage advancement of civil rights wherever we each best can. No one organization can do it all.
I support the NAACP Legal Defense Fund http://www.naacpldf.org/
(a separate organization) because we need people in the streets AND lawyers in the courts! Sherrilyn Ifill does an excellent job leading that organization along with a staff of young Thurgood Marshalls: http://www.naacpldf.or/staff
Bryan Stevenson, too, at the Equal Justice Initiative http://eji.org/
If you don't like the NAACP, find another place to spend your time, money and efforts. It's not like there's only one choice. No one's forcing you to support the work they choose to do.
Most important is
I support the NAACP Legal Defense Fund http://www.naacpldf.org/
(a separate organization) because we need people in the streets AND lawyers in the courts! Sherrilyn Ifill does an excellent job leading that organization along with a staff of young Thurgood Marshalls: http://www.naacpldf.or/staff
Bryan Stevenson, too, at the Equal Justice Initiative http://eji.org/
If you don't like the NAACP, find another place to spend your time, money and efforts. It's not like there's only one choice. No one's forcing you to support the work they choose to do.
Most important is
6
Speaking honestly, the NAACP has never been relevant to the non black population. Moreover, Hispanics, Asians, Indians, Whites, have always considered the NAACP to be an agitation propaganda platform for blacks to make economic, social demands (shakedown) on non blacks. This policy has served them well. However, non blacks have now withdrawn from any association, connection with this discredited, irrelevant (organization).
After reading this and trying to make sense of this...
Rhetoric and logic are still important in the art of persuasion.
Rhetoric and logic are still important in the art of persuasion.
7
If the NAACP is unprepared to address the bloody years of the current streets of our big cities -- more than 40 people shot in Chicago over the last weekend, and 5 dead -- it will sink into the same irrelevance as all the other African-American organizations pointing fingers at the police but not at the reality in the mirror.
12
The professor's opinion is certainly based in history: small iconoclastic groups take strong positions, have enthusiastic followers, then mature into bureaucracies, burdened with committees, communication, pro-forma stuff.....and new small groups form to effectively deal with changing issues.
The call for the NAACP to take a brasher, modern stance is welcome, but perhaps not the (hopefully metaphoric) repetitive image that things should get "bloody". There is a disturbing feeling this writer doesn't want activism, she want destructive terrorism. Lovely. Not the right thing for this or any cause.
The call for the NAACP to take a brasher, modern stance is welcome, but perhaps not the (hopefully metaphoric) repetitive image that things should get "bloody". There is a disturbing feeling this writer doesn't want activism, she want destructive terrorism. Lovely. Not the right thing for this or any cause.
8
It is sad that elders can't step aside gracefully. They should easily realize that their most activist days are long behind them. This is a critical time when other groups are energized and organized in numbers not seen since the anti-Vietnam protest in the 1960's. These days require the most active and energetic of us to lead. With constitution and voting rights under attack, we may not get another best opportunity. Its not a disgrace to step aside. But it is a disgrace to selfishly cling to position and stand in way of progress to feed an ego or a personal history. And commenters should try and address the author's main point and stop wasting everyone's reading time with petsonal attacks and obfuscation.
3
Thank you Rev. Barber to all you have done for the state of North Carolina and this country. To me you are a real hero, brave ,strong and determined. We will miss you but I know you will continue the work.
9
People: Ms. Perry means well but we should understand two things: [1] Ms. Perry is not going to be on anyone's front line and shed her personal blood on the streets...so she should not advocate what she has not done in the past nor what she will not do in the future! Come on Ms. Perry...get real! [2] I would like to see a laundry list of action items that the NAACP should engage in and that list presented to them for their comments. The NAACP needs to be severely nudged to do things other than polite posturing and genteel fundraising events.
7
@lafe tolliver
Ms. Perry is a writer, so she has a role just as all the other writers who have affected history. Did she say that she was ready to stand on the "front line" to shed blood? No.
Ms. Perry is a writer, so she has a role just as all the other writers who have affected history. Did she say that she was ready to stand on the "front line" to shed blood? No.
2
Harris Perry expresses the false narrative that was soundly defeated at the polls in the last election. The deaths of blacks she mentions at the hands of police are a tiny fraction of the deaths of blacks from their own people, besieged by poverty, de facto segregation, lack of education and hopelessness. The police are a handy distraction for a community that needs to work for better education, housing and opportunities for its youth, and not to focus exclusively on the civil rights of those who run afoul of the law.
14
So good to hear your voice again Professor Harris-Perry. Missed you.
Having said that, I will try to include into the conversion my point of view from the lofty status and privilege of being an elder, white male.
First, I want to start with the term; ''radical '' The word is being used a whole lot lately ( along with a bunch of other words ~ being used to dampen their true meaning )
I especially hear it from the right of the political spectrum to denigrate any and all trains of intellectual thought from us concerning what should be our rights.
Correct me if I am wrong, but the sole purpose of the NAACP ( along with any other group ) is primarily to make sure that everyone has the clear and easy access to vote.
Is it radical to demand and ensure that any person ( citizen ) have this right ?
NO:
I don't see going to court, marching, promoting, advertising, editorializing or any and all means ( excluding violence ) to ensure that right, as radical at all.
I think of it as automatic and getting back to the basics. You have my support.
Having said that, I will try to include into the conversion my point of view from the lofty status and privilege of being an elder, white male.
First, I want to start with the term; ''radical '' The word is being used a whole lot lately ( along with a bunch of other words ~ being used to dampen their true meaning )
I especially hear it from the right of the political spectrum to denigrate any and all trains of intellectual thought from us concerning what should be our rights.
Correct me if I am wrong, but the sole purpose of the NAACP ( along with any other group ) is primarily to make sure that everyone has the clear and easy access to vote.
Is it radical to demand and ensure that any person ( citizen ) have this right ?
NO:
I don't see going to court, marching, promoting, advertising, editorializing or any and all means ( excluding violence ) to ensure that right, as radical at all.
I think of it as automatic and getting back to the basics. You have my support.
4
This editorial reminds me of the criticism the NAACP got from the Student Non-violent Coordinating Comittee. We all know that group soon fell apart over how violent they wanted to get. They also purged any non-black activists and then turned on each other. The NAACP has survived because they matured. Ms. Perry needs to start her own organization and stop trying to take over the NAACP.
13
maybe the author should not hold her views so tightly. self righteousness and judgmental views are so rampant in our polarized society.
11
I was fortunate to be able listen to John Lewis deliver a speech at my two teenagers school three weeks ago here in Chicago. He spoke of his life, his experiences, the progress made, and the challenges ahead. He is amazing man, so full of passion, love, and hope.
Two things stand out from his speech; both were implicit, not implied. It is not clear who the next generation of civil rights leaders are, nor is it clear what the agenda should be. My hope is the Mr. Lewis and his fellow civil rights pioneers are able to nurture and counsel these next generation leaders and help inform the critical agenda for the next 20 years
Two things stand out from his speech; both were implicit, not implied. It is not clear who the next generation of civil rights leaders are, nor is it clear what the agenda should be. My hope is the Mr. Lewis and his fellow civil rights pioneers are able to nurture and counsel these next generation leaders and help inform the critical agenda for the next 20 years
14
In any battle for rights, there must be a number of things: loud, in your face voices, quiet whispers in corridors of power, heart-to-heart conversations with colleagues, friends and family and a little street theater here and there.
There's a place for radicalism. But it's not the only tool that must have a place.
And did we persuade others to vote for our candidates and issues?
There's a place for radicalism. But it's not the only tool that must have a place.
And did we persuade others to vote for our candidates and issues?
8
Agreed. Harris-Perry argues persuasively here that the NAACP needs to get back to its roots -- its grassroots -- rising from the turf that is the call of the local communities where the needs are greatest. The national organization can only be as srong and as effective an advocate as the local and state organizations that work on the front lines -- that "get in the way" as Rep. John Lewis says.
3
Why does the fringe element always want to start wars?
14
Issue-oriented non profits may just suffer from aging into a comfort zone where the focus is more on fund raising and business as usual than new ideas and approaches. Look at the ASPCA and the Humane Society for example. Or the Red Cross.
7
Every time there is a violent riot or uprising, independents migrate rightward. That hurts the cause. What's needed are very clear consequences to actions that undermine the equality of all people, specifically through organized voter education and massive increases in turnout at the ballot box.
Or to look at it another way: when factions advocate for violence and divisiveness and compete with other factions instead of joining with them, the Democratic tent becomes small and ineffective instead of expansive, powerful and able to effect lasting change.
Or to look at it another way: when factions advocate for violence and divisiveness and compete with other factions instead of joining with them, the Democratic tent becomes small and ineffective instead of expansive, powerful and able to effect lasting change.
11
Am I the only one who doesn't understand why this author is conflating racial economic and judicial equality with queer and trans-social/sexual liberation? I support both causes but I think that bringing them together creates cross currents of support and resistance that are not likely to be beneficial in a tactical and strategic standpoint. For example, i could imagine church goers who totally support the need for racial justice and an end to police brutality against black Americans being against LBGTQ rights. To bring the two issues together might create internal conflicts for these potential supporters and result in diminished support and weaken the total impact of the movement.
To say that there is no justice until there is total justice may actually delay the arrival of incremental progress, which I think is the only likely path to success. My experience is that a message needs to be simple and direct to motivate people. It seems to me like conflating these two issues is self-defeating liberal overreach.
Please believe that I offer this in the hope that all these issues will one day be resolved but I think that the movement need to prioritize and focus on the issues that directly touch the greatest number of potential supporters. Or am I just ignorant? Enlighten me.
To say that there is no justice until there is total justice may actually delay the arrival of incremental progress, which I think is the only likely path to success. My experience is that a message needs to be simple and direct to motivate people. It seems to me like conflating these two issues is self-defeating liberal overreach.
Please believe that I offer this in the hope that all these issues will one day be resolved but I think that the movement need to prioritize and focus on the issues that directly touch the greatest number of potential supporters. Or am I just ignorant? Enlighten me.
26
Are they irrelevant or just quieter? Just because they are not holding loud shrill events like BLM does not mean they are not working for their cause. Their board is much too large with a bureaucracy that is sucking up all their money. This is true of a lot of charitable organizations. They definitely need to prune back their office and make an agenda which is in keeping with modern times. They don't have to fight to sit at the lunch counter but they still should be fighting for better education for young people. This doesn't require a new organization but one that is motivated by still urgent matters, like educating the young and improving safety in majority black neighborhoods. Children should be able to grow up without worrying about being shot on the way to school. Young people shouldn't think that drug dealing or gang affiliation is the only way. The NAACP should step up to these challenges. This is just as important as sitting at the lunch counter. All they have to do is decide this is their mission.
9
followed this up until the last paragraph where it appears the author is saying that black alone is not relevant and that you must be queer or HIV positive to enact change. Hillary failed because of that approach - it seriously turned off non marginal folks. So... Isnt "Black Matters" enough - the point of the article is that the 'mission' has not succeeded. Cant you be proactive and black - that paragraph advocates something that totally is going to fail... Rest of the article seemed ok.
9
If the NAACP becomes irrelevant it will be solely because Black Americans have allowed it to become irrelevant, and no other reason. While youth and technology may play a role in advancing organizations, racism is still rearing it's abominable head in the same despicable ways it was since the NAACP was founded. The newer, younger movements are still trying to find their legs, let alone their leadership, and ways to fund themselves. Historically, what "has" happened to all the "newer" movements? Where are they? They typically do not survive. Get out of the way of the NAACP and let them do what they do best.....clearly they have grit, knowledge, and staying power.
When Black Americans invested blood and fatalities in suffrage rights, unlike Women's suffrage, the Voting Rights Act had a 40-year expiration date, which could have extensively affected Black America's ability to vote in the 21st century, and most notably, in the election of America's first Black President. While younger organizations were not yet "woke", or created for that matter, The NAACP was heavily involved in ensuring protection of those rights.
I would also not be so quick to say that it is inconsequential to be a part of a civil rights movement in 2017. While it may not be frowned upon in academia, one would fare far better in the corporate world publicly associating yourself with Trump than you will with Black Lives Matters.
When Black Americans invested blood and fatalities in suffrage rights, unlike Women's suffrage, the Voting Rights Act had a 40-year expiration date, which could have extensively affected Black America's ability to vote in the 21st century, and most notably, in the election of America's first Black President. While younger organizations were not yet "woke", or created for that matter, The NAACP was heavily involved in ensuring protection of those rights.
I would also not be so quick to say that it is inconsequential to be a part of a civil rights movement in 2017. While it may not be frowned upon in academia, one would fare far better in the corporate world publicly associating yourself with Trump than you will with Black Lives Matters.
1
"Is the N.A.A.C.P. ready to follow the leadership of undocumented women? Queer women? Black women? ....he is transgender and black, lived with vulnerabilities many can’t imagine?" Instead of leaping to categories of personhood, how about the NAACP take a positive stand on the education of black children? That could potentially benefit millions instead of symbolically electing transgender person because they are different.
Where was the NAACP on the lawsuits against states over equitable financing of schools so that all children can have access to full citizenship? T
Where was the NAACP on the lawsuits against states over equitable financing of schools so that all children can have access to full citizenship? T
11
The evolution of a activist organization into a sedate bureaucracy wary of upsetting establishment individuals, businesses & others isn't confined just to civil rights groups like the NAACP. Consider the environmental groups & labor unions who have evolved into self perpetuating apologists & sellouts for political parties & big business. The distance walked from opposition to submission is measured in the transition from work boots to Gucci loafers.
17
I don't know why this got an editor's pick. It's a mishmash of different things that actually don't belong together along with false info. What are "environmental groups" and what are the "unions" that we are now bashing?? The Teamsters or the 1199SEIU??? The environmental defense fund or the national parks associations?? How odd that the editors didn't recognize the incoherence.
4
Bill, the NYT picks are not an editorial seal of approval or agreement, otherwise the comment was both clear and coherent. The professionalization / mainstreaming of these organizations leads them to a play it safe mentality more concerned with mission statements then accomplishments. It becomes about fundraising for its own sake, organizations top heavy with bureaucracy & short of field workers & cheer leading for the organization. You mention the Teamsters & the Service Employees International which are perfect examples of my point, one is a fossilized bureaucratic union (Teamsters) more interested in dues & political connections vs an activist union (SEIU) more concerned with expanding its membership and aggressively pursuing their interests. There are numerous other examples within civil society of organizations who have arguably outlived their purpose & need to adapt & grow or fade into history. This is my opinion & you may differ but it is neither "false" nor "correct" info.
1
Um... I love the NAACP, but I don't think it should be out for "blood".
9
To answer the headline:
Look coldly and soberly at the problems afflicting black Americans, and offer constructive solutions that avoid political correctness, bluntly acknowledge the role of African Americans in creating these problems, and resist the easy out of blaming everything on white America.
See, it's easy.
Look coldly and soberly at the problems afflicting black Americans, and offer constructive solutions that avoid political correctness, bluntly acknowledge the role of African Americans in creating these problems, and resist the easy out of blaming everything on white America.
See, it's easy.
14
My wife and I (mixed race), married in New York City a few years after Loving v. Virginia, are living in our retirement out on our sailboat in Palm Coast, Florida.
This would not have been possible during quite a long period after our marriage. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has been a mainstay of our increasing freedom in this country. The steadiness and workman-like activity of the NAACP, doing the work that the more street-oriented civil rights people are not in a position to do, is a necessary ballast.
As others have noted here, we need a spectrum of activity to push back the racism that still persists, and the NAACP, along with the ACLU and the SPLC hold up this end of the spectrum.
We will continue to contribute what we can to this fine organization, and hope that they continue in the kind of work they are doing now.
Michael Ryan
This would not have been possible during quite a long period after our marriage. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has been a mainstay of our increasing freedom in this country. The steadiness and workman-like activity of the NAACP, doing the work that the more street-oriented civil rights people are not in a position to do, is a necessary ballast.
As others have noted here, we need a spectrum of activity to push back the racism that still persists, and the NAACP, along with the ACLU and the SPLC hold up this end of the spectrum.
We will continue to contribute what we can to this fine organization, and hope that they continue in the kind of work they are doing now.
Michael Ryan
7
There is only one modern biological DNA genetic human race species. The only 'mixed race' or 'bi-racial' humans are the 2-5% of Neanderthal Denovisan DNA that survives in European and Asian origin populations. Color as race is an American socioeconomic political educational mythology behind African slavery and Jim Crow.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is not the NAACP. They are two separate organizations.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is not the NAACP. They are two separate organizations.
1
Yes, of course I concur on the commonly mis-used term 'mixed race'. It is, however, very current usage for people of different skin color being married, and I could not think of an alternative locution that was not awkward.
Albert Einstein had the last word on this when he filled out his application to come to the United States before the war: in the box labeled 'race' he put 'human'.
And yes, the Legal Defense Fund is separate (and so valuable), but we give to both organizations. Our point is that we do not want the ENTIRE civil rights activity to be focused on street protests. It is important to have people with connections to the various power structures of the country working on behalf of this cause as well.
Albert Einstein had the last word on this when he filled out his application to come to the United States before the war: in the box labeled 'race' he put 'human'.
And yes, the Legal Defense Fund is separate (and so valuable), but we give to both organizations. Our point is that we do not want the ENTIRE civil rights activity to be focused on street protests. It is important to have people with connections to the various power structures of the country working on behalf of this cause as well.
Lynn in DC,
If you have not heard the call to omit the word "woman" from political/cultural discussions, social justice organizations, the academic classroom, you have not spent any time in the company of today's crop of students attending "women's" colleges. They can't get past preferred pronouns, in any discussion, to deal with real issues. Identity politics is bog that social reformers are in danger of being consumed by but is an easy trumpet to blow and blow the author does.
MHP does a disservice to all those struggling to deal with entrenched culprits of disparity: economic and educational access and support, losses in the stabilizing institutions of family and the black church and threats to the integrity of voter and election processes.
Yes, the NAACP bureaucracy is no doubt bloated, as well-funded organizations with successes on some mission fronts tend to get. To suggest that scrapping the structure and mechanisms of the organization in favor of some more radicalized vision is counter-productive and irresponsible, and will ultimately prove ineffective. Just as bureaucratic dinosaurs can impede positive progress, so too do social influencers burnishing their own stars by calling for the most volatile option to deal with hard problems that require the unsexy and difficult process of systemic, law-bound action. 99% of us are in the same boat together.
If you have not heard the call to omit the word "woman" from political/cultural discussions, social justice organizations, the academic classroom, you have not spent any time in the company of today's crop of students attending "women's" colleges. They can't get past preferred pronouns, in any discussion, to deal with real issues. Identity politics is bog that social reformers are in danger of being consumed by but is an easy trumpet to blow and blow the author does.
MHP does a disservice to all those struggling to deal with entrenched culprits of disparity: economic and educational access and support, losses in the stabilizing institutions of family and the black church and threats to the integrity of voter and election processes.
Yes, the NAACP bureaucracy is no doubt bloated, as well-funded organizations with successes on some mission fronts tend to get. To suggest that scrapping the structure and mechanisms of the organization in favor of some more radicalized vision is counter-productive and irresponsible, and will ultimately prove ineffective. Just as bureaucratic dinosaurs can impede positive progress, so too do social influencers burnishing their own stars by calling for the most volatile option to deal with hard problems that require the unsexy and difficult process of systemic, law-bound action. 99% of us are in the same boat together.
10
Donald Trump won the votes of 54% of white women.
Hillary Clinton won the votes of 95% of black women.
Hillary Clinton won the votes of 95% of black women.
3
Thank you Ms. Harris-Perry. Good to read your well-written article. Organizations that just feather their bureaucratic nests may be betraying their mission, whether it is the Red Cross or NAACP.
3
Only a fool thinks racism is dead or that black people, all else being equal, are not disadvantaged vis a vis white people.
But only a bigger fool thinks a black child from a solid, affluent family faces a more difficult path than a white one born into poverty with meth addicts for parents.
A focus on class as opposed to race will not only address the needs of all oppressed people, but will be a step toward forging a multi-ethnic coalition rather than the current situation where the oligarchy divides and conquers.
But only a bigger fool thinks a black child from a solid, affluent family faces a more difficult path than a white one born into poverty with meth addicts for parents.
A focus on class as opposed to race will not only address the needs of all oppressed people, but will be a step toward forging a multi-ethnic coalition rather than the current situation where the oligarchy divides and conquers.
16
You can't even remotely compare the suffering of blacks in America caused by racists and racist or non-racist police to the suffering caused by fellow blacks.
As long as liberals continue to blame guns for the high homicide rate in the black community instead of being honest about the many aspects of urban black culture that are really to blame-- yes, many but not all of which have their roots in the evil history of racism and class in the US but have most since evolved into species entirely their own-- there is not going to be any reduction in the levels of senseless violence that black men, women, and children are going to be forced to endure at the hands of the sociopaths who are allowed to run rough shod over their communities-- and are glamorized and idolized for doing so.
Privileged whites ironically enough, shoot ourselves in the head more often than each other with our guns. In a free country, with so many facing dead-end reality, dying towns, disappearing jobs, disintegrating families, we harm only ourselves and give the lie to the notion that we have it so great while blacks have it so bad. Things are rough all over.
But blacks in the US are 13% of the population and commit 54% of all homicides and 90% of homicides against each other. White racism isn't the prime cause, guns aren't the prime cause, gang culture that glorifies gun violence and enforces "don't snitch" on the streets is.
Liberal blindness and fairy tales only prolong the suffering of blacks.
As long as liberals continue to blame guns for the high homicide rate in the black community instead of being honest about the many aspects of urban black culture that are really to blame-- yes, many but not all of which have their roots in the evil history of racism and class in the US but have most since evolved into species entirely their own-- there is not going to be any reduction in the levels of senseless violence that black men, women, and children are going to be forced to endure at the hands of the sociopaths who are allowed to run rough shod over their communities-- and are glamorized and idolized for doing so.
Privileged whites ironically enough, shoot ourselves in the head more often than each other with our guns. In a free country, with so many facing dead-end reality, dying towns, disappearing jobs, disintegrating families, we harm only ourselves and give the lie to the notion that we have it so great while blacks have it so bad. Things are rough all over.
But blacks in the US are 13% of the population and commit 54% of all homicides and 90% of homicides against each other. White racism isn't the prime cause, guns aren't the prime cause, gang culture that glorifies gun violence and enforces "don't snitch" on the streets is.
Liberal blindness and fairy tales only prolong the suffering of blacks.
8
Machismo is growing among whites, Dan. You and I hear it in certain bars and in Fenway park in certain clusters and from certain newly elected presidents who say they're so pop they could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and get away with it. I'd bet that you might even hear it at an NRA convention, though, god knows, there are plenty of people of all races buying guns so they can kill/defend/initiate justice/protect, or just shoot people for fun.
2
It's probably too late to get this reply to you, but I agree with you. Where I live, racism against "illegal aliens" is reaching irrationally hysterical levels, especially since without these mostly wonderful, hard-working people, the cattle feedlots and hog farms and many non-livestock farms would shut down from lack of reliable employees.
I remember the strife of the 60s. Upon my arrival at University in the mid-70s I was happy to finally not only to start meeting black Americans but international students from all over the world. In my second year in the dorm, however, I became fast friends with a young black guy from Phoenix who, in whispered tones, told be about the Bloods and Crips who had moved in. People were dying.
The first time I ever heard the word "thug" outside of a 30s Hollywood production was a couple of years after that when a black friend of mine warned be about going down to the black side of town with another black guy I knew and shooting craps and partying. He pulled me aside and told me that guy was a thug. I was so naive and desirous of showing that not all white people were racists even my black friends started telling me to be careful.
But I noticed a massive sea change after the LA riots. Millions of whites who'd been outraged by the Rodney King travesty were horrified by all that. The black reaction to the OJ Simpson verdict further nailed the coffin for many who were formerly of good will. I myself have never looked at things the same since.
I remember the strife of the 60s. Upon my arrival at University in the mid-70s I was happy to finally not only to start meeting black Americans but international students from all over the world. In my second year in the dorm, however, I became fast friends with a young black guy from Phoenix who, in whispered tones, told be about the Bloods and Crips who had moved in. People were dying.
The first time I ever heard the word "thug" outside of a 30s Hollywood production was a couple of years after that when a black friend of mine warned be about going down to the black side of town with another black guy I knew and shooting craps and partying. He pulled me aside and told me that guy was a thug. I was so naive and desirous of showing that not all white people were racists even my black friends started telling me to be careful.
But I noticed a massive sea change after the LA riots. Millions of whites who'd been outraged by the Rodney King travesty were horrified by all that. The black reaction to the OJ Simpson verdict further nailed the coffin for many who were formerly of good will. I myself have never looked at things the same since.
1
Failure to protect witnesses could be part of the problem, so much so that a prosecutor in New Orleans was jailing witnesses for refusing to testify. https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-watch/wp/2017/04/26/repo...
The NAACP does not seem to have responded to the issues of drug policy and mass incarceration raised by Michelle Alexander in "The New Jim Crow." They have tended to travel the safe, respectable middle of the road on drug policy and so number among the complicit in the racially dysfunctional situation we face today, where the drug laws are 400% more successful at incarcerating black users than they are at incarcerating white users. This reality has shaken many from their previous safe stands on drug policy. Even Republicans find drug reform a safe topic now. Yet this issue was not raised by Professor Harris-Perry. So it seems to me that she's afflicted by the same problem as the organization she's taking to task.
2
The NAACP was the organization which directed the efforts to end Jim Crow and all the laws that supported segregated public institutions and practices. Once those were eliminated with the Civil Rights acts of the mid-1970's, the NAACP faced the next obstacle, centuries of mythology about race and superior peoples to justify injustice and exploitation of people. Even many of the people who were sympathetic to civil rights and earlier to abolition of slavery were people who strongly believed in the validity of racial categories. To make people change their minds about race, indeed to make people understand that race was and is a false concept, is something that requires not protests and efforts to outlaw racisms but to enlighten people, to help them see the error of their attitudes. To communicate that requires a lot of openness and trust between those seeking to rid the world of this false idea and those who still do not realize how false and destructive it has been. This is a challenge that requires a kind of courage that is like that of a Mahatma Ghandi, verging on sainthood. It requires understanding that Black Lives Matter is a movement founded on outrage and a deep conviction that our society is too corrupted by racism to ever treat African Americans equally, and that while this attitude is understandable can never contribute to any resolution of problems founded upon racist attitudes.
2
Amen. thanks. it needs to be told.
2
I sincerely doubt that Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry is willing to shed her OWN blood for this cause. I think her suggestion that the willingness to shed blood would strengthen the "movement," is reckless and would only serve to widen and deepen the divide that is currently plaguing our national consciousness. DJT won, in part, because the one thing that all Americans can agree on is that we are all Americans. If we want progressive philosophy to prevail, we'd better start finding some common ground with those whose beliefs we do not share, gathering strength from that which unites us and discussing fraternally that which divides us. BTW, to be fair and non-racist, we must admit that there are other kinds of privilege besides just the white variety. And speaking of privilege, it's a privilege to live in this country, no matter who the president is.
7
DJT did NOT win "because the one thing that all Americans can agree on is that we are all Americans"! Exactly the opposite!
He won because too many people in this country still believe that only those who are of all-white, Northwestern European descent, identify as Christian (regardless of beliefs and actions in direct opposition to Christ), straight, and able-bodied, are "real Americans."
All others are "those people" - at best. If they even count as people.
He won because of the lies he told his supporters that they had been longing to hear: that their "hero" will return this country to some earlier time - the 1950s or maybe 1850s - when white anglo straight males were unquestionably on top - and anyone else had better "know their place."
And mainly, he "won" thanks to the Electoral College, itself a racist institution founded to ensure that slave-owning states would retain disproportionate influence.
The fact that Ms. Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million - despite voter suppression, gerrymandering, and corruption of our election by Congress, Comey, and foreign interference - tells me that DJT's "win" is the last gasp of a dwindling white supremacist demographic.
He won because too many people in this country still believe that only those who are of all-white, Northwestern European descent, identify as Christian (regardless of beliefs and actions in direct opposition to Christ), straight, and able-bodied, are "real Americans."
All others are "those people" - at best. If they even count as people.
He won because of the lies he told his supporters that they had been longing to hear: that their "hero" will return this country to some earlier time - the 1950s or maybe 1850s - when white anglo straight males were unquestionably on top - and anyone else had better "know their place."
And mainly, he "won" thanks to the Electoral College, itself a racist institution founded to ensure that slave-owning states would retain disproportionate influence.
The fact that Ms. Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million - despite voter suppression, gerrymandering, and corruption of our election by Congress, Comey, and foreign interference - tells me that DJT's "win" is the last gasp of a dwindling white supremacist demographic.
4
I believe the N.A.A.C.P. was establish to "ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all peoples and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination." I don't believe any of the objective of the N.A.A.C.P. have been eliminated. The question of how to accomplish these goals has been questioned ever since its 1909 formation. Professor Harris-Perry's advocacy for a "radical new direction" without saying what that direction should be is hollow. How would of the types of people she recommends to head the organization change the organization's purpose.
If it's stronger advocacy she is after, she needs to outline how that advocacy differs from what the N.A.A.C.P. is doing. What action can the N.A.A.P.C. take to accomplish her goals? Her Op Ed contains no actionable advice. Let's have actionable Op Ed's not complaints on how the N.A.A.C.P. is not accomplishing what she thinks it should be accomplishing.
If it's stronger advocacy she is after, she needs to outline how that advocacy differs from what the N.A.A.C.P. is doing. What action can the N.A.A.P.C. take to accomplish her goals? Her Op Ed contains no actionable advice. Let's have actionable Op Ed's not complaints on how the N.A.A.C.P. is not accomplishing what she thinks it should be accomplishing.
4
The NAACP in its beginning had a lot of white members and still does. However, this group needs to be marketed because "Whites" are people of color too! Poor blacks and whites have the same issues and it is time they are brought together in advocacy and voting!
4
I disagree that because an organization needs to evolve it should "step aside gracefully." This is a false choice that pits one group against another. Any organization with 2000 local units is a benefit to any struggle. We should be discussing how to best MOBILIZE the energy inherent in the NAACP, not discussing its demise. We should be building group-to-group alliances, not tearing each other down.
History demonstrates that most successful movements are not comprised of young people alone, but youth allied with experienced leaders who help navigate systems and structures. That was true of the tech revolution as well as the Civil Rights Movement. If we are to transform the bedrock of American injustice--the rigging of class and racial structures enforced by legalized violence--we will need young and old, rich and poor, new and old groups to join together. Perry is passionate but her focus on deconstruction creates division and serves the opposition. Also, if she reads her history carefully, she will discover it invests more in youth than they can actually sustain.
Leaders, as individuals or organizations, aren't selected. They rise to the top of a movement. No one needed to "step aside" to allow the Big Six to become leaders in the 60s. They selected themselves by the skill they demonstrated. No one needs to move aside to allow today's activists to lead. They must win the devotion of people by their action, not by mandate.
History demonstrates that most successful movements are not comprised of young people alone, but youth allied with experienced leaders who help navigate systems and structures. That was true of the tech revolution as well as the Civil Rights Movement. If we are to transform the bedrock of American injustice--the rigging of class and racial structures enforced by legalized violence--we will need young and old, rich and poor, new and old groups to join together. Perry is passionate but her focus on deconstruction creates division and serves the opposition. Also, if she reads her history carefully, she will discover it invests more in youth than they can actually sustain.
Leaders, as individuals or organizations, aren't selected. They rise to the top of a movement. No one needed to "step aside" to allow the Big Six to become leaders in the 60s. They selected themselves by the skill they demonstrated. No one needs to move aside to allow today's activists to lead. They must win the devotion of people by their action, not by mandate.
4
Melissa Harris-Perry seems to be letting her feelings overwhelm her better reasoning. The laws no longer reflect the racism of seventy years ago but the attitudes of people have not changed accordingly. There are many African Americans who still cannot trust white people to be just and there are many whites who cannot sympathize with the frustrations of African Americans nor understand how the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow still affect many in that community. Black Lives Matter has proven to be an movement founded upon outrage and condemnation of racist behavior and cultural artifacts going back centuries along with a presumption that the Jim Crow practices long since made illegal are still in standard practice across this land, explaining the higher proportions of African Americans involved in arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations. This view ignores that fact that the police and prosecutors are from every ethnic background and that crime is always higher in impoverished neighborhoods than in affluent ones. There is plenty of injustice and the disparities that correlate to race are of origins founded upon racial prejudice but the remedies are not so simple to find. When Jim Crow ended, so did a century of economic growth unparalleled in human history. The notions of locally controlled schools assures inequities between affluent and impoverished districts. The loss of manufacturing jobs since the 1970's has deprived all less educated people.
2
Funny, a friend and I were just talking about the NAACP last week. It was a brief conversation. Was I a member, why not. The child of a Baby Boomer who is a staunch believer in the organization's power to drive change, I have stood for better or worse on the periphery since college for many of the reasons Melissa outlines.
I don't know whether someone's expressed this or not, but the declining influence of the NAACP in some ways resembles what's happening in our economy: disruption. Those bodies that fail to adapt to the times risk obsolescence. But that is oversimplifying the matter if we don't take into consideration that this is a social organization founded to address problems still in existence today. Yes, BLM and BYP100 are forces to be reckon with but how much more impact could be delivered if there was a partnering or a synergy across these groups? The Millennial and Gen Z movements have the agility, numbers and reach, organizations like the NAACP possess an incredible amount of know-how and social and historical capital cultivated and developed over time that is incredibly valuable. NAACP doesn't necessarily "need to become radical" - it then becomes just another protesting voice. Instead, the there's the opportunity to be more strategic in working with, utilizing and shoring up the rapidly-mobilizing, passionate, socially conscious young folks coming up.
I don't know whether someone's expressed this or not, but the declining influence of the NAACP in some ways resembles what's happening in our economy: disruption. Those bodies that fail to adapt to the times risk obsolescence. But that is oversimplifying the matter if we don't take into consideration that this is a social organization founded to address problems still in existence today. Yes, BLM and BYP100 are forces to be reckon with but how much more impact could be delivered if there was a partnering or a synergy across these groups? The Millennial and Gen Z movements have the agility, numbers and reach, organizations like the NAACP possess an incredible amount of know-how and social and historical capital cultivated and developed over time that is incredibly valuable. NAACP doesn't necessarily "need to become radical" - it then becomes just another protesting voice. Instead, the there's the opportunity to be more strategic in working with, utilizing and shoring up the rapidly-mobilizing, passionate, socially conscious young folks coming up.
3
" Is it ready to have as its president a young person just out of foster care who, because he is transgender and black, lived with vulnerabilities many can’t imagine?"
Really, those are the things you look for in the resume for a potential leader of an important organization? Is the foster care before or after obtaining a college degree, where one could study history, organizational skills, and politics? What about experience in public speaking and writing manifestos and news briefings following certain events which warrant an official response from a group like the NAACP? Did Dr. Harris-Perry conduct a poll of African-Americans, who like many other groups aren't unanimously thrilled with LGBTQs, on how they'd feel with their leader being transgender? Or is this something to be forced on them, because she knows what's good for them even if a majority of the organization's members are opposed?
Sorry whatever respect I had for the article went out the door with that extremely poorly thought out sentence. I wonder how much time she put into crafting that thought into words. Maybe some board members could be homeless drug addicts with a 6th grade education, after all they have expertise in being "vulnerable."
I sincerely hope the professor never has input into hiring decisions where important details like peoples' lives hang in the balance.
Really, those are the things you look for in the resume for a potential leader of an important organization? Is the foster care before or after obtaining a college degree, where one could study history, organizational skills, and politics? What about experience in public speaking and writing manifestos and news briefings following certain events which warrant an official response from a group like the NAACP? Did Dr. Harris-Perry conduct a poll of African-Americans, who like many other groups aren't unanimously thrilled with LGBTQs, on how they'd feel with their leader being transgender? Or is this something to be forced on them, because she knows what's good for them even if a majority of the organization's members are opposed?
Sorry whatever respect I had for the article went out the door with that extremely poorly thought out sentence. I wonder how much time she put into crafting that thought into words. Maybe some board members could be homeless drug addicts with a 6th grade education, after all they have expertise in being "vulnerable."
I sincerely hope the professor never has input into hiring decisions where important details like peoples' lives hang in the balance.
9
I like Harris-Perry's plea for better leadership, but think she avoids the core problem in deference to her sincere respect for the history of the NAACP.
The reality seems to be that the NAACP has 'matured' like most political protest groups to reflect a moderate center that is most concerned with keeping past organizational gains and stabilizing the political future of its leaders.
In my estimation, Reverend Barber is a true leader and a remarkable man, but an anomaly in an organization whose leadership for the past 30 years has come to cast its eye first on political aspirations in a broader world before taking any action.
Business leaders and lawyers that form the core of the NAACP nationally and locally in most places seem too disconnected from from the current realities reflected in the Black Lives Matter movement to overcome the institutional inertia that has increasing made the NAACP irrelevant compared to its past. Now it's political stance seems more of an intellectual exercise than a personal cause rooted in the inequalities like those experienced by Rosa Parks, MLK, Malcolm X, or Maya Angelou. Today's leaders live in a world of style over substance. In other words, they are politicians. Organizations never change themselves willingly. They just talk about it. Barber is right to move on......
The reality seems to be that the NAACP has 'matured' like most political protest groups to reflect a moderate center that is most concerned with keeping past organizational gains and stabilizing the political future of its leaders.
In my estimation, Reverend Barber is a true leader and a remarkable man, but an anomaly in an organization whose leadership for the past 30 years has come to cast its eye first on political aspirations in a broader world before taking any action.
Business leaders and lawyers that form the core of the NAACP nationally and locally in most places seem too disconnected from from the current realities reflected in the Black Lives Matter movement to overcome the institutional inertia that has increasing made the NAACP irrelevant compared to its past. Now it's political stance seems more of an intellectual exercise than a personal cause rooted in the inequalities like those experienced by Rosa Parks, MLK, Malcolm X, or Maya Angelou. Today's leaders live in a world of style over substance. In other words, they are politicians. Organizations never change themselves willingly. They just talk about it. Barber is right to move on......
13
I agree with those who have written that focusing on age and gender of its chief executive is not the way to revive the NAACP. Establishing and implementing a strong, relevant mission and program are the key tasks to be accomplished. Those tasks require a creative, committed and seasoned CEO.
9
Yes and no to this opinion piece.
The NAACP should certainly embrace the causes of Black Lives Matter and black youth, and incorporate younger, more active leaders, or finance their causes. If it does not, it may well indeed become irrelevant.
But the reach, breadth and resources of the NAACP are sources of strength that should be leveraged. I hope that the NAACP will choose to maintain its relevance.
The NAACP should certainly embrace the causes of Black Lives Matter and black youth, and incorporate younger, more active leaders, or finance their causes. If it does not, it may well indeed become irrelevant.
But the reach, breadth and resources of the NAACP are sources of strength that should be leveraged. I hope that the NAACP will choose to maintain its relevance.
5
I think Harris-Perry fundamentally misses the ground on which the NAACP historically stood its fiercest... and which the greatest need still calls. That is as a consensus civil rights organization grounded in intellectual rigor, directed with a firm and clear purpose in the service of achievable ends.
Yes, there was a bloody period in the NAACP storied history... but the ground work for that kind of direct action was constructed by brilliant NAACP lawyers like Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall who crafted and created the legal strategy and precedent for desegregation and ultimately voting rights.
Nothing against youth groups or black lives matter... they have their purpose as well.No group has done a better job at point out the grotesque disparity in policing and violence than black lives matter, but as powerful as their singular message is, I can't really see them mustering successful legal strategies to combat gerrymandering... or building a successful challenge to mandatory minimum sentencing. That infrastructure already resides in the NAACP. And there is no reason to reinvent the wheel.
To the extent that the NAACP needs to evolve, it is probably more as a think tank.., a kind of black equivalent of Heritage action (only with actual research). With clear policy positions on most issues and holding Democratic candidates responsible for their votes. And voicing preferences clearly and loudly in the primaries.
Yes, there was a bloody period in the NAACP storied history... but the ground work for that kind of direct action was constructed by brilliant NAACP lawyers like Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall who crafted and created the legal strategy and precedent for desegregation and ultimately voting rights.
Nothing against youth groups or black lives matter... they have their purpose as well.No group has done a better job at point out the grotesque disparity in policing and violence than black lives matter, but as powerful as their singular message is, I can't really see them mustering successful legal strategies to combat gerrymandering... or building a successful challenge to mandatory minimum sentencing. That infrastructure already resides in the NAACP. And there is no reason to reinvent the wheel.
To the extent that the NAACP needs to evolve, it is probably more as a think tank.., a kind of black equivalent of Heritage action (only with actual research). With clear policy positions on most issues and holding Democratic candidates responsible for their votes. And voicing preferences clearly and loudly in the primaries.
17
You define yourself by what you are not. What is the NAACP against? Get that correct and the rest will follow.
2
It's a lot easier to protest injustice, pointing at the failings of a given system, than to build and sustain, from a position of power, a just and prosperous society. Given its reach, the NAACP could be a foundational organization for the creation of thriving, independent African-American communities that, solely through community resources, support affordable housing, business development and education. It could be the network that ties the many resources of Black America together to help those who are still left behind. As important as BLM and the other activist groups mentioned are, they are not in a position to build large scale social frameworks like banks, schools and the like, that underpin social services. That could be the role of the NAACP, if they had the vision, and the support of intellectuals like Ms. Harris-Petty.
4
The Civil Rights movement was successful because of the times more than the rightness of the cause. The world had seen the extremes of racist attitudes played out across the world and the U.S. had finally become conscious of how wrong the racist practices in the U.S. had been. The U.S. had overcome the Great Depression and World War II by an inclusive collective attitude that together the people of the U.S. could do anything. In addition, the U.S. was so prosperous that there was plenty for everyone and everyone believed that, too. All of these came together with the non-violent protests against Jim Crow and segregation which led to the Civil Rights acts. That was the successful but that did not undo the poverty from lost participation in the prosperity of the previous century and it did not prepare the country to undertake the elimination of racist cultural perspectives, those were left to be addressed at some other time. The difficulty of resolving the fear and distrust from centuries of bad behavior was never addressed honestly. There were and are many individuals who always were able to see that the differences of race were not really differences, at all, but habits instilled by people unable to face things honestly. Unfortunately, a lot of people could not do so, and so continued to see people's race as indicative of whether others could be trusted or not. We are stuck in this place, now.
4
Her most important sentence: "The urgency of this political moment makes it a moral imperative to direct these resources toward organizations that will produce meaningful outcomes for ordinary people, not just pursue institutional durability."
Seeking only to collect dues, pay salaries and maintain the status quo is a path to irrelevancy. The same problem plagues many other progressive movements (including labor.) Hers is a call to action to break this cycle and take bold action. I hope they have the courage to do just that.
Seeking only to collect dues, pay salaries and maintain the status quo is a path to irrelevancy. The same problem plagues many other progressive movements (including labor.) Hers is a call to action to break this cycle and take bold action. I hope they have the courage to do just that.
9
Ridiculous!
The NAACP is an essential part of a coalition to forward racial justice in America. Wonderful ew voices are stepping forward to take up local organizing and dissent tools that NAACP freedom strivers used, but that does not abrogate the other work where the NAACP can continue to prevail. Some of the best work the NAACP can continue to do, along side those activists who are willing to get out on the streets, is to work for legislative agendas, pursue court cases, and train politicians and others to run for local offices, particularly school boards and police review boards. Reforming society takes many voices, many tools, many resources, many approaches, and many advocates. The hard won respectability and stability of the NAACP is tool to use, not discard.
The NAACP is an essential part of a coalition to forward racial justice in America. Wonderful ew voices are stepping forward to take up local organizing and dissent tools that NAACP freedom strivers used, but that does not abrogate the other work where the NAACP can continue to prevail. Some of the best work the NAACP can continue to do, along side those activists who are willing to get out on the streets, is to work for legislative agendas, pursue court cases, and train politicians and others to run for local offices, particularly school boards and police review boards. Reforming society takes many voices, many tools, many resources, many approaches, and many advocates. The hard won respectability and stability of the NAACP is tool to use, not discard.
12
Black separatism is a dead end, as is identity politics in general. If the author wants to provoke backlash from whites, Asians, and Latino groups, further exacerbate social polarization and social fragmentation as a means to achieve some sort of mobilized black 'empowerment' and grievance, then by all means knock the NAACP down. But the hard work of helping people and of integrating a just society for all - not just creating pockets of equally aggrieved and potentially violent people - is what the NAACP does. As the author points out the NAACP is not regularly willing to 'shed blood', and thank the Lord it is not.
28
It is funny to me that people chide black people for "identity politics" or "black separatism" but then absolutely refuse to live next to black people, go to school with them or hire them.
The black unemployment rate has been consistently twice that of whites since the 40s. And as soon as blacks move into a neighborhood, whites flee-no matter their political leanings, ethnic background, income, class, etc.
A lot of what is called black separatism is controlled by whites. You can't integrate with people if they don't want to integrate.
The black unemployment rate has been consistently twice that of whites since the 40s. And as soon as blacks move into a neighborhood, whites flee-no matter their political leanings, ethnic background, income, class, etc.
A lot of what is called black separatism is controlled by whites. You can't integrate with people if they don't want to integrate.
18
[[And as soon as blacks move into a neighborhood, whites flee-no matter their political leanings, ethnic background, income, class, etc.]]
That's obviously not true, but it's typical of the whining, woe is me victim mentality afflicting this country. If you cut your grass, parent your kids, keep the noise down and keep your stupid dog off my lawn, I don't care what color you are. I've called the cops on at least three of my neighbors over the years. One guy beating on his girlfriend was a lawyer. I won't tell you what "color" he was because it doesn't matter. He was an abuser and he got locked up.
[[A lot of what is called black separatism is controlled by whites. You can't integrate with people if they don't want to integrate.]]
Oh, boo hoo!
If somebody buys the vacant house next to your and fixes it up, you think some "white" guy is going to run for the hills because his neighbor is "black"?
Stop whining!!!`
If you keep acting like a victim, people will keep treating you like a victim.
That's obviously not true, but it's typical of the whining, woe is me victim mentality afflicting this country. If you cut your grass, parent your kids, keep the noise down and keep your stupid dog off my lawn, I don't care what color you are. I've called the cops on at least three of my neighbors over the years. One guy beating on his girlfriend was a lawyer. I won't tell you what "color" he was because it doesn't matter. He was an abuser and he got locked up.
[[A lot of what is called black separatism is controlled by whites. You can't integrate with people if they don't want to integrate.]]
Oh, boo hoo!
If somebody buys the vacant house next to your and fixes it up, you think some "white" guy is going to run for the hills because his neighbor is "black"?
Stop whining!!!`
If you keep acting like a victim, people will keep treating you like a victim.
8
Separatism perpetuates false stereotypes which are the basis for racial prejudices and unfair treatment by people who think that they are superior to others because of race. Living in the same communities without any notion of superior or inferior classes of people separating them does cause people to see that race is no real classification for people. It takes real effort to perpetuate racial stereotypes in such communities. It happens. Some people will try to convince others that racial stereotypes are real and may succeed with some people, but eventually the weight of real experience disproves those false ideas. When people interact they find out what distinguishes people is not phenotypes but character and treatment of other people as well as their peculiar talents or learned abilities which are not bounded by racial characteristics.
2
If the NAACP -- were to organize a boycott, by Black athletes, of the University of Alabama -- until Alabama ceased the traitorous practice of giving every Alabama State worker -- a payed holiday to celebrate Jefferson Davis' birthday -- the State of Alabama would cease this traitorous practice in a heartbeat. And, while the NAACP is doing this, it should also demand that Alabama stop making it as difficult as possible, for African-Americans to vote.
14
Furthermore, the governor of Alabama recently signed legislation forbidding the removal of any historical monument that has been in place for more than 40 years-- thus preserving a multitude of such monuments in that state glorifying such traitorous Confederates as Davis.
The entire SEC should be boycotted by black athletes. But black people are neither more moral or less moral than any other ancestry group. There are always good and bad; identity has little to do with it. Just as in the case of gangs in our urban areas, many blacks are always willing to profit at the expense of others in sports entertainment, business, illegal drugs, just as on Wall Street and Madison avenue many whites are willing to profit at the expense of everyone else in the same areas but in Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, and Big Tech as well.
Maybe these are the kinds of problems groups like the NAACP should be working to correct instead of driving deeper into the failed "radicalism" of liberal identity politics as Ms. Harris-Perry is suggesting they do in this article?
The entire SEC should be boycotted by black athletes. But black people are neither more moral or less moral than any other ancestry group. There are always good and bad; identity has little to do with it. Just as in the case of gangs in our urban areas, many blacks are always willing to profit at the expense of others in sports entertainment, business, illegal drugs, just as on Wall Street and Madison avenue many whites are willing to profit at the expense of everyone else in the same areas but in Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, and Big Tech as well.
Maybe these are the kinds of problems groups like the NAACP should be working to correct instead of driving deeper into the failed "radicalism" of liberal identity politics as Ms. Harris-Perry is suggesting they do in this article?
4
Trayvon Martin died from the wound that Zimmerman's gun caused but it was not "murder"; nor was Trayvon Martin a victim or target of a crime motivated by racial hatred. Just because the victim of George Zimmerman's shot was a black youth does not turn Trayvon into this generation's Emmett Till who was lynched in 1955 Mississippi. "Black Lives Matter" as a movement is shrill and hystercal not
historical; it lacks substance, savvy lawyers, and reverence for civil justice in a 21st century America where race ain't what it used to be.
Many NAACP leaders of recent times have lived and dwelled in the past rather than revamp the organization to address real discriminartions of the present and to confront lingering racial prejudice and racial rhetoric. For instance, the NAACP has adopted the rhetoric and tactics of racial hotheads on campuses for segregated dorms and facilities--which are anathema to the NAACP's once unrepentant integrationist philosopy. If the NAACP adopts the separatist approach and shrill tactics of some loud mouthed black youths, the NAACP will doom itself to permant irrelevancy.
Michael Meyers, president, New York Civil Rights Coalition
historical; it lacks substance, savvy lawyers, and reverence for civil justice in a 21st century America where race ain't what it used to be.
Many NAACP leaders of recent times have lived and dwelled in the past rather than revamp the organization to address real discriminartions of the present and to confront lingering racial prejudice and racial rhetoric. For instance, the NAACP has adopted the rhetoric and tactics of racial hotheads on campuses for segregated dorms and facilities--which are anathema to the NAACP's once unrepentant integrationist philosopy. If the NAACP adopts the separatist approach and shrill tactics of some loud mouthed black youths, the NAACP will doom itself to permant irrelevancy.
Michael Meyers, president, New York Civil Rights Coalition
14
the difference now is that blacks are very readily accepted in society yet black society continues to fail to condemn black on black violence. This is the most pressing issue facing people of color. Without intellectual honesty, how shall NAACP help CP?
36
Your assertion that black society fails to condemn "black-on-black" violence is simply untrue.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/black-people-are-no...
By the way, when has white society ever condemned "white on white" violence? No one even uses the term "white on white" violence. As far as blacks being "readily accepted" in society segregated housing and hiring patterns indicate otherwise. In fact a sizable portion of whites, including a majority of Trump voters, see black Americans as less evolved and savage.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/the_maj...
So your statement is contradicted by evidence. It's not true.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/black-people-are-no...
By the way, when has white society ever condemned "white on white" violence? No one even uses the term "white on white" violence. As far as blacks being "readily accepted" in society segregated housing and hiring patterns indicate otherwise. In fact a sizable portion of whites, including a majority of Trump voters, see black Americans as less evolved and savage.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/the_maj...
So your statement is contradicted by evidence. It's not true.
1
Lilo, thank you. I didn't assert that black society completely fails to condemn black on black violence; not completely. Thanks for the link, a rare enough set of information it deserves attention. Actually my comment was merely that NAACP does not condemn it, not society in general, Lilo. Stitch would understand.
Yes. Society does condemn violence including when white on white violence occurs. It may serve you and readers to look at the statistics on black on black violence. Disheartening, awful, sad numbers.
Yes. Society does condemn violence including when white on white violence occurs. It may serve you and readers to look at the statistics on black on black violence. Disheartening, awful, sad numbers.
1
Yes Black Lives Matter! But why only a few black lives matter? Where is the outrage for the thousands of black lives that are snuffed out not by police, but by people in their own neighborhood? Can we not see that black on black violence is a cancer that is destroying a people from within? Are we shouting and pointing out, because it is too scary to look in the mirror?
38
Many people criticize Black Lives Matter because the emphasis is on police violence against Blacks rather than addressing Black-on-Black violence. No offense, but I think it's a lazy argument and assumes that there are not active community organizations and national groups, such as NAACP, that are working specifically to address Black-on-Black crime (albeit with varying success).
Just because Black-on-Black crime exists, that doesn't mean that the police should get a free pass to oppress people of color. Likewise, BLM's existence doesn't mean that we Black folks are blind to the toxicity of Black-on-Black crime in our communities. Plenty of us are outraged, furious, devastated about Black-on-Black crime (and are working to ameliorate it)... but you and others suggest that we aren't also allowed to be outraged about police brutality?
Why can't these issues stand alone? Is it just too uncomfortable to face the reality of disproportionate police brutality towards Blacks?
Just because Black-on-Black crime exists, that doesn't mean that the police should get a free pass to oppress people of color. Likewise, BLM's existence doesn't mean that we Black folks are blind to the toxicity of Black-on-Black crime in our communities. Plenty of us are outraged, furious, devastated about Black-on-Black crime (and are working to ameliorate it)... but you and others suggest that we aren't also allowed to be outraged about police brutality?
Why can't these issues stand alone? Is it just too uncomfortable to face the reality of disproportionate police brutality towards Blacks?
2
How to Save the N.A.A.C.P. From Irrelevance? OOPS, TOO LATE!
7
Once the NAACP becomes more radical towards white America, like the Black Panther's or BLM, the lines can be made even starker than they are now and people will be able to self-sort more easily into one camp or the other.
1
and many groups will think and act accordingly to the NAACP. Does the author not remember the racial pogram involving Koreans during the Rodney King riots (i.e., black on Korean rioting)? This will not advance the black cause.
4
The FBI Uniform Crime Report shows interracial murder are relatively rare, but most interracial murders are black-on-white murders, not white-on-black. The FBI Crime Report (Expanded Homicide Data Table 6) for 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, shows that in 500 blacks murdered whites while 229 whites (including Hispanics) murdered blacks.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/...
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/...
14
All bureaucratic non-profits eventually succumb to organizational inertia, making new organizations to take on the original mission necessary. Our mistake is in thinking it won't happen to a particular organization that we cherish. Thanks for a thought provoking article.
5
I don't get it. What has BYP 100 done that has made a difference? Give some examples of specific things NAACP should do. This article is full of abstractions and short on specifics.
9
I research human rights activism in Argentina and I find that the author has tapped into a shared dilemma. How do activists keep their message alive as time passes? I fully agree that younger generations activists are capable leaders. But, I do not think it is the only dilemma facing national and international human rights communities. In a market-driven present, it is imperative that human rights groups create a culture of human rights. That is, activists must find a variety of ways to spread their brand of social justice. This can be done by becoming an elected official, or another example is through artistic productions within the group or through collaborations with known artists. By creating a human rights culture, activists can keep alive the topic of social justice and reach a larger audience.
4
The NAACP has as much of a chance of transforming itself into the Dream Defenders or Black Youth Project 100 as a 108-year old man has of writing the next #1 song on the rap music charts. The target that Melissa Harris-Perry sets out in her thought-provoking piece is an unrealistic—and inappropriate—one for the venerable civil rights organization.
But that’s not to say that there’s not a critical role for the NAACP in today’s social justice environment. In fact, Harris-Perry identifies that role, albeit in passing, in the middle of her article, when she points to the success of the North Carolina chapter and notes that, “along with its legal partners, the branch successfully challenged the state’s monster voter-suppression law.”
That’s exactly what the NAACP, and the Legal Defense Fund, should be doing—defending the victories black Americans won during the Civil Rights movement. Those victories—the right to vote, the right to live in any community where you can afford to pay the rent, the right to decent health care via Medicaid—are under vicious assault by the forces of reaction that have coalesced within the Republican Party. Black people need organizations like the NAACP to use their connections and expertise in the legal, political and business worlds to defend those rights with the same vigor, passion and determination as the reactionaries are bringing to their campaign to undermine them.
But that’s not to say that there’s not a critical role for the NAACP in today’s social justice environment. In fact, Harris-Perry identifies that role, albeit in passing, in the middle of her article, when she points to the success of the North Carolina chapter and notes that, “along with its legal partners, the branch successfully challenged the state’s monster voter-suppression law.”
That’s exactly what the NAACP, and the Legal Defense Fund, should be doing—defending the victories black Americans won during the Civil Rights movement. Those victories—the right to vote, the right to live in any community where you can afford to pay the rent, the right to decent health care via Medicaid—are under vicious assault by the forces of reaction that have coalesced within the Republican Party. Black people need organizations like the NAACP to use their connections and expertise in the legal, political and business worlds to defend those rights with the same vigor, passion and determination as the reactionaries are bringing to their campaign to undermine them.
Very informative article, however, I disagree as I believe the NAACP is still relevant and call easily be brought back to its core mission. When you are coming back to TV???
4
It makes sense to think about how the NAACP should adapt to the civil rights needs of today. But the real question is where is the overwhelming protest from white people against injustice? Sadly we are never going to have equality and justice unless a majority of people make a stand and insist upon it. That doesn't just mean voting democratic or disliking trump and the alt-right. It means voting based on this issue. It means shouting down representatives at town halls on this. It means marching in protest. I'm all for healthcare reform 100%, but the sickness of racism has been in the veins of this country for centuries.
4
The entire issue is far more complicated than persistent racism, but it all is because of racism that has persisted for centuries. The segregation by race has never been eliminated. The reason is pretty simple. People who seem to be unlike ourselves we tend to see as strangers and when they do things which seem unlike what we see as usual, we tend to attribute to their being strangers and move towards those with who we identify. If you interact with people day to day, you talk with them about things that you do not understand and about things which you do, and you understand where the similarities and differences happen to be. When you do not, you tend to just lump them all into a category of unexplained strangeness. Marching against Jim Crow, that's easy, marching against a failure to interact meaningfully, that's futile.
1
Shouting people down only persuades them that the shouters have bad manners. My usual test in controversial areas is to think about who is pushing around whom. Shouters push the rest of us around, and I do not like to be pushed around.
3
People: Sadly, the NAACP is fighting with outmoded tools and methods including a ridiculous 64 member board of trustees! What is up with that cumbersome load? That board member should be no more than 7-9 people.
They have a good name but their bite does not now equal their bark. Their strategies are outmoded and they need to re-tool for the new century. Will they?
Only if members protest to the board and demand change. If not, they will be bypassed as being of no value or use and that they day has come and gone.
The board is not willing to "throw down" as they used to do in the past. They seem very comfy and satisfied which is the death knell of a civil rights group.
They have a good name but their bite does not now equal their bark. Their strategies are outmoded and they need to re-tool for the new century. Will they?
Only if members protest to the board and demand change. If not, they will be bypassed as being of no value or use and that they day has come and gone.
The board is not willing to "throw down" as they used to do in the past. They seem very comfy and satisfied which is the death knell of a civil rights group.
2
Bravo. The NAACP is old and venerable. Let's consider all their wisdom while we move ahead to face the challenges of Trump and the Republicans.
2
It would have been helpful to have been provided with just a little bit of empirical data. For example subscriptions, renewal rate, revenue, demographic profile, Twitter followers, Facebook likes, legal cases handled, press mentions. Maybe it should have been an Upshot style feature with graphics mapping all of this data over time. In the event we are left with just Board composition and branch network size.
2
This is it. It is the conversation that is having across the nation do we do nothing at all or do we move ideally aside to make way for radical change. We know, presently, or problems are not getting better they are getting worse so when need be, we must sit down or to face the change.
Professor Harris-Perry's call for a radical NAACP is a misreading of the organization's mission and identity. NAACP has always been about creating opportunities for the elites within the African American community (the famous "Talented 10th" made famous by W.E.B. DuBois in 1903) and to push for their inclusion and integration within the American body politic and mainstream middle class. Indeed, most of the early leaders of NAACP were light-skinned, professional blacks who keenly felt the contradiction of their personal achievement and rejection by white society in their search for social respectability. Wealthy liberal whites who were crucial supporters in early years linked the fair inclusion of meritorious blacks to be a crucial test of American democracy. All of these characteristics decisively make NAACP an accommodationist, and not a radical, organization.
Today, there is great deal of ambivalence within the black population on the need of an accommodationist organization such as NAACP. What Harris-Perry leaves out in her discussion is that the integration of the Talented 10th has yet to happen. If it were to go away, who would argue for the interests of middle-class and class-aspirational blacks? From affirmative action in Ivy League schools to minority loans in Small Business Administration, NAACP's essential role has been to work within the system to defend a loftier space for the race. This is still a crucial function that NAACP should preserve and not abandon.
Today, there is great deal of ambivalence within the black population on the need of an accommodationist organization such as NAACP. What Harris-Perry leaves out in her discussion is that the integration of the Talented 10th has yet to happen. If it were to go away, who would argue for the interests of middle-class and class-aspirational blacks? From affirmative action in Ivy League schools to minority loans in Small Business Administration, NAACP's essential role has been to work within the system to defend a loftier space for the race. This is still a crucial function that NAACP should preserve and not abandon.
6
So the way for the NAACP to avoid irrelevance is to become more radical, like other groups... and how relevant are these radical groups outside the leftist bubble ? How about actually contributing to solving real problems in the real world ?
9
Andy, in the 90s the drug reform movement was considered radical. Now we even have Lindsay Graham on our side. The radical fringe is a testing ground for new ideas. Good ideas will escape the bubble and become adopted by the mainstream.
3
Harris-Perry is living in some sort of alternate reality where she thinks hashtag activism, egotistical social media self righteousness and merely repeating the names of dead innocents is going to create a single bit of positive change for anyone in this country. She's a delusional armchair revolutionary. The NAACP leadership may be getting up there in years, maybe a little too nostalgic for their struggle of yesteryear... But to pretend like BLM or BYP100 or whomever, is anything more than a pastiche of hyper-offended SJW's jumping on every slight injustice they see in this world, making it about them, and then taking to the internet and streets like petulant children... That's not going to bring the tax bases back into the inner city for to improve rundown schools, that's not going to bring the jobs back from overseas that someone with a high school education could work for 35 years and support a family on... And as another comment mentioned previously, black leadership, including Black Lives Matter, failed their own people this election cycle by blindly supporting the deeply flawed, historic phony and liar Hillary Clinton, instead of the candidate who offered the most hope, positivity, and ability to actually win and affect change for the economically depressed of all colors, Bernie Sanders.
9
Much of this is errant nonsense from one of America's brilliant thinkers. Last time I checked it was/is the National Office of the NAACP that's a tax-exempt non-partisan corporation, not its local units. The NAACP's "local units" are not independent of the National NAACP; in fact, only its National Board of Directors sets policies for the entire NAACP, including all NAACP units. There is no local option from policies set by the National Board and of those adopted at the annual national NAACP Convention which are then ratified by the NAACP National Board. Moreover, the NAACP for decades has been pillaried with dissent and accusations of irrelevance from angry (notably "militant" black) youths who have accused sober leaders of the NAACP, such as Roy Wilkins, of being "Uncle Toms" and "irrelevant" to the grassroots (lower-status blacks). That is a common and uninformed gripe from the unknowledgeable and the ignorant. It takes intelligent, talented, knowledegeable and thoughtful leaders to know and speak up for the values of due process of law--for cops as well as for victims of police abuse and hate violence. It also takes a viable civil ights organization to advise against double-jeopardy prosecutions of persons like George Zimmerman--himself a minority--when by all standards Zimmerman was acquited of all charges after an open and fair trial by a jury of his peers.
Michael Meyers, president, New York Civil Rights Coalition
Michael Meyers, president, New York Civil Rights Coalition
6
Ms Perry's emphatic truth-telling is called a "rant" on youtube. (her name, msnbc rant, go in 8 min., if you haven't seen it.) Her commentary would be welcomed back on network TV.
2
An eloquent article.
Yet i disagree with Dr. Harris-Perry. BLM has done a lot of harm to the black cause, including its help to elect DJT through relentless racialist propaganda. The way for African-Americans to succeed is through detailed, painstaking legislative action, promotion of the competent bot the well-connected and rational argument. Fire the cushioned bureaucrats but replace them with competent professionals.
Yet i disagree with Dr. Harris-Perry. BLM has done a lot of harm to the black cause, including its help to elect DJT through relentless racialist propaganda. The way for African-Americans to succeed is through detailed, painstaking legislative action, promotion of the competent bot the well-connected and rational argument. Fire the cushioned bureaucrats but replace them with competent professionals.
7
Got it. To be useful and relevant, first of all change your gender.
8
What the author seems not to understand is that the NAACP has to do real things to positively impact the daily lives of people suffering under our current system. The answer is not (always) to march in streets waving placards or sit-ins or poetry slams or social medial which seems to be the general modus operandi of the more 'radical' groups. Doing something positive, day in day out is what eventually helps people, not marching or whining on social media.
10
The NAACP matters at the local level. Here in Oregon the Women's March was initially being organized by white women who were ignoring the voices of minority women. When the Portland NAACP pulled out of the march in protest new leadership took over the march and all voices were heard. The NAACP has a long history and people listen when the local leaders speak out.
9
No. Where to start? First of all, calling for bloodshed (or a return to "bloody times") is always extremely irresponsible. Second, the NAACP is doing good work even now. Third, no reform was ever achieved by a minority without an effort to change people's minds and gain allies in other population groups. That is why radicalism never works, and why MLK was successful and Malcolm X was not. The wrong kind of activism can frighten people and make them deaf to your arguments. The rise of Trumpism is clearly tied to the fact that the activism on the left in recent years has been extremely ineffective.
A social media campaign and a hashtag don't matter because they are not legislative reform and therefore do not bring about any change. In addition they are only seen by social media users who already agree with the campaign's goals, and are not shown to opponents. If you want to change anything you have to reach out to people who are not part of your little group, and then turn out and vote, both in primaries and general elections. And then you repeat and keep at it as long as it takes. That's how so much of the progress was won in the past.
Just as an example, a lot of progress can be made if low income groups of all "races" would get together to fight for policies to bring about greater income and wealth equality - this would include many Trump and Sanders voters for example, it does not make much sense for them to be on opposite sides.
A social media campaign and a hashtag don't matter because they are not legislative reform and therefore do not bring about any change. In addition they are only seen by social media users who already agree with the campaign's goals, and are not shown to opponents. If you want to change anything you have to reach out to people who are not part of your little group, and then turn out and vote, both in primaries and general elections. And then you repeat and keep at it as long as it takes. That's how so much of the progress was won in the past.
Just as an example, a lot of progress can be made if low income groups of all "races" would get together to fight for policies to bring about greater income and wealth equality - this would include many Trump and Sanders voters for example, it does not make much sense for them to be on opposite sides.
14
I am experiencing the same massive inertia in the Democratic Party. There is no there there anymore when compared to action groups like Indivisible and the worst thing is the Democratic machine views these action groups as potential competition and are resistant to cooperating with them on common agendas. Makes me wonder who is in charge. Whoever it is, they should realize that they just lost the most winnable election in the history of the US and they need to step up or get out of the way. I want the Democrats in Congress to propose legislation especially if the Republicans kill it - do something - try to lead from behind - show what the country could have had, please. I'm begging you.
18
Can only agree with Jim Brown with all my consciousness. The Dems are no longer democratic. There's nothing to stop a giant coalition of activists, whether they wear Bernie or BLM t-shirts or Indivisible ones or they Occupy... let us all turn out and march so we can chase no-talent schemers from control of this new banana republic they've been building for decades.
6
We saw what the country 'could have had' for eight years and rejected it solidly. It's time for the REAL WORLD to take over real action for those who work hard and support their country, NOT try to destroy it!
1
dorndiego,
The Clintons were more Republican than Eisenhower was (look at their repeal of Glass-Segal, their desire to expand work visas for high tech workers, Clinton's work at Walmart and her speeches in front of Goldman Sachs). Eisenhower would have never have done any of this. He would have been repulsed. But the Democrats, under Clinton, did this (and more).
The Clintons were more Republican than Eisenhower was (look at their repeal of Glass-Segal, their desire to expand work visas for high tech workers, Clinton's work at Walmart and her speeches in front of Goldman Sachs). Eisenhower would have never have done any of this. He would have been repulsed. But the Democrats, under Clinton, did this (and more).
3
"How to Save the N.A.A.C.P. From Irrelevance"?
Why not just focus on its important historical core mission: fighting racism, voter-suppression, discriminatory laws, and "separate-and-unequal" treatment of people across the land?
Surely that's still relevant? Especially since it's become clear that the idea of "post-racial" politics was a pipe-dream.
And there's no shortage of outrages under Trump and the Republicans!
Why not just focus on its important historical core mission: fighting racism, voter-suppression, discriminatory laws, and "separate-and-unequal" treatment of people across the land?
Surely that's still relevant? Especially since it's become clear that the idea of "post-racial" politics was a pipe-dream.
And there's no shortage of outrages under Trump and the Republicans!
10
I don't know if I agree that this is a recent problem. WEB DuBois's experiences with the NAACP were not simply disheartening; they were a harbinger of the organization it was to become -- mealy-mouthed and mainstreamed to the point of irrelevance.
2
YES!!!!! Finally, a lucidly historical response!!! Thank you!!
Absolutely!!!
Absolutely!!!
"entrenched bureaucracy" The magic words. Defining almost everything about our culture. Certainly our government, which is ok with Turkish security guards kicking on the ground protesters. Dangerous times, here and coming.
4
but those guards were attacking "unauthorized" protestors who were Kurdish (i.e, "Mountain TUrks" as Attaturk called them). Thus it is OK.
Membership is still not restricted to blacks. To say otherwise is fake news of exactly the sort racists use. As for the article, i hope that in time the author will learn that deep rooted perennials are essential because the annuals while flashy come and go-- think sncc.... the legacy of Dubois, Walter white, thurgood Marshall, Julian bond and Roy Wilkins is not so easily dismissed, NAACP all. They bloodied the heads of Jim Crow and white citizens councils. Now we need more like them, and in the meanwhile the work of the NAACP will continue to be done by everyday folks whose everyday fight for justice deserves recognition and praise.
3
The first thing, of course, is to end the war on drug users that is used to target the poor and dark-skinned.
Is it any mystery why the NAACP is irrelevant?
Where are the dark-skinned politicians who will end Prohibition?
Think for yourself?
Is it any mystery why the NAACP is irrelevant?
Where are the dark-skinned politicians who will end Prohibition?
Think for yourself?
Beautiful article.
2
As the new pools of ethnic and other citizens flood the country, it has an indirect effect on blacks by saturation. Not too long ago it was basically blacks as minority alone, not any more. There are now so many other ethnic and race related groups and organizations that the NAACP and other black groups may need to speak louder and stand taller to get attention. Very soon blacks will no longer be the majority minority. Already happening in certain parts of the country.
4
The NAACP is an organization with a valued role in history. It engaged in a successful campaign against Jim Crow over many decades. Since that time it has struggled to play a leadership role on behalf of Afro-Americans.
Part of the problem is revealed in the essay by Prof. Harris-Perry. Many of the public voices of the Afro-American community are captured by the money and interests of liberal white Democrats. For example, she catalogs the issues of gay rights, gun control, illegal immigrants, and feminists as somehow key to the revival of the NAACP. These issues may have merit but are clearly on the fringe of the needs of the black working and middle class.
Fact is the Afro-American leadership is unduly influenced by white liberal democrat organizations. Black leaders rely on them for money and jobs -- and pity the Congressman, nonprofit organization leader, or media pundit who strays from the script!
Clearly the Afro-American community needs leaders who represent issues central to its advancement. The focus must be on improving education at school and home, relevant job skills, stable families and child planning, healthy diet and lifestyle practices, financial thrift, and support for black-owned businesses. These may sound conservative but they empower the individual and complement the fight against structural discrimination.
If the new NAACP will speak out forcefully on these issues the organization will be relevant to the black community.
Part of the problem is revealed in the essay by Prof. Harris-Perry. Many of the public voices of the Afro-American community are captured by the money and interests of liberal white Democrats. For example, she catalogs the issues of gay rights, gun control, illegal immigrants, and feminists as somehow key to the revival of the NAACP. These issues may have merit but are clearly on the fringe of the needs of the black working and middle class.
Fact is the Afro-American leadership is unduly influenced by white liberal democrat organizations. Black leaders rely on them for money and jobs -- and pity the Congressman, nonprofit organization leader, or media pundit who strays from the script!
Clearly the Afro-American community needs leaders who represent issues central to its advancement. The focus must be on improving education at school and home, relevant job skills, stable families and child planning, healthy diet and lifestyle practices, financial thrift, and support for black-owned businesses. These may sound conservative but they empower the individual and complement the fight against structural discrimination.
If the new NAACP will speak out forcefully on these issues the organization will be relevant to the black community.
6
Seems like they like being the elite of Black people. Most Black folks think it is ran by fat cat black folks happy with their position in society. Time for some new blood in this vital organization.
6
I follow and listen to the mighty African trio of young original, independent queer and straight queens behind and beneath Black Lives Matter.
I follow and listen to the African Queens Michelle Alexander and Yamiche Alcindor and the African Kings Bryan Stevenson, Khalil G. Muhammad, Eddie Glaude and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
The NACCP needs to have it's life support plug pulled in preparation for a natural history museum exhibition.
I follow and listen to the African Queens Michelle Alexander and Yamiche Alcindor and the African Kings Bryan Stevenson, Khalil G. Muhammad, Eddie Glaude and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
The NACCP needs to have it's life support plug pulled in preparation for a natural history museum exhibition.
2
Trayvon Martin died from the wound that Zimmerman's gun caused but it was not "murder"; nor was Trayvon Martin a victim or target of a crime motivated by racial hatred. Just because the victim of George Zimmerman's shot was a black youth does not turn Trayvon into this generation's Emmett Till who was lynched in 1955 Mississippi. "Black Lives Matter" as a movement is shrill and hystercal not historical; it lacks substance, savvy lawyers, and reverence for civil justice in a 21st century America where race ain't what it used to be.
Many NAACP leaders of recent times have lived and dwelled in the past rather than revamp the organization to address real discriminartions of the present and to confront lingering racial prejudice and racial rhetoric. For instance, the NAACP has adopted the rhetoric and tactics of racial hotheads on campuses for segregated dorms and facilities--which are anathema to the NAACP's once unrepentant integrationist philosopy. If the NAACP adopts the separatist approach and shrill tactics of some loud mouthed black youths, the NAACP will doom itself to permant irrelevancy.
Michael Meyers, president, New York Civil Rights Coalition
Many NAACP leaders of recent times have lived and dwelled in the past rather than revamp the organization to address real discriminartions of the present and to confront lingering racial prejudice and racial rhetoric. For instance, the NAACP has adopted the rhetoric and tactics of racial hotheads on campuses for segregated dorms and facilities--which are anathema to the NAACP's once unrepentant integrationist philosopy. If the NAACP adopts the separatist approach and shrill tactics of some loud mouthed black youths, the NAACP will doom itself to permant irrelevancy.
Michael Meyers, president, New York Civil Rights Coalition
1
We miss you !! Come back, come back wherever you are! Stupid MSNBC needs voices like yours.
10
CO Gal--MSNBC is busy purging the voices of reason, such as Lawrence O'Donnell. When will they learn that what's good for the country will also be good for them? I'm just about done with them.
3
MSNBC made the right decision. I watched Mellissa's show many times. Seldom were Asians and Latino's included in her discussions. Inclusion rather than exclusion is how people of color will make further progress. Her replacement Joy Reed, also an African American woman, looks at all sides of an issue and is a better journalist.
4
"But it does not seem willing to shed blood, literally"
So, because an organization is not willing to go outside of the law they are irrelevant? If that is the definition of irrelevancy, then we need more irrelevant groups.
So, because an organization is not willing to go outside of the law they are irrelevant? If that is the definition of irrelevancy, then we need more irrelevant groups.
14
mikecody, if you're black you don't have to "go outside the law" to shed blood. Just walking down the street is enough to do it.
6
Dr. King broke the 'law'. George Wallace enforced the 'law'.
Jesus was a law breaking criminal. So were Gandhi, Mandela and the Founding Fathers.
Jesus was a law breaking criminal. So were Gandhi, Mandela and the Founding Fathers.
4
Don't be obtuse. Ms. Harris-Perry was very clearly referring to activists being willing to place themselves in physical danger, not to attack others.
3
The N.A.A.C.P. should become the N. A.A.A.P. ( ALL PEOPLE). Broaden your horizons, to include ALL disadvantaged people. Help save the Country, and our democracy, not just the movement. Thanks
10
Seriously?! Knights of Columbus; Daughters of the American Revolution; AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee and 1,000 or more others are reviewing your membership request now.
2
The NAACP fought to limit the influence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his time. Not much has changed. It represents the status quo group of professional "victims." By the end of his life King had realized the nation's problems were more economic than racial. An alliance of poor blacks and whites, based on nonviolent resistance was the answer then and it's the answer now. Racial divisions only serve to keep the poor fighting each other. Read "Bearing the Cross" if you want the details of this story.
10
NAACP Inc. Fund lawyers defended King and the civil rights workers. Clarence Mitchell and Althea Simmons from the NAACP turned the marching and protesting into lobbying for civil rights legislation. LBJ dubbed Mitchell the '101st Senator.' LBJ put Thurgood Marshall of the Inc. Fund on the federal circuit and Supreme Court bench.
2
I dispute your notion that "King had realized the nation's problems were more economic than racial". Where did you get such a notion because clearly, since King's murder in 1968, skin color in America continues to make a difference. We need only look at the country's current social climate to see that this is true. This country remains divided, based on the color of its citizens skin, and this will not change (if ever) any time soon. Additionally, while Ms. Perry has written a very thoughtful article, we must remember that the NAACP was never the organization that many think it is. From its inception, The organization was founded by mostly white persons. There is absolutely no way that an organization that professes to be an advocate for the human rights of black people, can be effective, if it is not founded, operated and controlled by black people. Think about it...........
@documentarian
On the eve of his murder Dr. King was planning a poor peoples campaign in Washington where he hoped to unite Americans along socioeconomic political educational class lines instead of dividing them along colored caste 'race' lines. One year before his death King tied the Vietnam War, socioeconomics and civil rights together in an inextricable whole cloth.
I would take John Brown over and before any Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson on the subject of black liberation. Garvey, Washington and DuBois fought over black liberation methods and goals. So did King and Malcolm. I would take Lincoln and LBJ over many black folks. I would take Amy Goodman and Morris Dees over Cornell Brooks or Michael Steele or Colin Powell or Condi Rice.
Skin color is not a biological 'race' marker. There was and is only one biological DNA genetic human race species.
On the eve of his murder Dr. King was planning a poor peoples campaign in Washington where he hoped to unite Americans along socioeconomic political educational class lines instead of dividing them along colored caste 'race' lines. One year before his death King tied the Vietnam War, socioeconomics and civil rights together in an inextricable whole cloth.
I would take John Brown over and before any Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson on the subject of black liberation. Garvey, Washington and DuBois fought over black liberation methods and goals. So did King and Malcolm. I would take Lincoln and LBJ over many black folks. I would take Amy Goodman and Morris Dees over Cornell Brooks or Michael Steele or Colin Powell or Condi Rice.
Skin color is not a biological 'race' marker. There was and is only one biological DNA genetic human race species.
1
Is this even the right question? Isn't a better question: "What do black Americans need right now?" Only when a sufficiently clear set of answers to that question are developed can it be determined whether the N.A.A.C.P. is relevant to meeting those needs, or can be made relevant. Relevancy for the sake of preserving an historical legacy is insufficient a reason to endure.
The suitability of radicalism as a strategy can be assessed only after these more basic questions are addressed. When people were being lynched, murdered for the cause, the answer was clear. It would not be appropriate to equate today's needs, however pressing, with those from decades ago.
How about "fervor," "passion," and "urgency"? Such words could fit today's needs better than radicalism.
The suitability of radicalism as a strategy can be assessed only after these more basic questions are addressed. When people were being lynched, murdered for the cause, the answer was clear. It would not be appropriate to equate today's needs, however pressing, with those from decades ago.
How about "fervor," "passion," and "urgency"? Such words could fit today's needs better than radicalism.
7
Despite their physically identifiable colored heritage born in humanity denying African enslavement and equality defying African Jim Crow black folks have always needed and deserved to be treated naturally divinely equal with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in all places and phases of their lives.
The Founding Fathers intended that black people remain property or separate and unequal. Thus Barack Obama is deemed all black by both biological nature and cultural nurture. Despite his half-white DNA genetic biological nature and his all white cultural family nurture.
There is nothing more radical than black American freedom and equality.
The Founding Fathers intended that black people remain property or separate and unequal. Thus Barack Obama is deemed all black by both biological nature and cultural nurture. Despite his half-white DNA genetic biological nature and his all white cultural family nurture.
There is nothing more radical than black American freedom and equality.
2
I respect MHP, but her call for the NAACP to step aside in favor of louder, more radical youth groups plays directly into the hands of conservatives, who want to preserve the status quo (or status quo ante) regardless of the harms that inflicts. Radicalism may well be necessary, but it can only achieve improvement in the company of good sense. The radicals of the late '60s/early '70s like Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown could only claim some success because they were a cutting edge of older, more stable, and more sensible groups like the NAACP, the Inc Fund, and allied white groups. Alone, radicals are almost universally disliked and distrusted. Just look at the Trump Presidency if you want to see the dismaying results of radicalism, albeit from the Right.
11
"Just look at the Trump Presidency if you want to see the dismaying results of radicalism, albeit from the Right."
It is indeed dismaying, but I think it results more from radicalism of the Left. Without that the far Right would never have had a real chance of doing anything but complain. When the moderates of our society became fed up with the identity politics and abandonment of traditional values that the far Left had forced the weak leadership of the Democratic Party to accept and put into practice, the die was cast. Anything other than what the far Left had imposed on country seemed less threatening...
It is indeed dismaying, but I think it results more from radicalism of the Left. Without that the far Right would never have had a real chance of doing anything but complain. When the moderates of our society became fed up with the identity politics and abandonment of traditional values that the far Left had forced the weak leadership of the Democratic Party to accept and put into practice, the die was cast. Anything other than what the far Left had imposed on country seemed less threatening...
4
It is critically important to maintain a laser -like focus on your mission and the strategies you use to carry out that mission. The disability rights movement patterned itself following the examples of leadership by Gandhi and Doctor King, using negotiation as much as possible, but ready at all times to use peaceful nonviolent civil disobedience if necessary. You may have noticed that all buses in the United States today are physically accessible for people with disabilities. This only happened because of the relentless persistence of an organization called American Disabled For Accessible Public Transportation. They changed their name in 1990 to American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, and the mission now is to end forced institutionalization of disabled people which robs us of freedom and rips off taxpayers. Laser focus until! It works. Occupy was a nice idea, but it fell apart because it protested anything, and the opposition found it easier to divide and conquer. ADAPT fashioned itself after the civil rights movement. Its purposes are similar even though our differences are different. Disability overlaps all other human diversity, so we intersect. As we watch you, we support you as well. Advice: maintain laser focus on your mission and strategies. Keep speaking truth to power as you always have, and open-minded people will listen and change. Peaceful nonviolent civil disobedience still works if it comes to that.
2
If anyone needs to witness if the NAACP is out of touch, attend a NAACP National Convention; lifeless workshops interspersed with celebrity entertainment and food trucks/vendors. Last year in Cincinnati conventioneers spent thousands of dollars in a city where the black population faces daunting economic inequalities. Where were the demands that those monies benefit minority communities?
6
Thank you for calling the question of the NAACP's relevance Ms. Harris. I know many people of various colors who agree that this organization symbolically lost the last of their moral relevance when they publically sided with Mayor de Blasio last year in stopping expansion of charter schools in NYC. This political decision was in direct opposition with the wishes of the majority of poor black families in NYC who rightly see charter schools as the only way out of the educational death spiral of union run inner city schools. It is indeed sad that such a storied organization cannot put its social/moral agenda above its own bureaucratic feather bedding.
6
Charter schools are most definitely not the answer for lower income families looking for a quality educations for their children. Charter schools are a profit source for corporations and drive down teacher salaries. Children damaged by impoverishment need supplementary, long term help from caring trained adults.
Charter schools have been an unnessesary distraction from the real needs of communities and their local schools since they were introduced.
Charter schools have been an unnessesary distraction from the real needs of communities and their local schools since they were introduced.
5
Sorry Barton but you are dead wrong. My youngest daughter graduated last year from a St Paul charter high school serving primarily inner city, low income families. It delivered a superior education than the suburban HS my older daughter attended. In no way are they an "unnecessary distraction". They deliver the goods that the complacent teach union run schools are not motivated to deliver.
There is no corporation or "corporate profits" involved. These are public schools, paid for with our tax dollars. As for "driving down salaries" these are non-union institutions, so the laws of normal economics apply, which is a good thing - the best teachers get the best salaries, just like in the real world.
There is no corporation or "corporate profits" involved. These are public schools, paid for with our tax dollars. As for "driving down salaries" these are non-union institutions, so the laws of normal economics apply, which is a good thing - the best teachers get the best salaries, just like in the real world.
1
I would guess the average age of NAACP members is the 60's and 70's, the staunch black middle class, NAACP chapters collect funds, give scholarships and, hopefully, serve as role models and a support system for their children and grandchildren. To brush aside the forebearsers of the civil rights movement would be a fatal mistake. I suggest the 2016 voters were the core of NAACP members, it was the younger black voters who rejected Clinton and helped elect Trump.
The "resistance," black and white must include old and young. You win elections the old-fashioned way, getting voters to the polls NOT voting for Jill Stein!!
The "resistance," black and white must include old and young. You win elections the old-fashioned way, getting voters to the polls NOT voting for Jill Stein!!
43
All organizations experience times of growth and of contraction. The NAACP was crucial to the civil rights movement, particularly its legal arm, which filed lawsuits on racial, and gender grounds. However, it was rife with conflict from the beginning--read Ida B. Wells' autobiography--as to whom would make decisions for the group. Over time, other groups came on the scene, with different agendas and membership: The Urban League, CORE, SNCC, SCLC, and so on. The NAACP still has relevance, but it can never be as significant as it was in the early twentieth century.
There was a central vision ans single purpose as leaders figured they were too stretched out. A designed view drawn up by the best Jewish white and African Americans legal minds of the time. The NAACP was a silver bullet.
I think this column is far off the mark. What on earth do undocumented women, queer women, transgender foster children, HIV positive people have to do with the mission of the NAACP? I believe the organization should focus on getting people registered to vote, getting people to run for office, getting people to the polls in every election. And most especially, exposing and overturning restrictive voting laws and gerrymandering that are preventing black people from having the voice they need and deserve. To say that the "rights" of the undocumented are equal to those of people who have lived here for centuries is specious at best. To claim that the woes of transgender people-- a tiny, tiny minority-- are as significant as a pretty large group of Americans -- is just nuts.
15
I agree completely.
1
I hesitated to comment here until I read the many sour-grapes comments from others. MHP has written a fine article. I wonder if she might go further and assess the location of the NAACP in a political landscape that has been changing for decades even though most of us were unaware of the change until it bit us with poisoned teeth. Clearly, she writes of the fight she thinks is necessary, but this looks like a fight that is needed all across Western civilization. It is not a fight that is needed purely because an old model no longer fits the needs of the CP in NAACP.
Poland and Hungary are in the grip of right-wing forces. France and the Netherlands escaped that hell, but only just and only for the moment. As I look at the problems of America, what I see with my limited vision is a badly divided society--divided as commentators emphasize but in other ways that may be more critical than the left-right divide. There is a dominating culture of greed but, allied to that, there is a strong sub-culture of what appears like mindless hedonism. Is that a reaction to alienation?
The brightest lights I see in this landscape are in the black communities, particularly in the spines and minds of the heroic women of those communities. Maybe the NAACP might transfer power to its women members?
Poland and Hungary are in the grip of right-wing forces. France and the Netherlands escaped that hell, but only just and only for the moment. As I look at the problems of America, what I see with my limited vision is a badly divided society--divided as commentators emphasize but in other ways that may be more critical than the left-right divide. There is a dominating culture of greed but, allied to that, there is a strong sub-culture of what appears like mindless hedonism. Is that a reaction to alienation?
The brightest lights I see in this landscape are in the black communities, particularly in the spines and minds of the heroic women of those communities. Maybe the NAACP might transfer power to its women members?
51
Excellent observation !!!
How about just a powerful leader with strong vision? "...undocumented women? Queer women? Black women? Is it ready to listen to those who have been incarcerated? Those who are H.I.V. positive? Is it ready to have as its president a young person just out of foster care who, because he is transgender and black, lived with vulnerabilities many can’t imagine?"
1
The NAACP has become irrelevant because it has become an arm of the Democratic Party and no longer truly represents blacks, and pretty much ignores the problems faced by poor blacks.
The NAACP supported the teachers' unions rather than poor black parents who wanted greater access to charter schools.
The NAACP supports affirmative action programs that exclusively benefit middle and upper class blacks to the detriment of class based programs that would benefit the poor.
The NAACP decries a handful of unjustified police shootings while ignoring the day-to-day black-on-black carnage.
The NAACP supports more government programs to keep people in dependency rather than promoting the entrepreneurship that has lifted many poor immigrants out of poverty.
Essentially the NAACP follows the model of liberal elites who believe they have all the answers and the rest of the country should bend to their policies, notwithstanding the failure of those policies over many decades. (Remember the War on Poverty? It's going about as well as the War on Drugs.)
The NAACP supported the teachers' unions rather than poor black parents who wanted greater access to charter schools.
The NAACP supports affirmative action programs that exclusively benefit middle and upper class blacks to the detriment of class based programs that would benefit the poor.
The NAACP decries a handful of unjustified police shootings while ignoring the day-to-day black-on-black carnage.
The NAACP supports more government programs to keep people in dependency rather than promoting the entrepreneurship that has lifted many poor immigrants out of poverty.
Essentially the NAACP follows the model of liberal elites who believe they have all the answers and the rest of the country should bend to their policies, notwithstanding the failure of those policies over many decades. (Remember the War on Poverty? It's going about as well as the War on Drugs.)
13
Wow. Really? Violence? Blood? This woman is lost.
14
You know what would be a truly "radical" political act for NAACP? To address dozens of people killed every day in violent altercations within African American community. But I doubt we'll see it happen - they would rather focus on a far, far smaller group where law enforcement is involved. After all, Black Lives Matter Only When Killed By Police.
42
Who speaks for and to the 95% of white Americans who kill their fellow white Americans?
John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, David Koresh, Tim McVeigh, Eric Frein, Eric Rudolph, Cliven Bundy and sons and friends kill their own pale kind with impunity.
John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, David Koresh, Tim McVeigh, Eric Frein, Eric Rudolph, Cliven Bundy and sons and friends kill their own pale kind with impunity.
1
Lead or get out of way. Ms Harris-Perry is right
The NAACP cares too much about perception by whites, looking educated and "civilized" and wanting the approval of white America. They need to be like the TEA PARTY was during the Obama years. Dear NAACP either sit down or GET OUT THE WAY!
How about changing the name? National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "Colored People"? in 2017? I know it's a small thing, but right now, the name is very dated. It's stale beyond belief.
7
The NAACP is run by higher-educated Blacks, and others, and like anyone who fits that profile, they don't become pioneers in the equality world because they are too comfortable, too bureaucratic and too indoctrinated. Like all the other groups of the bloody days, the NAACP was neutralized on purpose.
If the N.A.A.C.P. is unprepared for emeritus status, it must be ready for a return to the bloody years. It must become radical and expect a time when people will be mocked and potentially even harmed simply for being aligned with it.
----------------
Wow. An outright embrace of violence and a threat published in the NYT editorial pages. Please remember: "White" people are not targeting the NAACP or its members. The black youth are.
----------------
Wow. An outright embrace of violence and a threat published in the NYT editorial pages. Please remember: "White" people are not targeting the NAACP or its members. The black youth are.
Michael Brown’s name on a list of victims reliably shows a Trumpian disregard for the truth.
Jurors cried when the facts forced them to conclude that George Zimmerman acted in self defense when he shot Trayvon Martin. President Obama’s Justice Department was forced, against its desires, to conclude that Officer Wilson shot in self defense and that “hands up, don’t shoot” was a lie.
Jurors cried when the facts forced them to conclude that George Zimmerman acted in self defense when he shot Trayvon Martin. President Obama’s Justice Department was forced, against its desires, to conclude that Officer Wilson shot in self defense and that “hands up, don’t shoot” was a lie.
15
Racism begets racism, and it's bad news no matter what skin color it is that is asking for special privileges. Today, Trump uses it as one of his tools to divide his subjects against each other.
Please, leave racism behind. Everybody is different. Yes, racism exists from the (inherently racist, read-the-title-slowly) "Black Lives Matter" movement just as it does from the awful white supremacists, so stop encouraging the hate.
Please, leave racism behind. Everybody is different. Yes, racism exists from the (inherently racist, read-the-title-slowly) "Black Lives Matter" movement just as it does from the awful white supremacists, so stop encouraging the hate.
7
Times have changed. Being a Black American is no longer a disability. Ask Obama.
3
Ms. Harris-Perry has written a presecription for furthering the hostility toward blacks and the Black Lives Matter movement that, almost single handedly, got Trump to the White House.
9
What makes the NAACP irrelevant (besides the fact that they desperately need a name change) is the fact that they've succeeeded in the mission statement and goals. So now they are bloated bureaucracy where leftists meet and collect a paycheck.
Leftist media throw this author's name out as presidential timbre. The author call for more radicalization and Balkanization. That's is not an American leader. We've already had 8 years of that garbage.
Leftist media throw this author's name out as presidential timbre. The author call for more radicalization and Balkanization. That's is not an American leader. We've already had 8 years of that garbage.
6
Where was the NAACP when rap mogul Russel Simmons was preying on vulnerable African Americans with his rip-off "RushCard?" The fraudulent prepaid credit card he was peddling throughout communities of color- Where was MHP and her outrage? Accuse the NAACP for irrelevance? No- Accuse them for their selective bias.
5
Keep using Michael Brown in your arguments, and irrelevance will be quicker than you expected.
14
Melissa Harris-Perry, I miss you and your show on MSNBC.
Harris states "...it must be ready for a return to the bloody years."
WHOS blood? WHOS blood needs to be spilled?
Harris is suggesting violence to achieve her goals.
WHOS blood? WHOS blood needs to be spilled?
Harris is suggesting violence to achieve her goals.
7
Well said. I understand the radicalism of the N.A.A.C.P.'s formative years, when merely to give voice to the rights of black America could be a death sentence. Today's battles, while every bit as real, are not that. Is a return to the bloody years really the best strategy to fight today's battles? Voter suppression, extreme gerrymandering (a product of misguided Democratic efforts, I might add), the erosion of judicial protections. Those are at the forefront today. It is hard to see how violence would improve such matters, and easy to see how it would make them worse.
1
Anyone who conflates the American heroes who died ensuring that all citizens were assured the right to vote, and the right to live, shop and eat wherever they pleased, with Eric Garner, who died fighting with police while strenuously resisting arrest, or Michael Brown, who, after failing to take a cop's gun, ran, then turned and charged that same officer, is either morally confused, or intent on institutionalizing the victim status of African-Americans. The wealthiest self made woman in the US, our most famous astronomer, the former CEO and chairman of the board of Time-Warner, our 44th president, are/were all African-American. That some people want to act as if nothing's changed, forever waving Emmett Till's bloody shirt, well it's just beyond exasperating.
11
The NAACP needs to (1) go back to its roots and (2) heed the "C" and move from black-only to include Latinos and Asians
19
Should be NAAOP for oppressed people - not all of whom are Black, Latino, or Asian.
2
Funny, I don't hear Asians and Latinos demanding Jewish organizations remove the "J" from their acronym or women's organizations remove their "W." No, only black people are expected to take on the issues of other groups who have done zippo for us lately if ever. Reciprocity is a two-way street.
2
Why must Black people always be responsible for other people's battles? Black people have led in civil rights in forcing this country to live up to its Constitution. They do not exclude Latino(a)s and Asians. They lead. They model. They have been on the bloody front lines. Gay rights, Latino rights, women's rights, -- all of these followed the model of the LONG work of Black civil rights (not just the 1960s -- think Ida B Wells, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and the many, many unnamed in history). I am tired of people who ceaselessly introduce divisiveness instead of support and solidarity. Black people have long supported other movements. Why ASSume otherwise?
P.S. The NAACP, from its inception, has been an interracial organization. Whether or not, and how, it should evolve is for the people doing the boots-on-the-ground actual work to decide.
P.S. The NAACP, from its inception, has been an interracial organization. Whether or not, and how, it should evolve is for the people doing the boots-on-the-ground actual work to decide.
Obsolescent maybe, never irrelevant.
2
Seems as if she was speaking is violent street revolution.
That's been tried before and never worked.
A main reason why Dr. King was so successful was because he wanted to bring people together in their common humanity regardless of color. He wanted to do it without violence.
"Today, the N.A.A.C.P. carries the weight of history. It doesn't seem willing to shed blood, or in terms of the uncomfortable work that characterizes effective activism"
That's been tried before and never worked.
A main reason why Dr. King was so successful was because he wanted to bring people together in their common humanity regardless of color. He wanted to do it without violence.
"Today, the N.A.A.C.P. carries the weight of history. It doesn't seem willing to shed blood, or in terms of the uncomfortable work that characterizes effective activism"
7
As a former general counsel to the local NAACP branch in Macon, I reject Professor Harris-Perry's call for a "return to the bloody years" to become relevant again. MLK, Thurgood Marshall, W.E.B. DuBois and Frederick Douglas were all highly relevant. They achieved amazing things without inviting or condoning bloodshed. This call for bloody lawlessness in the Times is irresponsible. Is the NAACP bloated, laconic? Yes, but splashing blood around is not necessary to wake it up. Creative use of peaceful means is the legacy of the NAACP, and that legacy is still relevant.
35
As any group becomes larger and older - "more mature," in the vernacular - the group loses some of its early panache and young spunk. At 108, the N.A.A.C.P. is a very mature organization and has lost its mojo. It has probably become a bit too full of itself and its early successes and lost its way. We, the people, need it to find its way back to relevancy, and quickly.
Ms. Harris-Parry mentions a "bloated 64-member board of directors." It is unlikely that ANY organization with a guiding Board that large, whether manufacturing or social, is going to have any singular idea which way to go. These are challenging times for everyone and especially for people of color, minorities, the elderly, the disenfranchised, and the poor...people who need the wisdom of a strong voice. GOP-led state legislatures want to divvy up their voting districts to minimize the impact of the population they want to marginalize. The national government is now led by billionaires who have no concept of what goes on "in the trenches" and who cater to the wealthy, not the Middle Class.
This important voice must be heard. Recapturing its mojo will help it deal with the challenges we face for at least the next four years. Failing to do so will make the N.A.A.C.P. continue its slide into irrelevancy.
That would be a terrible loss for this country.
Ms. Harris-Parry mentions a "bloated 64-member board of directors." It is unlikely that ANY organization with a guiding Board that large, whether manufacturing or social, is going to have any singular idea which way to go. These are challenging times for everyone and especially for people of color, minorities, the elderly, the disenfranchised, and the poor...people who need the wisdom of a strong voice. GOP-led state legislatures want to divvy up their voting districts to minimize the impact of the population they want to marginalize. The national government is now led by billionaires who have no concept of what goes on "in the trenches" and who cater to the wealthy, not the Middle Class.
This important voice must be heard. Recapturing its mojo will help it deal with the challenges we face for at least the next four years. Failing to do so will make the N.A.A.C.P. continue its slide into irrelevancy.
That would be a terrible loss for this country.
6
Now an old white male, I became a life member of the NAACP nearly 50 years ago. I have since witnessed the NAACP's decline as a force for social reform. First, it evolved to equate "colored people" with blacks only; thus, it opposed and antagonized various groups like Koreans and Hispanics, not least by "buy black" campaigns. Second, it treated its life members shabbily. In the late 90s, it violated its contract with them by retroactively redefining life membership (to just 10 years) and cancelling lifetime benefits accordingly. What worthy organization betrays both its broad, historical mission and its most loyal members, and expects anyone to believe that it is a force for reform to be reckoned with? I stopped attending local chapter meetings because they were devoid of focus on and energy for reforms in the community.
So, in large part, I agree with Ms. Harris-Perry. But I think that various forms of personal identity or orientation are entirely beside the point. I note, for example, that she does not mention whites as potential leaders. Does she not remember that whites constituted a significant part of the original NAACP leadership over a century ago? Perhaps a white leader would really shake up the conventional thinking which makes the current NAACP so conventional and so inconsequential.
So, in large part, I agree with Ms. Harris-Perry. But I think that various forms of personal identity or orientation are entirely beside the point. I note, for example, that she does not mention whites as potential leaders. Does she not remember that whites constituted a significant part of the original NAACP leadership over a century ago? Perhaps a white leader would really shake up the conventional thinking which makes the current NAACP so conventional and so inconsequential.
12
The NAACP was born during an era when 'colored people' was the most benign definition of black African Americans. Blacks only was the original focus by Jim Crow white supremacist power that lingered through and beyond the civil rights era. Persons of every color were welcomed to fight for black lives mattering. Other gender, ethnic, faith, national origin organizations formed to emulate the NAACP success to fight for their specific agendas.
White people have Donald Trump to express their despair and anger. When will a majority of white people pick a black leader to lead them? In the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections 57% and 59% of white voters went with McCain/Palin and Romney/Ryan.
White people have Donald Trump to express their despair and anger. When will a majority of white people pick a black leader to lead them? In the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections 57% and 59% of white voters went with McCain/Palin and Romney/Ryan.
3
I agree about the early history. But you would, I think, agree that the NAACP did not expand its definition of "colored people" as the demographic changed. Indeed, by not doing so, it made it necessary for other groups to form their organizations. The results have been the factionalizing of what should be a collective alliance for the equality of all regardless of identity and the inevitable competitiveness among groups which should be working together, not against one another.
1
During the 50's and 60's the NAACP was too conservative as evidenced by the Detroit June1963 March. The NAACP was against Rev Franklin (Aretha's father) inviting M.L.King to Detroit to march in support of his efforts. When the NAACP and those 'conservative' preachers couldn't contain nor curtail the enthusiasm of the people.. at the last minute they too march, probably to 'save face'. Even during that time the irrelevance of NAACP gave rise to SNCC,CORE, SCLC,SNIC AND OTHER GRASSROOTS ACTIVISTS WHO SPURRED THE GOVERNMENT TO EVENTUALLY PASS THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT IN THE 1968.
3
Everything and Everyone has to 'reorganize itself' constantly to stay relevant. This process is painful, and often ends in failure.
Look for the organizations that ARE RELEVANT, and write R.I.P. for those that aren't.
Death of an organization is NOT death of progress, it is the result of progress.
Move on, support the organizations and people who really matter NOW.
Look for the organizations that ARE RELEVANT, and write R.I.P. for those that aren't.
Death of an organization is NOT death of progress, it is the result of progress.
Move on, support the organizations and people who really matter NOW.
3
The one form of activism that I've seen thatseems to get the most results in a capitalistic system like America's is economic boycotts. Even the threat of an economic boycott can change the minds of the most anti-progressive CEOs and politicians. I would love to see organizations such as the NAACP call out publicly companies and politicians that support policies that discriminate against minorities and working people. Thanks to social media, tens of millions of people are able to hear the message and can participate even if they can't always take to the streets.
4
Hmm.
That's funny.
I thought that the idea WAS to make the NAACP irrelevant.
If we continue to move forward on civil rights, would that not be the logical result ?
It would be nice if this is really about ensuring that a special interest group continue to seek rights and privileges beyond those embodied in the Constitution.
But it isn't, is it ? Reading this article, it seems that there are still a few out there who just don't feel whole without raising some sort of ruckus. The problem is, when they gain control, it invariably results in burning their neighbors businesses and houses to the ground.
There is something to be said for fading away.
I am white, yet I can empathize with the desire for an organization that advocates for African-American rights. That said, most of the issues that she is advocating seem more progressive in nature and not specific to African-Americans.
4
Born in upstate NY I think I was 8 before I knew there were black people. I don't believe I actually met a black person until I joined the military at 18 in 66.
Posted in Chicago until 68 I learned a lot about what is often called the struggle and got see my country's dark side first hand. It was during this time I began to question the pledge "with liberty and justice for all".
After 2 degrees, a number of jobs, a military career, and having traveled the world I feel I can comment on this article. So here goes.
1-Cap the pay and perks of the N.A.A.C.P leadership to no more and 150% of the median family income. Doing so will keep the leadership focused and working for the organization so they can make their mark and then move on to jobs with more money. In other words, leverage human nature.
2-The N.A.A.C.P needs a big tent that includes: poor people of all races, and ethnicity; welcome members from the LGBT community, and the new groups of fired up young people. Radical is good sometimes.
3-Forge strong relationships with the Southern Poverty and Law Center, the ACLU and similar groups.
4-Keep in mind the struggle spans all religions; therefore, keep the crazy Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, etc. leaders outside of the tent, or at least in check. I can't define crazy, but I know it when I see it!
5-Make sure academics are balanced by others who have gained an understanding of the issues and possible solutions outside the academic bubble.
Charge on.
Posted in Chicago until 68 I learned a lot about what is often called the struggle and got see my country's dark side first hand. It was during this time I began to question the pledge "with liberty and justice for all".
After 2 degrees, a number of jobs, a military career, and having traveled the world I feel I can comment on this article. So here goes.
1-Cap the pay and perks of the N.A.A.C.P leadership to no more and 150% of the median family income. Doing so will keep the leadership focused and working for the organization so they can make their mark and then move on to jobs with more money. In other words, leverage human nature.
2-The N.A.A.C.P needs a big tent that includes: poor people of all races, and ethnicity; welcome members from the LGBT community, and the new groups of fired up young people. Radical is good sometimes.
3-Forge strong relationships with the Southern Poverty and Law Center, the ACLU and similar groups.
4-Keep in mind the struggle spans all religions; therefore, keep the crazy Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, etc. leaders outside of the tent, or at least in check. I can't define crazy, but I know it when I see it!
5-Make sure academics are balanced by others who have gained an understanding of the issues and possible solutions outside the academic bubble.
Charge on.
8
“If the N.A.A.C.P. is unprepared for emeritus status, it must be ready for a return to the bloody years. It must become radical and expect a time when people will be mocked and potentially even harmed simply for being aligned with it.”
Yes, but any important cause still needs all the support it can get of all kinds, at all levels, and through all channels. In more recent years, the NAACP may appear to have become too much of a comfortable establishment old shoe, one that had long provided vital support to the advancing the black Americans but which was becoming somewhat lethargic and more a symbol than a vigorous organization at a time where activism is much needed. But while dramatic in-your-face black activism is can be very effective, it works best complemented by the constant steady, if sadly too often less visible, supporting efforts of NAACP to maintain and advance those gains made through activism and by other less confrontational approaches. Militant action benefits from complementary diplomatic action; they are synergistic not oppositional.
Yes, but any important cause still needs all the support it can get of all kinds, at all levels, and through all channels. In more recent years, the NAACP may appear to have become too much of a comfortable establishment old shoe, one that had long provided vital support to the advancing the black Americans but which was becoming somewhat lethargic and more a symbol than a vigorous organization at a time where activism is much needed. But while dramatic in-your-face black activism is can be very effective, it works best complemented by the constant steady, if sadly too often less visible, supporting efforts of NAACP to maintain and advance those gains made through activism and by other less confrontational approaches. Militant action benefits from complementary diplomatic action; they are synergistic not oppositional.
6
The N.A.A.C.P. needs to change with the times. However, that does not mean that it is irrelevant. Ms. Harris-Perry talks about a bloated board and administrative work but does not mention the fight for clean water in Flint, Michigan, lawsuits to obtain equal funding for public schools in poor and minority areas, and voter redistricting fights across the country. These issues are among the many that the N.A.A.C.P. has and is fighting that Black Lives Matter, BYP100, and a dozen other organizations do not fight. To fight effectively, you have to be organized. The N.A.A.C.P. has proven time and time again that it is. Indeed, many have written this same article in reverse on BLM - all passion and fight without organization and purpose. I hope that some of the issues of staffing and focus are worked out by both organizations. The one thing that Ms. Harris-Perry and I agree on, is that at this moment, we need all the help we can get.
4
The number one issue inside the African American community is security. Security from white supremacy hate groups, racial profiling, rouge elements in law enforcement.. to name a few. (Health care, education and employment are also relevant.) The black criminal is also creating chaos--gun violence, thugs, and gangs.
The N.A.A.C.P. is way down on my list as a solution the community can turn to. Yes, the N.A.A.C.P. was once a giant and I am glad I lived long enough to see many of their victories. ( I am a 65- year-old black man and a veteran)
It's a new era now and the N.A.A.C.P. needs to figure out a way to help our people.
Like any organization, if there is a person in trouble--vetting that person is the first step, you don't want to represent someone with serious character flaws. But sometimes I think N.A.A.C.P. gets too nervous/scared to get involved in legal cases if a person's background is stained.
I can't watch the N.A.A.C.P Image awards anymore, I get upset seeing the black bourgeois rubbing shoulders and sitting supremely while the black community is hurting.
As for HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson's comment's (May 24): "I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind." Now that comment is something the N.A.A.C.P can address..talk to the brother!!
I think every 2/3 years every black Civil Rights organization in America must sit down: N.A.A.C.P, National Action Network, Nation of Islam, Black Lives Matter etc-- hold a forum and network, cause we need all of you.
The N.A.A.C.P. is way down on my list as a solution the community can turn to. Yes, the N.A.A.C.P. was once a giant and I am glad I lived long enough to see many of their victories. ( I am a 65- year-old black man and a veteran)
It's a new era now and the N.A.A.C.P. needs to figure out a way to help our people.
Like any organization, if there is a person in trouble--vetting that person is the first step, you don't want to represent someone with serious character flaws. But sometimes I think N.A.A.C.P. gets too nervous/scared to get involved in legal cases if a person's background is stained.
I can't watch the N.A.A.C.P Image awards anymore, I get upset seeing the black bourgeois rubbing shoulders and sitting supremely while the black community is hurting.
As for HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson's comment's (May 24): "I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind." Now that comment is something the N.A.A.C.P can address..talk to the brother!!
I think every 2/3 years every black Civil Rights organization in America must sit down: N.A.A.C.P, National Action Network, Nation of Islam, Black Lives Matter etc-- hold a forum and network, cause we need all of you.
5
Unfortunately, in the United States in the 21st Century, the plight of anyone not white is being determined by, guess who, white folks!
Look at our government and tell me that Trump and his fellow Republicans give a 'fig' about minorities. Excuse me, they do care a lot about that 1% minority but they're mostly white and billionaires.
The election of Mr. Obama only cast aside the leaky 'bandage' that hid the growing cancer of racism, hate and bigotry unleashed by 62 million Americans who think that such behavior is just fine.
I assume one can only hope that in 2018 enough disgruntled white voters figure out they've been duped and start throwing some of these charlatans out but I wouldn't count on that. If the NAACP wants to assert relevance then, much like the 'Freedom Rides' in the 60's, initiate voter registration drives AND willing drivers to bring people to their voting stations.
Otherwise, it seems the Black Panthers had the right idea all the time.
Look at our government and tell me that Trump and his fellow Republicans give a 'fig' about minorities. Excuse me, they do care a lot about that 1% minority but they're mostly white and billionaires.
The election of Mr. Obama only cast aside the leaky 'bandage' that hid the growing cancer of racism, hate and bigotry unleashed by 62 million Americans who think that such behavior is just fine.
I assume one can only hope that in 2018 enough disgruntled white voters figure out they've been duped and start throwing some of these charlatans out but I wouldn't count on that. If the NAACP wants to assert relevance then, much like the 'Freedom Rides' in the 60's, initiate voter registration drives AND willing drivers to bring people to their voting stations.
Otherwise, it seems the Black Panthers had the right idea all the time.
1
I believe in the biblical allegories. One of the lessons learned is to take TWO generations to erase the memory of the original sin.
It is a major theme of our religious upbringing, whether we are jew, christian, atheist, or (one suspects) moslem.
Israel was made to wander 40 years(two generations) in the wilderness of Sinai for their sin of worshipping a false idol.
This allegory is important to us, as Americans.
In a similar way, we created an idol, or perhaps an "ideal", of "separate but equal".......sure seemed at first glance to balance American egalitarianism with Racial/Tribal Identity.
By 1965, that ideal got smashed. Just as Aaron and his Levite priests decimated the Israelites.....so did America set out to punish the idolators of "Segregation".
And now, here we are.....two generations later.
NO. The attitudes of Melissa Harris-Perry and the NAACP are actually holding us back from where we need to go as Americans.
Sadly...the obsession for "diversity" and "unity" is orwellian doublespeak. We cannot have "unity" and "diversity" at the same time, only in a deliberately confusing Big Brother Universe is that possible....In 1965, we made it clear, by LAW, no one can be denied a job, a vote, a house, an education, etc....based on his/her race. And now, forty years later, it DOES appear that we, as Americans, willingly and fairly obey the Law.............
It is a major theme of our religious upbringing, whether we are jew, christian, atheist, or (one suspects) moslem.
Israel was made to wander 40 years(two generations) in the wilderness of Sinai for their sin of worshipping a false idol.
This allegory is important to us, as Americans.
In a similar way, we created an idol, or perhaps an "ideal", of "separate but equal".......sure seemed at first glance to balance American egalitarianism with Racial/Tribal Identity.
By 1965, that ideal got smashed. Just as Aaron and his Levite priests decimated the Israelites.....so did America set out to punish the idolators of "Segregation".
And now, here we are.....two generations later.
NO. The attitudes of Melissa Harris-Perry and the NAACP are actually holding us back from where we need to go as Americans.
Sadly...the obsession for "diversity" and "unity" is orwellian doublespeak. We cannot have "unity" and "diversity" at the same time, only in a deliberately confusing Big Brother Universe is that possible....In 1965, we made it clear, by LAW, no one can be denied a job, a vote, a house, an education, etc....based on his/her race. And now, forty years later, it DOES appear that we, as Americans, willingly and fairly obey the Law.............
1
It's interesting for a member of the academic left, which is the most unlikely place in the world of social justice concerns to find leadership or activist organizing, to look at the work of Rev. William Barber and suggest it is evidence of the irrelevance of the NAACP. Not that the NAACP isn't moribund in many communities, but I don't know what Rev. Barber's reasons for leaving the NAACP in context of his broadening his vision are, but it's pretty smug and elitist to suggest that the path forward is simply to find a "queer woman" to take leadership, rather than actually study the work Rev. Barber has been doing so successfully in North Carolina, look at his program, look at the grassroots organizing efforts and ask specifically how he sees the relationship between his forward vision and the NAACP base upon which he was able to build. An entitled member of the academic "left" like Harris-Perry is hardly the voice I would seek out if I was struggling with problems of radical irrelevance or how to move beyond political cul-de-sacs.
7
We've been fighting injustice for decades, yet things seem the same. The focus needs to be on the psychological trap of racism. Study and teach people how not to be racist toward themselves. How many people don't try because they don't think they have a chance. That's a bigger problem than injustice. People don't act like all men are created equal because they have let racism taint their aspirations. When you see injustice and racism everywhere you tend to go nowhere. You develop that feeling Bobby Blue Bland sang: " Can't eat, Can't sleep, Can't go nowhere, Don't wanna go nowhere."
The NAACP has lost it's relevance because the issues it fought against are primarily resolved. Yes, there is still racism (on all sides); there is also bias, on all sides.
The NAACP, like Sharpton, is a bloated organization looking for a problem. Like the countless civil rights departments embedded in all of our government agencies, and now 'diversity' directors in our school systems and colleges. It's nonsense.
When does an organization cease? We have the ACLU and countless other 'non-profits' that used to exist to protect those among us that could not defend ourselves. Now, why do they exist? To extort money and to maintain a divide.
I don't understand why political non-profits and groups such as the black caucus exist today. Their bias makes them part of the problem.
The NAACP, like Sharpton, is a bloated organization looking for a problem. Like the countless civil rights departments embedded in all of our government agencies, and now 'diversity' directors in our school systems and colleges. It's nonsense.
When does an organization cease? We have the ACLU and countless other 'non-profits' that used to exist to protect those among us that could not defend ourselves. Now, why do they exist? To extort money and to maintain a divide.
I don't understand why political non-profits and groups such as the black caucus exist today. Their bias makes them part of the problem.
5
Garbage.
The new generation of activists (for black rights as well other racial/ethnic minorities, women, transgender, etc.)—my age cohort—have learned nothing over the past several years.
They're obsessed with critical theory and intersectionality, asserting that personal narrative trumps well-reasoned arguments in the Liberal tradition. Accordingly, debate has been dropped and people are told to "sit down and listen," as if the subjective experience of marginalized communities should be/is enough to convince the public to take legislative action.
This philosophy is the basis of the author's "radical activism", and it has been a failure.
Almost three years have passed since the killing of Michael Brown and beginning of BLM, and what is there to show for it? Body cameras? #OscarsSoWhite?
No comprehensive, nation-wide reform of the criminal justice system: incarceration rates, prison abuses, private prisons, voter suppression, police violence, etc. People of Color haven't turned out in elections; even Ferguson couldn't elect a black mayor.
But what has it cost? Whites have rallied behind the police and given right-wing groups a huge shot in the arm, the implications of which have clearly been devastating. Reform seems even further out of reach.
Why?
Because the author's brand of activism has aggressively alienated the very people necessary for real reform (not to mention traditional allies). It turns out "sit down and listen" is not a convincing argument.
The new generation of activists (for black rights as well other racial/ethnic minorities, women, transgender, etc.)—my age cohort—have learned nothing over the past several years.
They're obsessed with critical theory and intersectionality, asserting that personal narrative trumps well-reasoned arguments in the Liberal tradition. Accordingly, debate has been dropped and people are told to "sit down and listen," as if the subjective experience of marginalized communities should be/is enough to convince the public to take legislative action.
This philosophy is the basis of the author's "radical activism", and it has been a failure.
Almost three years have passed since the killing of Michael Brown and beginning of BLM, and what is there to show for it? Body cameras? #OscarsSoWhite?
No comprehensive, nation-wide reform of the criminal justice system: incarceration rates, prison abuses, private prisons, voter suppression, police violence, etc. People of Color haven't turned out in elections; even Ferguson couldn't elect a black mayor.
But what has it cost? Whites have rallied behind the police and given right-wing groups a huge shot in the arm, the implications of which have clearly been devastating. Reform seems even further out of reach.
Why?
Because the author's brand of activism has aggressively alienated the very people necessary for real reform (not to mention traditional allies). It turns out "sit down and listen" is not a convincing argument.
6
Just to focus on her last point: Is being queer, or a black woman, or transgender, really ALL it's going to take to be an effective leader? Does having one of those identities automatically make one "capable of offering a radical new direction?" It's incredibly ironic that in order to get away from the certain groups (i.e. blacks) always being judged on their identity and not their qualities, only people of certain other identities, regardless of their qualities, can fix it.
5
Every single powerful group of African - Americans & their representatives in government endorsed Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, supporting the DNC cant that Sanders was a bigot instead of a lifetime supporter of black Americans - handing us the most hated Democrat nominee in modern history, who would lazily go down to defeat at the tiny hands of Trump. No group in this country will be harmed more by Trump's hideous policies than African Americans.
I no longer understand how any organized group can claim to represent such a large, diverse group of people. But the insistent lobbying by African American political groups, representatives in government and in the churches helped to persuade African Americans to throw in with Hillary against Sanders and we are all going to suffer for 4 and possibly 8 long years at Trumps hands as social programs and legal protections and the Attorney General is a guy who might as well be wearing a white hood.
Listening to your 'leaders' has hurt us all. And the proposal that 'queer women' need to step forward and lead these organizations shows how really lost and out of step you are.
I no longer understand how any organized group can claim to represent such a large, diverse group of people. But the insistent lobbying by African American political groups, representatives in government and in the churches helped to persuade African Americans to throw in with Hillary against Sanders and we are all going to suffer for 4 and possibly 8 long years at Trumps hands as social programs and legal protections and the Attorney General is a guy who might as well be wearing a white hood.
Listening to your 'leaders' has hurt us all. And the proposal that 'queer women' need to step forward and lead these organizations shows how really lost and out of step you are.
4
The NAACP is too important an organization to send into Senior Status. However it needs to change.
1. Put term limits on how long Board members and State Presidents can serve. 8 years is long enough. Hazel Dukes deserves a statute on 125th Street, not a life time appointment to the NAACP board
2. Expand "Colored" to include Hispanic and Asian. Hire a 35 year old Afro/Latino with impeccable academic/street credentials as CEO who understands the power of organizing with social media who can articulate a vision of relevance in the 21st.century.
3. Join MPAC a group.of Pastors who have declared New York City to be the Birmingham of the 21st century and are challenging the continued exclusion of people of color from tens of billions of dollars in contracts and all white male Boards and Commissions that award them. The NAACP needs a win. Breaking the back of economic segregation in NYC would be a game changer for people of color and the NAACP. And challenging and winning a fight against segregation in the most important City in the world would send a message that the NAACP is back.
3. Embrace who you are and build a modern framework to thrive. You are not black lives matter. Don t apologize for that. Stay in your lane
1. Put term limits on how long Board members and State Presidents can serve. 8 years is long enough. Hazel Dukes deserves a statute on 125th Street, not a life time appointment to the NAACP board
2. Expand "Colored" to include Hispanic and Asian. Hire a 35 year old Afro/Latino with impeccable academic/street credentials as CEO who understands the power of organizing with social media who can articulate a vision of relevance in the 21st.century.
3. Join MPAC a group.of Pastors who have declared New York City to be the Birmingham of the 21st century and are challenging the continued exclusion of people of color from tens of billions of dollars in contracts and all white male Boards and Commissions that award them. The NAACP needs a win. Breaking the back of economic segregation in NYC would be a game changer for people of color and the NAACP. And challenging and winning a fight against segregation in the most important City in the world would send a message that the NAACP is back.
3. Embrace who you are and build a modern framework to thrive. You are not black lives matter. Don t apologize for that. Stay in your lane
3
You make the point the NAACP is a dinosaur, but not in the way I suspected you intended. You want it to become yet another vague identity politics groups pushing socialist causes without reference to unfair laws or treatment for blacks. Presumably, this is because you understand there really is no point any longer for an organization dedicated to fighting unfair treatment for blacks. In other words, the NAACP has won its struggle. But that is a reason for it to simply disappear, not to morph into something ugly.
31
"Presumably, this is because you understand there really is no point any longer for an organization dedicated to fighting unfair treatment for blacks. In other words, the NAACP has won its struggle."
Did someone just actually say this, *after* that disastrous November election? Sessions, to say nothing of his boss, disproves your comment outright.
Did someone just actually say this, *after* that disastrous November election? Sessions, to say nothing of his boss, disproves your comment outright.
1
The NAACP, like its name, is antiquated an organization of a bygone era. Bureaucratic bloat aside, many of the external structural changes that the NAACP championed are no longer issues. Primary among them is the right of African Americans to openly vote without being intimidated. Professor Harris-Perry has indirectly acknowledged that this mission is accomplished by extending the NAACP mission to LGBT, Queer women, HIV+. This ever growing inclusiveness is also a tacit acknowledgement that little further progress has been made for African Americans on the political front.
An African American President elected, re-elected, two African American Attorney Generals and still little improvement in the average lives of African Americans. While Whites have benefitted from the recovery, many African Americans sense they are becoming part of the permanent underclass. This is largely due to the breakdown of the African American family structure (80% of Black children in NYC born to unwed mothers) and the spectacular collapse of the role of the church in African American families.
The recurrent focus on cases like Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice (death of Black civilians at the hands of White police officers) obscures the real focus that for each of these cases there are hundreds to thousands of Blacks killed by Blacks. What is needed is more effort spent on removing the sense of hopelessness and endlessly portraying one self as victim. Politicking has its limits.
An African American President elected, re-elected, two African American Attorney Generals and still little improvement in the average lives of African Americans. While Whites have benefitted from the recovery, many African Americans sense they are becoming part of the permanent underclass. This is largely due to the breakdown of the African American family structure (80% of Black children in NYC born to unwed mothers) and the spectacular collapse of the role of the church in African American families.
The recurrent focus on cases like Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice (death of Black civilians at the hands of White police officers) obscures the real focus that for each of these cases there are hundreds to thousands of Blacks killed by Blacks. What is needed is more effort spent on removing the sense of hopelessness and endlessly portraying one self as victim. Politicking has its limits.
50
There were and still far more poor white single uneducated unemployed parents living on welfare than there are blacks. While the proportion of blacks is higher there are 5x as many white people. And the current white cohort is identical to that of blacks when a white liberal sage dismissed the black family 'as a tangled web of pathology that would benefit from a period of benign neglect'.
White life expectancy is decreasing due to alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and suicide. Of the 33,000 Americans who die from gun shot every year about 2/3rds are suicides and 80% are white males. Most crime is committed within the same ethnic colored socioeconomic educational group. About 95% of homicides are black on black or white on white. The remaining 5% are equally colored white and black. White Americans are aging and shrinking with below replacement level birthrates.
No one plays the victim better than white men like Donnie Trump.
White life expectancy is decreasing due to alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and suicide. Of the 33,000 Americans who die from gun shot every year about 2/3rds are suicides and 80% are white males. Most crime is committed within the same ethnic colored socioeconomic educational group. About 95% of homicides are black on black or white on white. The remaining 5% are equally colored white and black. White Americans are aging and shrinking with below replacement level birthrates.
No one plays the victim better than white men like Donnie Trump.
1
Usually organizations walk to the tune of the piper who picks the tunes. I am under the impression that financially the NAACP has been beholden to many donors who are not African-American. Has it done enough to make sure that the black stakeholders invest financially in it? If it did, the donors would likely ensure that their investments were getting a return, and that might keep it from irrelevance. We have to model and teach our young people to put whatever funds we have, no matter how meager, towards financing their own organizations and holding those organizations accountable.
I don't see why we can't have diverse organizations - some more activist, others who fight the establishment on establishment turf, and both ends addressing the diverse needs. Relying on funding from outsiders is a sure path to irrelevance - when those outsiders' interests can hardly be fully aligned with our own. Right now, the battle about charter schools is one that deeply affects our future; but, it is primarily waged among white elites - both sides of whose interests diverge from our own. Security quality and conscious education for our young people is a vital mission for any civil rights organization - but we would have to own that struggle, finance it and monitor it. We don't need to retire the NAACP. We need to take ownership of it and act like owners to ensure its profitability.
I don't see why we can't have diverse organizations - some more activist, others who fight the establishment on establishment turf, and both ends addressing the diverse needs. Relying on funding from outsiders is a sure path to irrelevance - when those outsiders' interests can hardly be fully aligned with our own. Right now, the battle about charter schools is one that deeply affects our future; but, it is primarily waged among white elites - both sides of whose interests diverge from our own. Security quality and conscious education for our young people is a vital mission for any civil rights organization - but we would have to own that struggle, finance it and monitor it. We don't need to retire the NAACP. We need to take ownership of it and act like owners to ensure its profitability.
8
This article suffers from the same flaw that permeates much of the discussion on the left. Rather than proposing anything of substance, the author focuses solely on the immutable characteristics of a new leader. Must the leader be gay? transgender? undocumented? Who cares what he or she thinks, as long as we can check the right box.
Rather than moving to a color-blind society where each person is judged on merit, the left seems to be more focused than ever on categorizing and counting each of us by our traits. Where is the world does this lead? Let's focus on moving all people in this county out of poverty, improving schools, rebuilding cities. Those are the things that ultimately matter.
Rather than moving to a color-blind society where each person is judged on merit, the left seems to be more focused than ever on categorizing and counting each of us by our traits. Where is the world does this lead? Let's focus on moving all people in this county out of poverty, improving schools, rebuilding cities. Those are the things that ultimately matter.
197
And the right is color-bind? With its voting laws? With its physical assaults on people of color at political gatherings (Texas just saw a threat in its legislature!)? In its description of inner city neighborhoods as hell holes without any reference to the underdevelopment? With Flint?
Why do the right, conservatives, and Republicans persist in victim blaming?
Why do the right, conservatives, and Republicans persist in victim blaming?
19
This comment surfers from a fatal flaw in its avocation of colorblindness, which does not alleviate problems of racism and bias but rather exacerbates them, by ignoring how one's race profoundly impacts the life he or she leads and making it more difficult to argue for legislation and policy change that would positively impact the lives of people of color.
2
Steve, you mistakenly mentioned the word "merit" The left has no desire to reward people based on merit, rather "entitlements" are distributed evenly based on "identity category.
The black political establishment, from the Congressional Black Caucus on down, was used by Wall St. last year to keep Sanders from defeating Hillary for the Democratic nomination by spreading the absurd lie that Sanders was less committed to helping blacks than Hillary, when the reverse was the case. . Sanders won the white vote, of course. The blacks were literally the only thing standing between Hillary and defeat. So the blacks were responsible for nominating the most despised Democratic candidate in history. The incontrovertible evidence of the Rust Belt exit polls proved that Sanders would have destroyed, to lost to, Trump in that region, and thus won the White House going away. So the black establishment not only shot itself in the foot by, in effect, causing Trump's victory by blocking Sanders for Wall St., it also shot America in the foot by making the absurdity of Trump's reign the threat to all Americans' well-being it so clearly is.
69
All too true. Bernie was getting arrested for civil rights marches in the South while at the same time Hillary was a member of the Young Republicans at Wellesley.
Blacks always vote with Democrats to their detriment. If they were ever a swing vote, like voters in PA, FL or OH, they would actually get something. As a monolithic voting block they ignored by Republicans and taken for granted by the Democrats.
Blacks always vote with Democrats to their detriment. If they were ever a swing vote, like voters in PA, FL or OH, they would actually get something. As a monolithic voting block they ignored by Republicans and taken for granted by the Democrats.
3
Spot on, Fred White! Our country had the first opportunity since Dr. King's assassination to realize the economic agenda that scared the white establishment into killing. Bernie Sanders' agenda was a line-by-line recitation of Dr. King's democratic socialist economics: repair the broken distribution of wealth, provide health care to all, make college affordable for everybody, get the hell out of the for-profit war business. This was in our grasp, but sadly and ironically, Sanders' campaign never caught on with many Black people, largely because of the demographic identity politics that makes so much of today's TV-friendly protests merely symbolic and really ineffective. Today's Black leadership -- both the brilliant young firebrands and the old, elite establishment -- seems to have missed this essential truth.
As writers such a Ta-Nehisi Coates and Khalil Muhammad demonstrate the complicity of our government and the business establishment in white supremacy practices throughout the entire 20th century and into our own, the fatal racist flaw of U.S. capitalism becomes obvious. Whoever's in charge, this is the real discussion that's been missing.
Oh, but we were so close!
As writers such a Ta-Nehisi Coates and Khalil Muhammad demonstrate the complicity of our government and the business establishment in white supremacy practices throughout the entire 20th century and into our own, the fatal racist flaw of U.S. capitalism becomes obvious. Whoever's in charge, this is the real discussion that's been missing.
Oh, but we were so close!
1
Fred White: This comment is a joke, right? You seriously think it's okay to say that black people-- perhaps 15% of the population and non-existent in many of the trump states-- are responsible for the election of trump? Wow, talk about misplaced blame.
5
"Today, the N.A.A.C.P. carries the weight of history and burden of bureaucracy. But it does not seem willing to shed blood, literally, or in terms of the uncomfortable work that characterizes effective activism"
Is the author arguing for politically motivated violence? Because it sure seems like it. And does the NYT endorse it? Well they didn't print the little disclaimer at the bottom that they do on conservative think pieces. So yes. The author is advocating for political violence and the NYT is turning a blind eye. Now that's some progressive coastal morality if I've ever heard it
Is the author arguing for politically motivated violence? Because it sure seems like it. And does the NYT endorse it? Well they didn't print the little disclaimer at the bottom that they do on conservative think pieces. So yes. The author is advocating for political violence and the NYT is turning a blind eye. Now that's some progressive coastal morality if I've ever heard it
29
Jesse, I believe you have misinterpreted . She is asking the new leaders to be willing to lose their own blood at the hands of the violent members of the political right.
We have seen within the last few days a reporter savagely attacked by a newly elected member of congress. The attack could easily have lead to the death of that reporter but we hear that some of the congressman's supporters are proud of him for having put this "liberal" in his place for asking an important question about health care one time too many.
Are you so violent within your own heart that you see this as justifiable? Ms. Harris-Perry is not recommending using violence but rather that we must be willing to face the very real possibility of bloody violence being visited upon us for having asked a question or marched in protest.
You seem to be willing, such as in the case I have cited, to attribute the violence to the victim.
We have seen within the last few days a reporter savagely attacked by a newly elected member of congress. The attack could easily have lead to the death of that reporter but we hear that some of the congressman's supporters are proud of him for having put this "liberal" in his place for asking an important question about health care one time too many.
Are you so violent within your own heart that you see this as justifiable? Ms. Harris-Perry is not recommending using violence but rather that we must be willing to face the very real possibility of bloody violence being visited upon us for having asked a question or marched in protest.
You seem to be willing, such as in the case I have cited, to attribute the violence to the victim.
1
Yes, totally agree. I feel bad for her students who are paying 50K a year to be taught this drivel.
1
I read that line to imply that current NAACP brass are no longer willing to die as civil rights leaders (like Evers) died in the 1960s– at the hands of racist people, or as a result of unprovoked aggressions by the police. The deaths of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner come to mind as a write this. They were willing to shed blood. We can't forget what that kind of sacrifice has meant for this country.
It's sad to think people read this to mean "cause bloodshed."
It's sad to think people read this to mean "cause bloodshed."
3
Seems like what she is preaching is violent street revolution.
That's been tried before and worked not at all.
One of the main reasons Dr, King was so sucessful was that he wanted to bring people together in their common humanity regardless of color. And he wanted to do it without violence.
That's been tried before and worked not at all.
One of the main reasons Dr, King was so sucessful was that he wanted to bring people together in their common humanity regardless of color. And he wanted to do it without violence.
42
History: The NAACP was also founded at a time when African-Americans and Jews shared the struggle. Important to state that in addition to W.E.B DuBois, one of the co-founders of the NAACP was Henry Moskowitz (September 25, 1879 – December 18, 1936), who was a civil rights activist.
5
It is too late. They are irrevelent.
5
While I agree with some of MHP's points, I was stunned when I got to the end of her piece: "Is [the NAACP] ready to have as its president a young person just out of foster care who, because he is transgender and black, lived with vulnerabilities many can’t imagine? These are the kinds of leaders capable of offering a radical new direction for an organization that has been irrelevant for far too long."
"These" are not "leaders"--and, for their own sake and ours, they shouldn't be treated as such. "These" are passionate people with important experiences and opinions--but they are far too inexperienced to be organization leaders.
Can they be powerful voices, especially in our media-dominated era? Yes. Organizers of flexible, short-term, effective activism? Yes. But organizational leadership calls for far more than these attributes, and MHP does the NAACP and her causes no favor by suggesting otherwise. To follow her advice would be to weaken any organization trying to effect meaningful social change.
"These" are not "leaders"--and, for their own sake and ours, they shouldn't be treated as such. "These" are passionate people with important experiences and opinions--but they are far too inexperienced to be organization leaders.
Can they be powerful voices, especially in our media-dominated era? Yes. Organizers of flexible, short-term, effective activism? Yes. But organizational leadership calls for far more than these attributes, and MHP does the NAACP and her causes no favor by suggesting otherwise. To follow her advice would be to weaken any organization trying to effect meaningful social change.
115
Amen. Ben Chavis was picked because he was radical. Ben Jealous was picked because of his hue, youth and mixed colored background. Cornell Brooks is an archetype preacher and lawyer. Walter White, Roy Wilkins and Ben Hooks were the iconic NAACP leaders over the most meaningful NAACP epoch. With the able assistance of Thurgood Marshall in a parallel separate litigation organization along with the lobbying of Clarence Mitchell.
1
I spent a decade of my life volunteering for the N.A.A.C.P. at every level from the local, state and national. I met and worked with many people. Most were hardworking, humble and effective. Many at the top were not.
The greatest strength of the N.A.A.C.P. is it's grass roots local branch structure which provides leadership development and training, information gathering and organizing and practical policy making. This presents the potential of creative independent original leadership. This led to an effective strategy of lawsuits and lobbying for change that culminated in the 1960's legislative victories.
The greatest weakness of the N.A.A.C.P. is it's local branch structure and huge membership which requires rule by a national office led by a 64 member board of imperial potentates. This effectively frustrates and kills any effective original independent original local leadership initiatives.
In response to a race riot in the adopted Springfield Illinois of Abraham Lincoln during which a black man was lynched a call went out for a radical new type of organization to carry the fight against Jim Crow. The founders of the N.A.A.C.P. were an integrated mix of genders, colors, ethnicities and faiths.
The N.A.A.C.P. is a victim of it's own success and inability to evolve and adapt. Born in politically non-partisan opposition the N.A.A.C.P. is not equipped to work with friends. The N.A.A.C.P. problem is structural and historical. Time to gracefully leave.
The greatest strength of the N.A.A.C.P. is it's grass roots local branch structure which provides leadership development and training, information gathering and organizing and practical policy making. This presents the potential of creative independent original leadership. This led to an effective strategy of lawsuits and lobbying for change that culminated in the 1960's legislative victories.
The greatest weakness of the N.A.A.C.P. is it's local branch structure and huge membership which requires rule by a national office led by a 64 member board of imperial potentates. This effectively frustrates and kills any effective original independent original local leadership initiatives.
In response to a race riot in the adopted Springfield Illinois of Abraham Lincoln during which a black man was lynched a call went out for a radical new type of organization to carry the fight against Jim Crow. The founders of the N.A.A.C.P. were an integrated mix of genders, colors, ethnicities and faiths.
The N.A.A.C.P. is a victim of it's own success and inability to evolve and adapt. Born in politically non-partisan opposition the N.A.A.C.P. is not equipped to work with friends. The N.A.A.C.P. problem is structural and historical. Time to gracefully leave.
6
NAACP was always a centralized bureaucracy and extremely elitist. It was never a direct action group. The goal was change via legal means - through the courts. Lawyers fought the long hard slog with much success. But people can't wait forever for a lifeline. I doubt the organization will change much, if at all. The train has left the station. We need a black lawyer group willing to provide inexpensive or pro bono legal counsel to community groups fighting the loss of their lands, gentrification, pollution, police violence, etc. No violence necessary. If all those wealthy lawyer members of NAACP would do just that, it could make a huge difference in thousands of lives.
4
At least here in Chicago blacks dont invest in their communities let alone each other monetarally or even in cleaning up their block park or yard. When they have its met with little success because they individually and collectively do not do enough to help it thrive. The first thing they do with the opportunity by hard work or a section 8 housing voucher is move to a white neighborhood. When whites did it it was immoral and racist when blacks do it its "good for you girl".
Point being, and someone can follow up on this with statistics, modern blacks from the 60s on appear to be one of the few cultures that collectively has not made the hard choices financially and otherwise that the asians polish irish germans hispanics indians et al have made to get ahead. Always looking out for help rather than starting from within.
Blacks need to ask why can a korean open a corner market in our community and be successful but we cannot.
The old adage that they cant get financing because they are black is just that an old adage. True in the past not true today.
Point being, and someone can follow up on this with statistics, modern blacks from the 60s on appear to be one of the few cultures that collectively has not made the hard choices financially and otherwise that the asians polish irish germans hispanics indians et al have made to get ahead. Always looking out for help rather than starting from within.
Blacks need to ask why can a korean open a corner market in our community and be successful but we cannot.
The old adage that they cant get financing because they are black is just that an old adage. True in the past not true today.
1
The NAACP has always and continues to be a great credit to American Democracy. Given these perilous times and the threats being presented to long and hard fought progress a solid and stable voice at the helm of the NAACP is needed now more than ever, not just for African Americans but for all Americans.That is why attempts to radicalize this organization should be resisted. When Dr. King was assassinated he was fine tuning the civil rights movement to include economic justice for all. If the NAACP could get that very important message back on track it could be very consequential in these trying and challenging times.
10
This article represents the exact opposite of what the NAACP should do. The way for the NAACP to remain relevant is to focus on relevant issues, not become more radical. Leave behind the identity politics and obsession with intersectionality, and instead focus on education, crime rates amongst young people, and the number of children being born with no father in the picture.
In short, the NAACP ought to live up to its name to remain relevant -- it should be about the actual advancement of everyday African Americans.
In short, the NAACP ought to live up to its name to remain relevant -- it should be about the actual advancement of everyday African Americans.
81
By definition focusing on black people *is a form of the identity politics you argue for them to eschew. Are you asking they only focus on men? Because if they focus on black women that's gender race which equals ... intersectionlity.
M H-P. I miss you on TV!!!!! Your voice is necessary.
6
Why not take the fight into the core of whiteness, the essence of white supremacy and extremes of white privilege? Why not confront the social damage of white dominated culture? The NAACP could use its power to call out the social abomination of our racially based caste system.
1
What you call "white privilege" I call hard work. Quite blaming whites for every personal failure of blacks.
4
The 'Democratic' Party seems to be hiding and seems to have not been able to gather itself up and move forward with new voices stating the 'Democratic' agenda for America.
Someone needs to step in and help the failing party. The NAACP can begin to help fill this growing void. Help to coalesce the African-American voice and get people to run for office. The NAACP can help if they so choose the 'Democratic' party respond to the African American base that it has and formulate policy to present to the country.
African American women have formed the working local base of the party for years and since the party officials are doing so poorly, they could step up and take charge. It could be just what the Democrats need to push them out of their stagnation.
Someone needs to step in and help the failing party. The NAACP can begin to help fill this growing void. Help to coalesce the African-American voice and get people to run for office. The NAACP can help if they so choose the 'Democratic' party respond to the African American base that it has and formulate policy to present to the country.
African American women have formed the working local base of the party for years and since the party officials are doing so poorly, they could step up and take charge. It could be just what the Democrats need to push them out of their stagnation.
3
Where have we heard this before? Oh yeah, Malcolm X, Rap Brown, Stokley Carmichael in the 1960's lamenting the inaction of the mainstream civil rights movement . Yet who survived? Miss Perry would do wll to examine the past with a little more scrutiny.
(Oh Yes, a White moderate may offer his perspective, so lets not go there, Okay?)
(Oh Yes, a White moderate may offer his perspective, so lets not go there, Okay?)
4
The unjustified killing of young black men is evil, but the hard truth is, these are sporadic incidents. When we look at what ails black American communities across America and large scale problems to fight the way we fought segregation and police brutality back then, black boys dying at the hands of the police simply does not rise to this level. If tomorrow, all the police departments in the world stopped killing black boys, it would not materially change the condition of black America. The Professor is playing an academic game here. College kids get to evaluate their teachers and it forces the teachers to be hip, even with hip is wrong. When we look at large scale trends that stop young black men from entering mainstream American society, one the leading negative indicators is higher education and it is not irony or oversight that causes Ms Perry to miss this. She is who she is because, growing up, she worked hard in school. She is proud of it and if you glance at her twitter feed, you will see she celebrates this with other black women. How wrong and cheating is it then for her to then publish with the NY Times going on and on about the need to focus on police shootings involving black young black men? Black Academia stopped being relevant long ago, precisely because as individuals, they seek to pacify our young people with false easy fixes instead of insisting on basic modern adult axioms, one of which says: hard work in the class room is a basic measure of true success.
98
I guess your aren't aware... the most educated people in the United States of America are, African- American women. Look it up....
GregAbdul you are so correct in your understanding of today's reality that such well meaning people as Ms Harris-Perry need to read your post over and over if they truly want to make a difference. Actually, your criticism of academia extends across academia which has become just another edutainment forum for popularity rather than intellectual development.
1
Was that the point of this article? I don't want to argue black women here. The Black American community has a 75% illegitimacy rate and I don't think it's black men unmarried we are talking about when this number comes up. The main idea of this article (5th grade reading?) is that the NAACP is not volatile nor radical enough. I said, Ms Perry is who she is because she worked hard in the classroom, not because she went in the streets to fix the police. I said it is beyond irony when a black academic patronizes young people and encourages solutions that said academic person has never done, nor would let her daughter do. My question for you: what are you talking about? Are you trying to imply that black women are superior to all other race and gender groups? Isn't that racist sexist thinking?
2
The article never gives the full name of the organization, instead using its initials throughout. The name of the organization is outdated.
To get current, they would have to become the NAAPC (people of color), which would be derided as the National Association for the Advancement of Political Correctness.
But in any case, instead of trying to recapture its core audience, the group should leap ahead to embrace a wider range of races, religions and issues.
Attacks on the Affordable Care Act will impact whites and blacks, so don't defend it because it's part of Obama's "legacy," defend it because it's the right thing to do.
The Times had an article about the meatpacking industry https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/business/economy/storm-lake-iowa-immi... and the issues of wages and worker safety affect everyone involved, regardless of their skin color.
Police kill unarmed whites in addition to blacks, so champion those victims, too, and earn the respect and support of people who might not initially be inclined to listen to you.
Engage with Muslims. Engage with Jews. Engage with atheists.
But mainly, organize, organize, organize!
To get current, they would have to become the NAAPC (people of color), which would be derided as the National Association for the Advancement of Political Correctness.
But in any case, instead of trying to recapture its core audience, the group should leap ahead to embrace a wider range of races, religions and issues.
Attacks on the Affordable Care Act will impact whites and blacks, so don't defend it because it's part of Obama's "legacy," defend it because it's the right thing to do.
The Times had an article about the meatpacking industry https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/business/economy/storm-lake-iowa-immi... and the issues of wages and worker safety affect everyone involved, regardless of their skin color.
Police kill unarmed whites in addition to blacks, so champion those victims, too, and earn the respect and support of people who might not initially be inclined to listen to you.
Engage with Muslims. Engage with Jews. Engage with atheists.
But mainly, organize, organize, organize!
3
President Obama can save the NAACP.
A spokesman of importance does not exist. General Powell ran from it and it seems President Obama is more interested in a career earning big bucks.
At a time when law enforcement's mistreatment of black men are being exposed, a leader such as President Obama is needed.
A spokesman of importance does not exist. General Powell ran from it and it seems President Obama is more interested in a career earning big bucks.
At a time when law enforcement's mistreatment of black men are being exposed, a leader such as President Obama is needed.
1
"One night in June 1940, police in Brownsville, Tenn., dragged Elbert Williams from his bed, beat him, shot him in the chest and dumped him in the Hatchie River for the transgressions of helping to form a chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. and trying to register voters"
Certainly Elbert Williams' goal remains painfully relevant.
With the spread of voter suppression and laws requiring IDs that many lack, the work to enable people to register, to vote, and to run for office, not only remains essential but is an emergency.
It may take multiple journeys of hundreds of miles for people who lack cars to get the appropriate IDs. There is essential and important work to be done. The NAACP, with its nationwide membership of concerned citizens and voters, and networks of local chapters that people can join, inspire, lead, and partner with, certainly is in a position to play a transformational role. This is no time for a circular firing squad.
Certainly Elbert Williams' goal remains painfully relevant.
With the spread of voter suppression and laws requiring IDs that many lack, the work to enable people to register, to vote, and to run for office, not only remains essential but is an emergency.
It may take multiple journeys of hundreds of miles for people who lack cars to get the appropriate IDs. There is essential and important work to be done. The NAACP, with its nationwide membership of concerned citizens and voters, and networks of local chapters that people can join, inspire, lead, and partner with, certainly is in a position to play a transformational role. This is no time for a circular firing squad.
21
Voters in the state of GA get their transportation and the voter cards for free. If they do not have a birth certificate, the state works to find and obtain that certificate. We are not suppressing citizens of any color or ethnicity or religion with voter ID laws.
And it's 2017. People can vote by mail (I've received 3 voting cards to mail for the June runoff for senator. All I have to do is mail them in; without a stamp as they are pre-stamped. I can vote on the Internet, or in person, early - over 6 weeks of open voting. I wonder... what if I just mail in all 3 ballots that I've received?
And it's 2017. People can vote by mail (I've received 3 voting cards to mail for the June runoff for senator. All I have to do is mail them in; without a stamp as they are pre-stamped. I can vote on the Internet, or in person, early - over 6 weeks of open voting. I wonder... what if I just mail in all 3 ballots that I've received?
2
Harris-Perry poses the right question, how does an organization become relevant in this post civil rights era?
Post civil rights doesn't mean that struggling for voting rights and and other civil protections aren't important. But we can't simply vote solutions to a system of structural inequality and institutional racism that characterizes the post civil rights era.
The NAACP must realize the difference between civil rights advocacy as a defensive tactic to stem the roll back of basic civil liberties and a strategic vision of society for deep, fundamental change that recognizes that the current political/economic system cannot meet the basic human needs of the African American community; or for that matter the needs of all working people in America. The evidence of that failure is unmistakable.
Black America has embraced the values of social democracy since the 1880's and the Southern Workers Coop movement. But the NAACP has kept us in the fold of the Democratic Party and we see where that has gotten us. A new, radical vision is a needed and once articulated, successful tactics will emerge.
But the tactics must proceed from the recognition that finance capitalism in the 21st century is a failing system and racism, mass incarceration, unemployment, decaying schools and lack of heath care are its symptoms, not the disease itself.
The NAACP is irrelevant if it is not radical and only a radical vision for change can meet the dire needs that our people face today.
Post civil rights doesn't mean that struggling for voting rights and and other civil protections aren't important. But we can't simply vote solutions to a system of structural inequality and institutional racism that characterizes the post civil rights era.
The NAACP must realize the difference between civil rights advocacy as a defensive tactic to stem the roll back of basic civil liberties and a strategic vision of society for deep, fundamental change that recognizes that the current political/economic system cannot meet the basic human needs of the African American community; or for that matter the needs of all working people in America. The evidence of that failure is unmistakable.
Black America has embraced the values of social democracy since the 1880's and the Southern Workers Coop movement. But the NAACP has kept us in the fold of the Democratic Party and we see where that has gotten us. A new, radical vision is a needed and once articulated, successful tactics will emerge.
But the tactics must proceed from the recognition that finance capitalism in the 21st century is a failing system and racism, mass incarceration, unemployment, decaying schools and lack of heath care are its symptoms, not the disease itself.
The NAACP is irrelevant if it is not radical and only a radical vision for change can meet the dire needs that our people face today.
5
Ms Harris-Perry's comments on the relevance of today's NAACP could easily apply to the major political parties as well. Once bureaucracy and self aggrandizement takes over an organization, the organization does become irrelevant.
There may be some other factors at work as well.
Thurgood Marshall was the most important African American who lived in the 20th century, maybe in the history of the US. His leadership, personal example, intellect and courage opened the doors of human rights for African Americans in this county and kept them open open.
Ok, so what. The "so what" is that today Mr Marshall and people of his caliber have options other than political organizations in which to develop their talent. That does not imply such people do not care for the human rights of others. It does imply that they, like so many of their peers of other races, can choose to apply themselves in other arenas. Thus, such organizations as today's NAACP are starved for the best minds. Much like the two political parties for much of the same reasons.
Ms Harris-Perry might also examine the moral, family and ethical values of the people who founded, comprised the membership and made the NAACP a force for progressive change and assertion of human rights. Therein lie many lessons for mobilizing people and establishing behavioral parity with the other members of society for whom the NAACP depended for human and political support.
There may be some other factors at work as well.
Thurgood Marshall was the most important African American who lived in the 20th century, maybe in the history of the US. His leadership, personal example, intellect and courage opened the doors of human rights for African Americans in this county and kept them open open.
Ok, so what. The "so what" is that today Mr Marshall and people of his caliber have options other than political organizations in which to develop their talent. That does not imply such people do not care for the human rights of others. It does imply that they, like so many of their peers of other races, can choose to apply themselves in other arenas. Thus, such organizations as today's NAACP are starved for the best minds. Much like the two political parties for much of the same reasons.
Ms Harris-Perry might also examine the moral, family and ethical values of the people who founded, comprised the membership and made the NAACP a force for progressive change and assertion of human rights. Therein lie many lessons for mobilizing people and establishing behavioral parity with the other members of society for whom the NAACP depended for human and political support.
10
The legitimate cry to sharpen the focus of what needs to be done in order to more effectively limit the increasing violating of a socio-political constructed "the other," in a changing here and now, should be sensitive about not falling into a binary trap of asking Yes-No questions.Given that a range of viable options exist, as well as can be created, it would be helpful to stimulate innovative thinking in terms of "what are the interacting internal and external conditions which are necessary for viable targeted shorter and longer term objectives to be achieved, and sustained? Who are the people, in what roles and levels of types of needed activism, who are most likely to effect targeted changes? What are the prioritized human and non-human barriers to needed changes to focus on in order to disempower institutionalized violating of "the other?" What are the viable, necessary, interacting, prioritized bridges to be created/strengthened, without which targeted social change is little more than a mantra? How can current, diverse, agents-of-change increase their-our fellowship of mutual help, and mutual caring-respect, in order to effect more equitable sharing of human and non-human resources which are critical for achieving and sustaining levels and qualities of well being and quality of life in daily coping, adapting and functioning. In the family.Neighborhood. Community. Different organizations. Moving beyond words-which are not the THING.Nor are Yes-No queries a path.
1
Actually NAACP, which has a bank of moral and political equity almost without parallel, suffers from a classic case of mission drift: the organization's agenda looks like it was drafted by a Democrat political operative. That can be fixed without depleting all of the organization's hard-fought equity. But the solution proposed here? More mission drift and an agenda written by progressive academic elites. We can debate about the moral value of adopting a more divisive stance on everything - it certainly would get media attention and please the base - but in terms of "meaningful outcomes," well, suffice it to say that nobody would be happier if NAACP took the author's advice than the Republicans, whose efforts - successful so far - to gain control of nearly every elected office in all layers of government would be given yet another boost by progressive hubris.
18
If the NAACP follows the recommendations in the article it will face the same fate as the Democratic Party: irrelevance. Adopting all "progressive" causes will turn it into yet another leftish organization that is championing all political correct causes that are in fashion at the moment - while almost forgetting the reason why it was founded.
if the NAACP wants to be relevant it should focus on issues that matter to black people more than to other people, such as mass incarceration, police violence and meandered voting districts. However, it should largely ignore issues like women rights, LGBTQ issues and immigration. There are other organizations doing a good job advocating those issues and adopting them in NAACP will lead to needless internal divisions.
if the NAACP wants to be relevant it should focus on issues that matter to black people more than to other people, such as mass incarceration, police violence and meandered voting districts. However, it should largely ignore issues like women rights, LGBTQ issues and immigration. There are other organizations doing a good job advocating those issues and adopting them in NAACP will lead to needless internal divisions.
42
Further dividing the beneficiaries of identity politics as a way to move forward will merely segment the N Double A's focus, reduce its impact and hasten its death spiral into meaninglessness. Amazing that Prof. Harris-Perry talks about all the great things the organization has done and doesn't mention the Legal Defense Fund one single, solitary time. That component has done more for minority group members in America than the rest of the NAACP combined. A renewed and aggressive focus on litigation must be at the top of the agenda.
9
The proof is in results. It is not enough to protest.
MLK got more done in less time simply by being a brilliant orator and marching with the people.
March. Move. Always walk in public. Carry signs. Don't stop...Montgomery to DC. It is hard. Good work is always hard.
Everything else is irrelevant.
MLK got more done in less time simply by being a brilliant orator and marching with the people.
March. Move. Always walk in public. Carry signs. Don't stop...Montgomery to DC. It is hard. Good work is always hard.
Everything else is irrelevant.
7
The story of America. Dollars and cents rule while common sense about what we must do to preserve and expand our values are ignored, not just in the civil rights world. No wonder why polls show declining support for our values, we are losing. Not the first time this has happened, but the problems do not cure themselves, as Ms. Harris-Perry points out.
1
An organiztion that was relevant when lynchings were common and discrimination prevalent rightly should not and does not matter in 2017.
Perhaps instead of radicalizing it could get to work on universally relevant endeavors such as education, strengthening families and reducing neighborhood violence.
While working these much needed areas of vital concer are certainly not as entertains as spitting on law enforcement or hurling "alley apples" through plate glass windows, they are much more needed in today'world.
Perhaps instead of radicalizing it could get to work on universally relevant endeavors such as education, strengthening families and reducing neighborhood violence.
While working these much needed areas of vital concer are certainly not as entertains as spitting on law enforcement or hurling "alley apples" through plate glass windows, they are much more needed in today'world.
36
Thank you for saying out loud what had been in so many of our hearts. Many of us who are old enough to remember the movement of the NAACP have restricted our voices because we didn't want to "air our dirty laundry" in public. We do know, however, that we will not get better or change if we do not articulate the problem(s). So, thank you for saying it so well and in social, political and historical context. I hope and pray that the NAACP will hear this and choose to become progressive.
7
"Those who profess to favor freedom
And yet deprecate agitation
Are men who want crops
Without plowing the ground.
They want rain without thunder and lightening.
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will."
Frederick Douglas, August 4, 1857.
Some things don’t change.
Gains were made during the Civil Rights years of the late 50's and 60's, but one effect of those gains was the waning of the energy for further reform. Not only did progress slow to a crawl, in this century those early gains are being eroded as bigoted populism is rising. We see the tactic of attacking those who protest as lawless and blaming them for seeking their rights and protecting their very lives. Non-violence was central to the effectiveness of Dr. King in laying blame where it belonged.
BYP100, Black Lives Matter, and Barber’s jumping to a poor people’s movement reflect the urgency and timeliness of making demands and backing them up. Efforts by those in power to assimilate protest and appease with tokens must be rejected.
New tactics utilizing current technology must be developed.
Demands must be non-violent, intrepid, and LOUD.
And yet deprecate agitation
Are men who want crops
Without plowing the ground.
They want rain without thunder and lightening.
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will."
Frederick Douglas, August 4, 1857.
Some things don’t change.
Gains were made during the Civil Rights years of the late 50's and 60's, but one effect of those gains was the waning of the energy for further reform. Not only did progress slow to a crawl, in this century those early gains are being eroded as bigoted populism is rising. We see the tactic of attacking those who protest as lawless and blaming them for seeking their rights and protecting their very lives. Non-violence was central to the effectiveness of Dr. King in laying blame where it belonged.
BYP100, Black Lives Matter, and Barber’s jumping to a poor people’s movement reflect the urgency and timeliness of making demands and backing them up. Efforts by those in power to assimilate protest and appease with tokens must be rejected.
New tactics utilizing current technology must be developed.
Demands must be non-violent, intrepid, and LOUD.
3
Seems as if an angry Ms Harris-Perry longs for the good old days of violence in the streets. She might consider that the NAACP is moderate because it has been broadly successful.
12
The NAACP has to step aside if they are not prepared to return to bloody violence? That right there is a failure of leadership. Whether you can admit it or not, this country had made racial progress. And it has been done largely without violence. Injustice remains, and issues of race may linger forever, but we can strive always to improve. There is no need, no justification for violence on this issue.
Want to make a big difference in the lives of black kids? Get them to stay in school. Stop teenage pregnancy. The black community has a lot internal cultural work to do on itself. And the larger community is not finished with their own progress either, so organizations like the NAACP are relevant, if bureaucratic.
What we don't need are grenade throwers. There is enough violence. Besides, violence barely moves us anymore. Aren't we all getting numb from it? What will you recommend when you find that your plan for violence changes nothing for the better? Super duper violence? You really have no good ideas to share today. The search for leadership continues...
Want to make a big difference in the lives of black kids? Get them to stay in school. Stop teenage pregnancy. The black community has a lot internal cultural work to do on itself. And the larger community is not finished with their own progress either, so organizations like the NAACP are relevant, if bureaucratic.
What we don't need are grenade throwers. There is enough violence. Besides, violence barely moves us anymore. Aren't we all getting numb from it? What will you recommend when you find that your plan for violence changes nothing for the better? Super duper violence? You really have no good ideas to share today. The search for leadership continues...
Zora Neale Hurston's words presciently italicize the current dichotomy between the sclerotic NAACP, and more relevant, confrontational groups, like BYP 100, Dream Defenders, and BLM. "Those that don't got it, can't show it, those that got it, can't hide it."
Retired faculty members are able to continue making "meaningful contributions" because their pensions and benefit allow them to maintain their standard of living. Who would fund an "emeritus" NAACP?
And for what reason? What is this work that the author suggests "legacy civil rights organizations" should do if they get out of activism?
Harris-Perry makes a convincing case for change, but one of her solutions — that the NAACP "step to the side" yet continue to exist — seems unworkable.
The great work it has done must continue to be honored, but that doesn't mean it needs to be kept on life support if it cedes its core mission.
And for what reason? What is this work that the author suggests "legacy civil rights organizations" should do if they get out of activism?
Harris-Perry makes a convincing case for change, but one of her solutions — that the NAACP "step to the side" yet continue to exist — seems unworkable.
The great work it has done must continue to be honored, but that doesn't mean it needs to be kept on life support if it cedes its core mission.
5
its sort of like the schism between W E B and Booker T. change is hard that is the way it always is.
4
I'm afraid that it is the likes of Melissa Harris-Perry that need to assume their emeritus status. Those that subscribe to a view that the path to equal accomplishment in society is to harp on generic racism and demand the closing of less and less overt racist barriers as the solution to the plight of the Black community ignores the overwhelming social issues that truly hamper success. From single or no parent families, high levels of criminal activities, low value of education a family imperative to drugs and lack of role models, Black America has far greater issues than the current state of racial bias. A pitchfork political agenda that ignores the basic fractures in society will not only result in failure but discount the basic need for self-reliance by adopting a policy of outsourcing one's success to either government or political movement. An honest appraisal of why certain subgroups succeed without the fear of being called a racist is a critical requirement.
87
For decades a majority of the poorly educated single parent unemployed welfare dependent families in America have looked white like Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston.
While the black portion is higher there are 5x as many white people. And the black cohort is shrinking the white population in poverty is growing and currently equal to that of blacks when a white sage dismissed the black family 'as a tangled web of pathology that would benefit from a period of benign neglect'.
The white American majority life expectancy has uniquely declined due to alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and suicide. About 80% of American suicides are white men. The white population in America is aging and shrinking with a below replacement level birthrate.
For decades twice as many white people have been arrested for all categories of crimes as compared to blacks. More whites are also arrested for each specific crime compared to blacks except for gambling and robbery. Arrests are not random events. But blacks are persecuted into prison for doing things that gets whites a pass.
If you are a racist white supremacist bigot how could you fear that label in the era of Donnie Trump.
While the black portion is higher there are 5x as many white people. And the black cohort is shrinking the white population in poverty is growing and currently equal to that of blacks when a white sage dismissed the black family 'as a tangled web of pathology that would benefit from a period of benign neglect'.
The white American majority life expectancy has uniquely declined due to alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and suicide. About 80% of American suicides are white men. The white population in America is aging and shrinking with a below replacement level birthrate.
For decades twice as many white people have been arrested for all categories of crimes as compared to blacks. More whites are also arrested for each specific crime compared to blacks except for gambling and robbery. Arrests are not random events. But blacks are persecuted into prison for doing things that gets whites a pass.
If you are a racist white supremacist bigot how could you fear that label in the era of Donnie Trump.
2
Usually, when there's infighting among groups within a movement, there's a turf battle of some sort: resources, ideology, control, strategy.
To be sure, the NAACP is lumbering and slumping, but what I don't get from Ms Harrris-Perry's piece is why she's directing her fire at such an easy sitting target as the NAACP? Is the NAACP depriving more dynamic and relevant groups of resources, of strategic control? If the NAACP were to disappear tomorrow, would the movement that she wants to see suddenly take off and succeed?
The tent is huge, and no single group can do everything for everybody. Witness the ay rights movement which took in allies from wherever they came, including in the person of Ted Olson. Each group advanced one piece a bit and together the movement advanced a lot more than could have been possible by any single group.
To be sure, the NAACP is lumbering and slumping, but what I don't get from Ms Harrris-Perry's piece is why she's directing her fire at such an easy sitting target as the NAACP? Is the NAACP depriving more dynamic and relevant groups of resources, of strategic control? If the NAACP were to disappear tomorrow, would the movement that she wants to see suddenly take off and succeed?
The tent is huge, and no single group can do everything for everybody. Witness the ay rights movement which took in allies from wherever they came, including in the person of Ted Olson. Each group advanced one piece a bit and together the movement advanced a lot more than could have been possible by any single group.
11
A compelling argument for change. The only realistic answer to Harris-Perry's question is: emeritus.
Isn't the entire point about making groups like the NAACP irrelevant? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't need the NAACP because color was blind?
The NAACP is an outdated shadow of its former self will will continue to fade into obscurity.
Good riddance.
Good riddance.
6
Thanks, CO, it's always important to hear white people's opinions about organizations to which they've had little or no exposure.
3
"To get there, the N.A.A.C.P. must search for its new president not in the highest places, but rather in the lowest."
Translation: victimhood should be a currency, and the measure of social value. I'm not sure this is really a productive way forward. I vastly prefer a movement based on power and agency, rather than victimhood, which tends towards passivity.
The only actual issue the article mentions is police brutality. Admittedly, this is an important one. African Americans are disproportionately shot and killed by police (at roughly 2.5x the rate one would expect based on population, although this number falls a bit when you start comparing likes to likes re: income, education and neighbourhood). We know this, and have known this for a long time. However, by framing police brutality EXCLUSIVELY as a race issue, which it simply isn't, activists have turned off many of the more tribal, suburban whites. Unfortunately, this makes life-saving reform far less likely.
The fact is that race plays a part, obviously, but the biggest culprit is the widespread American belief in violence and authoritarianism. This cancer infects many aspects of American society, and needs to be addressed head on, under as big a tent as humanly possible. By completely ignoring the 2/3 of police killings in which the victim is not black activists have shrunk their pool of support, and watered down the wider debate, to everyone's detriment.
Translation: victimhood should be a currency, and the measure of social value. I'm not sure this is really a productive way forward. I vastly prefer a movement based on power and agency, rather than victimhood, which tends towards passivity.
The only actual issue the article mentions is police brutality. Admittedly, this is an important one. African Americans are disproportionately shot and killed by police (at roughly 2.5x the rate one would expect based on population, although this number falls a bit when you start comparing likes to likes re: income, education and neighbourhood). We know this, and have known this for a long time. However, by framing police brutality EXCLUSIVELY as a race issue, which it simply isn't, activists have turned off many of the more tribal, suburban whites. Unfortunately, this makes life-saving reform far less likely.
The fact is that race plays a part, obviously, but the biggest culprit is the widespread American belief in violence and authoritarianism. This cancer infects many aspects of American society, and needs to be addressed head on, under as big a tent as humanly possible. By completely ignoring the 2/3 of police killings in which the victim is not black activists have shrunk their pool of support, and watered down the wider debate, to everyone's detriment.
Radicalism must include a critique of capitalism and alternative economic models to uproot the race-class conundrum.
It's not the issues, it's the organization. It is too easy today to form a nonprofit, raise some money, pay yourself a salary, and focus on the issues you want (along with raising more money.)It is much harder to join an established group and work with what the people already there want you to do (and usually for no salary.)
"Mr. Barber announced this month that he will step down from his role to organize a poor people’s campaign like the one the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was building when he was killed. Most revealing is Mr. Barber’s apparent belief that this social-justice work could not be done within the framework of the N.A.A.C.P."
Because then the NAACP, like the Democrats and their splintered coalition, would have to care about the grievances of the white voters who voted for Trump after voting for Obama. The rich laugh as the hoi polloi argue over Black Lives Matter and transgender locker rooms. Dr. MLK Jr. was exactly right: we won't be free until we're all free, including our indentured servant whites. You think I'm exaggerating? Look at the Times article on non-compete clauses for absurd categories of workers. Look at the Uber, gig, read serf economy. There is no freedom without economic freedom, for all of the 99%.
Because then the NAACP, like the Democrats and their splintered coalition, would have to care about the grievances of the white voters who voted for Trump after voting for Obama. The rich laugh as the hoi polloi argue over Black Lives Matter and transgender locker rooms. Dr. MLK Jr. was exactly right: we won't be free until we're all free, including our indentured servant whites. You think I'm exaggerating? Look at the Times article on non-compete clauses for absurd categories of workers. Look at the Uber, gig, read serf economy. There is no freedom without economic freedom, for all of the 99%.
160
Economic justice is social justice, economic inequality know no race or gender. Sanders understood this, Clinton did not.
1
"The rich laugh as the hoi polloi argue over Black Lives Matter and transgender locker rooms."
It's all one struggle. If you're jumping off the bandwagon it's because of your contempt and prejudice against those of us who are aboard together.
It's all one struggle. If you're jumping off the bandwagon it's because of your contempt and prejudice against those of us who are aboard together.
1
But by every meaningful positive socioeconomic educational measure blacks folks are persistently perpetually twice as worse off as whites in America.
In order to become a meaningful organization the NAACP needs to embrace all people of color and not just be an African American entity. Latinos, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and American Indians are people of color too. Black bias and the disregard for other peoples of color are the real reasons the NAACP has become irrelevant. Inclusion, rather than exclusion will regenerate meaning into what is historically an important organization.
5
Only African Americans suffered slavery and Jim Crow. Only African Americans have been legally declared less than fully human. It's a shame they don't teach this in schools, but it upsets the white supremacists.
2
The Republican Party has done very well by ignoring all colored people other than white.
Some Latinos are white like Cruz and Rubio.
Asian is geography that includes Russian, Indian, Pakistani, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.
What is the meaning of being a Pacific Islander?
What is the meaning of being Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, Comanche, Cherokee or Lakota?
What prevents Latinos, Asians, Pacific Islanders and American Indians from forming their own civil rights organizations?
Some Latinos are white like Cruz and Rubio.
Asian is geography that includes Russian, Indian, Pakistani, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.
What is the meaning of being a Pacific Islander?
What is the meaning of being Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, Comanche, Cherokee or Lakota?
What prevents Latinos, Asians, Pacific Islanders and American Indians from forming their own civil rights organizations?
1
This opinion seems to be self-serving and myopic. The biggest battles won by the NAACP were in courts, not via marching. MHP says nothing about the potential role this historical civil rights organization could play in contemporary court rooms. Social justice is in need of court justice, voting justice, and moral justice for all disadvantaged groups. MHP needs to dig deeper beyond the soundbite culture she admires.
MC
MC
The NAACP is an historically significant, but now obsolete organization. To survive maybe they could drop the 'C' in the title - simply become the National Association for the Advancement of People - might be more appropriate.
It seems somewhat divisive (even racist), certainly there's a degree of irony, to maintain the term 'Colored' in a title (even as a convention) when your stated purpose includes the 'elimination of racial hatred and racial discrimination'.
We all bleed red.
It seems somewhat divisive (even racist), certainly there's a degree of irony, to maintain the term 'Colored' in a title (even as a convention) when your stated purpose includes the 'elimination of racial hatred and racial discrimination'.
We all bleed red.
There is a logical error known as a false dichotomy. The author falls into this error by asserting that the NAACP has two choices: fading away or radicalizing. Put another way, the author asserts that the only way for the NAACP to continue existing is to espouse her special interests. That is intellectually indefensible.
It seems to me that the NAACP has a lot to be proud of and a history to build on. Unlike race baiters who personally profit from discord, the NAACP has occupied a leadership position in enhancing the lives of our black community with dignity and assurance. To ally, even a little bit, with haters of free speech and exploiters of violence would certainly destroy this organization.
To paraphrase Adam Clayton Powell: "black power doesn't mean anything unless you have green power" and never were truer words spoken. As the black middle class grows it's influence grows and the acts that the author would counter thru violence become unacceptable in the eyes of all americans.
Perhaps a good place to start would be to use the vote as a rapier as opposed to a cudgel. Why is it the the Democrats can assume 100% of the black vote? What do they do to deserve it? Not yesterday, today. The way to shape policy is not to be taken for granted. A role for the NAACP could be capitalizing on the natural evolution of voter registration to voter impact: find the elections that can be swung by the black community and then horse trade. Hire Carl Rove maybe.
It seems to me that the NAACP has a lot to be proud of and a history to build on. Unlike race baiters who personally profit from discord, the NAACP has occupied a leadership position in enhancing the lives of our black community with dignity and assurance. To ally, even a little bit, with haters of free speech and exploiters of violence would certainly destroy this organization.
To paraphrase Adam Clayton Powell: "black power doesn't mean anything unless you have green power" and never were truer words spoken. As the black middle class grows it's influence grows and the acts that the author would counter thru violence become unacceptable in the eyes of all americans.
Perhaps a good place to start would be to use the vote as a rapier as opposed to a cudgel. Why is it the the Democrats can assume 100% of the black vote? What do they do to deserve it? Not yesterday, today. The way to shape policy is not to be taken for granted. A role for the NAACP could be capitalizing on the natural evolution of voter registration to voter impact: find the elections that can be swung by the black community and then horse trade. Hire Carl Rove maybe.
The NAACP was formerly well respected for its commitment to civil rights for Black Americans.
Now it has degenerated into a "progressive" political organization signifying nothing and nearly soundless.
Now it has degenerated into a "progressive" political organization signifying nothing and nearly soundless.
How about reaching out for more collaboration with human rights groups overseas? This and effective use of media to expose contemporary ongoing human rights abuses in our country may receive a more humanitarian audience abroad in places like Europe, parts of Asia, Australia, New Zealand and amongst other real democracy proponents concerned by creeping global authoritarianism, Fascism and militirization. There are parallels between today and the 1930s. We also do need more leadership from upright Americans with strong moral compasses like MLK and Muhammad Ali, they are truly missed.
Well ok......with all due respect....I don't think Melissa Harris-Perry is in a position to judge the future of the NAACP. Everything she says may be true......why not involve yourself in making those changes rather than writing about it.....and there are always more than two directions an organization can go. It is not This or That....it is a transitional process.
I am a life member of the NAACP and a former branch president. Each day I answered calls of individuals who believed they had been discriminated against in employment, housing, etc.
I was a volunteer and my volunteer staff worked tirelessly to right many wrongs. No other organization that I know of provides such assistance. We do not get the media attention of for example, Black Lives Matter, and unfortunately too many people, including Ms. Harris-Perry think we're irrelevant. I wish she would spend time at the hundreds of branches throughout the world. I disagree with the board's decision not to extend Cornell Brook's contract. He was progressive and courageous. I agree with Ms. Harris-Perry's assessment of the board. It's too bloated, and too many of the board members including the current chair have been around too long. The revolving door of presidents is killing the organization. That's a board problem and change on that level is in order.
I was a volunteer and my volunteer staff worked tirelessly to right many wrongs. No other organization that I know of provides such assistance. We do not get the media attention of for example, Black Lives Matter, and unfortunately too many people, including Ms. Harris-Perry think we're irrelevant. I wish she would spend time at the hundreds of branches throughout the world. I disagree with the board's decision not to extend Cornell Brook's contract. He was progressive and courageous. I agree with Ms. Harris-Perry's assessment of the board. It's too bloated, and too many of the board members including the current chair have been around too long. The revolving door of presidents is killing the organization. That's a board problem and change on that level is in order.
141
I am also an NAACP life member and former local branch president, former state conference committee chair, participant in the national mobilization legislative lobbying and education effort and member of the national resolutions committee. What goes on at the local level meaningfully matters at that level.
Becoming a big shot member of the National Board has been the goal of many a branch president.
The revolving door began seeking a radical aka Ben Chavis and ended in seeking youth and bi-racial biography Ben Jealous. Both were incompetent in their own way. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is a separate organization. No one of the effective stature of Clarence Mitchell or Althea T. L. Simmons has risen to lead an effective politically non-partisan lobbying effort.
When the most covered famous publicized event of the NAACP year is the tiresome trifling Image Awards program you know you are stuck in a time loop anachronism that is a membership problem.
Cornell Brooks is a symbolic archetype of NAACP leadership aka part preacher and part lawyer. In the Age of Barack Obama's occupation of the White House no one was more irrelevant.
Becoming a big shot member of the National Board has been the goal of many a branch president.
The revolving door began seeking a radical aka Ben Chavis and ended in seeking youth and bi-racial biography Ben Jealous. Both were incompetent in their own way. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is a separate organization. No one of the effective stature of Clarence Mitchell or Althea T. L. Simmons has risen to lead an effective politically non-partisan lobbying effort.
When the most covered famous publicized event of the NAACP year is the tiresome trifling Image Awards program you know you are stuck in a time loop anachronism that is a membership problem.
Cornell Brooks is a symbolic archetype of NAACP leadership aka part preacher and part lawyer. In the Age of Barack Obama's occupation of the White House no one was more irrelevant.
A board of sixty four directors is unwieldy and a sign of a dysfunctional organization. Cutting its number by half is another crucial step.
I was a local branch president for six years. We used monthly branch and committee meetings, a quarterly news-letter and local media press releases to communicate our activity.
I lost count of the branch presidents who dreamed of becoming a National NAACP Board Member.
The NAACP's problems flow from a membership content with the status quo. The body is the problem. Not the head.
The NAACP Image Awards are an exemplar of the lack of substance.
From the retirement of Ben Hooks to the rise of Cornell Brooks the only accomplished experienced adult leader the NAACP had was former Verizon executive Bruce Gordon. But Gordon left after trying to lead the NAACP in the direction of the Urban League. Brooks is a preacher and lawyer which is an archetype.
Barack Obama along with the best educated wealthiest politically powerful black caste class in African American history has left the NAACP in a begging, marching, protesting and getting arrested civil rights era time warp. A meaningless anachronism ripe for a museum.
I lost count of the branch presidents who dreamed of becoming a National NAACP Board Member.
The NAACP's problems flow from a membership content with the status quo. The body is the problem. Not the head.
The NAACP Image Awards are an exemplar of the lack of substance.
From the retirement of Ben Hooks to the rise of Cornell Brooks the only accomplished experienced adult leader the NAACP had was former Verizon executive Bruce Gordon. But Gordon left after trying to lead the NAACP in the direction of the Urban League. Brooks is a preacher and lawyer which is an archetype.
Barack Obama along with the best educated wealthiest politically powerful black caste class in African American history has left the NAACP in a begging, marching, protesting and getting arrested civil rights era time warp. A meaningless anachronism ripe for a museum.
I'm not buying it, in large part because I've been hearing about how the NAACP is in crisis and has become "irrelevant" since I was in college in the 1970s.
Like any large organization, the NAACP has ups and downs. It was especially strong in the late 1990s, and played an important, and nearly decisive role in the 2000 election - without the NAACP, it is unlikely that Florida would have even mattered.
In 2012, a few days after President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage rights, the NAACP board followed suit - an example of the NAACP's strong moral position in the broader American struggle for full equality and civil rights.
The leadership of people like Julian Bond and Ben Jealous - and William Barber, as Harris-Perry mentions - has kept the NAACP at the forefront of that struggle.
The NAACP has been wrongly counted out any number of times just during my lifetime, let alone during the NAACP's much longer lifetime. I'm not betting against them this time, either.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
Like any large organization, the NAACP has ups and downs. It was especially strong in the late 1990s, and played an important, and nearly decisive role in the 2000 election - without the NAACP, it is unlikely that Florida would have even mattered.
In 2012, a few days after President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage rights, the NAACP board followed suit - an example of the NAACP's strong moral position in the broader American struggle for full equality and civil rights.
The leadership of people like Julian Bond and Ben Jealous - and William Barber, as Harris-Perry mentions - has kept the NAACP at the forefront of that struggle.
The NAACP has been wrongly counted out any number of times just during my lifetime, let alone during the NAACP's much longer lifetime. I'm not betting against them this time, either.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
42
Very thoughtful and timely piece by this young and brilliant scholar on the need for this venerable institution for racial, social, political, and economic equality to rethink, retool, and resharpen its focus.
The continued struggle for equality and resistance to white supremacy, requires strong black institutions, as well as powerful progressive individual leaders who boldly speak the phrase coined by the courageous Bayard Rustin, “truth to power.”
The NAACP needs to be at its best as one of the cornerstones—the other being the Black Church—of the Black struggle for justice and equality, so that it is able to work collectively with other grassroots organizations and remain a powerful voice on the front lines.
Frederick Douglass needed Martin Delaney; Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey needed W.E.B DuBois; Dr. King needed Malcolm X; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) needed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party; and the Civil Rights Movement needed the Black Power Movement.
As the Proverb states, “Iron sharpens iron...”
The continued struggle for equality and resistance to white supremacy, requires strong black institutions, as well as powerful progressive individual leaders who boldly speak the phrase coined by the courageous Bayard Rustin, “truth to power.”
The NAACP needs to be at its best as one of the cornerstones—the other being the Black Church—of the Black struggle for justice and equality, so that it is able to work collectively with other grassroots organizations and remain a powerful voice on the front lines.
Frederick Douglass needed Martin Delaney; Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey needed W.E.B DuBois; Dr. King needed Malcolm X; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) needed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party; and the Civil Rights Movement needed the Black Power Movement.
As the Proverb states, “Iron sharpens iron...”
48
And apparently there arent enough people bleeding for her cause.
BLOOD MUST BE SPILLED!
BLOOD MUST BE SPILLED!
During the Ages of African enslavement and African Jim Crow the Black Church along with Black Civic and Civil Rights organizations were the only meaningful black socioeconomic political educational options.
The assumption in the age when blacks have more socioeconomic political educational power than ever that a particular gender, socioeconomic, educational leadership than ever before represents meaningful perspective and progress is hopelessly naïve. What the NAACP needs is more effective unleashed followers.
Mahatma Gandhi defined leadership as the ability to see where the people were going and running out in front of them.
The assumption in the age when blacks have more socioeconomic political educational power than ever that a particular gender, socioeconomic, educational leadership than ever before represents meaningful perspective and progress is hopelessly naïve. What the NAACP needs is more effective unleashed followers.
Mahatma Gandhi defined leadership as the ability to see where the people were going and running out in front of them.
Once upon a time, NAACP was not restricted to blacks. Then what happened?
64
In the branch where I belong, there are many members like me: white & female. There are also a few white men.
6
It's not. The NAACP was founded by whites and everyone in the administration was white except DuBois. That changed over time.
3
Membership is still not restricted to blacks. To say otherwise is fake news of exactly the sort racists use. As for the article, i hope that in time the author will learn that deep rooted perennials are essential because the annuals while flashy come and go-- think sncc.... the legacy of Dubois, Walter white, thurgood Marshall, Julian bond and Roy Wilkins is not so easily dismissed, NAACP all. They bloodied the heads of Jim Crow and white citizens councils. Now we need more like them, and in the meanwhile the work of the NAACP will continue to be done by everyday folks whose everyday fight for justice deserves recognition and praise.