The Reason Why I Will Not Join the NAACP Ever by Akindele Akinyemi

[Akindele]

Let me tell you this. I have been criticized for my sharp, razor blade approach on how I feel about the NAACP.
So let me tell you this to set the record straight.

If you are a flaming liberal want status the NAACP is needed in our community today. Yes, I am glad that they are having their annual convention right here in Detroit, Michigan. After all, Detroit is ran by the Communist Party.

I am not attending to just write something for this blog or eat dry chicken and runny soup but actually seeing what is going on from a national perspective in the NAACP. Hey after all, I do attend the annual dinners at Cobo Hall for networking purposes.

But over 90% of Black folks in this country feel that the NAACP is out of touch with everyday people. Especially poor people. It is too cliquish and has historically never been for poor Blacks. If you think I'm lying look at the Life membership list of the NAACP. These are predominately Black middle class people.

The NAACP must now reinvent itself or it will become increasingly out of touch with black America. It has ignored earlier warning signs. Now the young people are leaving out by the droves. I have not seen in years of a group of young people joining the NAACP and actually staying in for the long haul.

One glaring problem with the NAACP is the enormous board of directors, 64 to be exact. My business advice to people is to never run an organization with too many board members. From the statements of former CEO Ben Gordon, it appears that the board’s meddling played a significant role in his decision to step down. Unless the absurdly large board contributes significant amounts of money or brings in new members, the board will be more of a hindrance than a help. And at the moment, it looks to be doing neither.

For me personally, I will not be joining any organization that bashes Black Republicans or Black Conservatives on a regular basis. I have been asked many times from fine young sisters in the NAACP to join in. I mean fine women have tried their damnest to get me to join.

I have no reason to join in when their I strongly feel that their chairman, Julian Bond, is senile in his old age.

For example: Bond has stated how the Republicans idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side-by-side. That alone is ridiculous.

He is also said Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and former Secretary Colin Powell "tokens" and comparing the judicial nominees of President George W. Bush to the Taliban. That to me, is outrageous.

Bond in the past has specifically targeted Attorney General John Ashcroft, who had opposed Affirmative Action, and Interior Secretary Gail Norton, who defended the Confederacy in a 1996 speech on states' rights. Ashcroft, a man who has sued Marathon Oil along with Denise Hearn-Monroe in Southwest Detroit for polluting that part of the city, being called out by someone who knows the truth about the Democratic Party and its treatment to Blacks.

To me, some “leader” of the local, state or National NAACP comes out, screams about all the social ills in the black community, fails to make one suggestion, blames every Republican in sight and outs all black conservatives as sell outs and worse.

That is offensive to me.

He is also said this in Milwaukee a while ago of how President Bush and other conservatives have tried to seduce black clergy, created “fraudulent” civil rights organizations and backed federal judicial nominees who come from a “dim and gloomy legal netherworld where few Americans wish to dwell.”

Maybe the NAACP has won some significant battles in the past, but they haven't done much lately, as they are led by sidestepping scandal-plagued leadership, and questionable tax-exempt status, that is if you believe as they claim that the NAACP is non-partisan, thus worthy of that status.

The NAACP is having a hard time building up their membership. There are membership drives everywhere in Detroit. They spend a lot of energy in Detroit Public Schools but no energy in Detroit charter schools (unless I invite them...a thing they should be doing on their own).

While continuing the fight is admirable, it would seem the present-day NAACP is fighting more for relevance since the message of “blame Republican whitey” is starting to fall on deaf ears, and it would appear the only people who will lose out are the very people who draw on an NAACP paycheck.

That is why I feel that the upcoming Funeral of the N-Word on Monday in Detroit is totally ridiculous to try to boost membership. I guarantee you when the crowd disperse they will go back to using that word. Guaranteed.

It amazes the hell out of me how people like Bond and other leaders in the NAACP can take any unfortunate, yet manageable incident and create near race-riots through incendiary rhetoric, just to get on a plane and leave when the television cameras move on. It seems like the only way Black people can solve their problems is to fly in a Julian Bond or some other liberal leader in the NAACP to get the mass media involved for purpose of self-aggrandizement, and leaving the problems in that area worse?

Now unless you receive donations and support from teacher's unions, what would anyone have against vouchers and the notion that if public schools don't get better, parents should have the choice to get their kids the hell out of them. NOT ONE member of the Congressional Black Caucus on Capitol Hill sends their own kid to a public school. Why can't everyday folk have the same option?

Yet, the Detroit Branch NAACP wants us to go along with the transition team report that Gov. Granholm endorsed.

And when Proposal 2 "failed" in Michigan the NAACP, along with communist BAMN, blamed the Republicans. However, a closer look of this is the same numbers who voted to re-elect Gov. Granholm were the same liberals who voted to get rid of Affirmative Action. After bashing Republicans day and night on this issue it became a Black vs White thing. Get real.

If you believe that all white people are racists (except the one's you know) and will always sabotage the careers of black people, then you're probably for Affirmative Action. If you believe that all people should be able to compete equally, and if you're black and humiliated knowing that everyone at your workplace (despite your qualifications) believes you're an Affirmative Action hire and weren't qualified to take your job in the first place, then you're probably against it.

Bond has also said this about Black Conservatives:

“Like ventriloquist dummies, they speak in their puppet master's voice, but we can see his lips moving."

Now I am the Chairman and CEO of the One Network. There is NOT one dollar from white folks (especially White Republicans) coming into any branch of the network. So I have no clue of what he is talking about. Yet, those young people want me to join the NAACP. To do what? Be blocked from progress?

Another point is the “ventriloquist dummies” thing must be referring to people like me and other outspoken Black conservatives. That being the case, I'd invite you to look up previous speeches by Julian Bond and anyone in a leadership role the NAACP. You'll see they say the same thing, over and over again like the very dummy he calls us.

This weekend at Cobo and Downtown Detroit I challenge ANYONE in the NAACP to look for a solution when Julian Bond speaks. Not just him but ANYONE in key leadership in the NAACP. Like the liberal master he parrots, there are only complaints, but never a solution.

NAACP leaders are sandwiched between the shifting upward fortunes of the black middle-class, and downward of the black poor. A tilt by them toward a hard-edged activist agenda runs the risk of alienating the corporate donors and the Democratic politicians that the NAACP leaders carefully cultivate. They depend on them to gain even more jobs, promotions, and contracts for black professionals and businesspeople, to bag contributions for their fundraising campaigns, dinners, banquets, scholarship funds and programs and increased political patronage.

And why do they keep bringing in Bill Clinton? Is this a front group for Hillary Clinton? You see where I am going with this? So why should I join the NAACP?

Let me break it down. The membership will continue to plummet not because of young people do not see dogs attacking Black people on TV as Rev. Wendell Anthony has stated. The membership is plummeting because of the same, tired rhetoric of the NAACP from the local level to the national level.

And there are things young adults in the NAACP can sink their teeth into. For instance, there is the case for bridging the gap between male and female in the family. We have thrown out family values in our community and whenever the NAACP discusses family I guarantee you there are some government strings attached.

There is the fight against Title IV-D. For those who do not know this measure read below:

“The federal incentives drive the system. The more divorces, and the higher the child-support guidelines are set and enforced (no matter how unreasonable), the more money the state bureaucracy collects from the feds. Follow the money. The less time that non-custodial parents (usually fathers) are permitted to be with their children, the more child support they must pay into the state fund, and the higher the federal bonus to the states for collecting the money. “ - Phyllis Schlafly


Michigan has the largest number of families in Title IV-D per capita in the nation exceeding California by over 2 to 1. Michigan also has the largest ratio of Title IV-D cases per minor child in the nation. Surpassing California by 236 percent: 41.52% vs. 17.63%

Had the NAACP been marching on this on Monday I would taken time off work to join in because this to me is far serious than Affirmative Action or defeating vouchers (and now the children are trapped in failing schools and broken homes). I should not have to join an organization physically to get these issues addressed. We can partner with each other.

Another thing the NAACP can tackle is the growing number of illiterate adults in our community. While you remain pissed about why so many people voted for Prop 2 perhaps you need to take a look at the growing number of adults who cannot read and write. That is a civil right in its own case. Again, why do I need to join the NAACP first to get something done? That is where the cliques come into play.

I will not even waste my time about social values issues like abortion and gay marriage because I know there are several members in the NAACP on the local to national levels that do not even believe in this foolishness. But you have to follow your sergeant's directions. Again, are you in the right place?

I mentioned biofuels in my post yesterday. After all it is a civil right for a Black farmer to compete in the free market if he/she owns property?

There are many things our young people can jump on board with. Educational choices is a civil right, yet, the NAACP is against this.

And young people today are gravitated towards wealth creation. Our One Network's mantra is building family values through educational choice equals wealth creation. Young adults have to stop following the old guard's leadership in the NAACP and begin holding hands with conservatives not just from a social standpoint but from a political standpoint. Ask yourself, what liberal policies have worked here in Detroit since you have been a member of the NAACP?

Leadership has been the central problem for the NAACP since the 1990's and Ben Gordon’s departure should not encourage any of us that these problems are being solved. It is now time for Chairman Julian Bond to step down. It was mentioned recently that Ben Gordon did not have a civil rights background and was therefore unqualified to serve as CEO. However, it is worth remembering that neither Roy Wilkins nor Martin Luther King Jr. had extensive civil rights experience before assuming the mantle of leadership.

As long as black people attend the lousy public schools in the hood managed by Democrats and teacher's unions, listen to rap music created by Hollywood and New York liberals that steals the souls of their young listeners, have an overwhelming out-of-wedlock birthrate that makes a government social worker drool, there will be no solutions offered from people like Julian Bond.

Regardless of who leads the NAACP, there is no dispute that the organization is still needed. Whether it will ever again be the force for change it once was, will depend on its ability to refocus and develop new leadership.

So why should I join the the local, state or national NAACP?

They bash Black Republicans, disrespect Black Conservatives, call Black Conservative churches "puppets of the faith based initiatives from Bush", disrespect our Black women like Condoleeza Rice and many others, support failing schools, against educational choices, pro-choice, anti-family, support same sex marriages, tell the same myths over and over again about Republicans and support the Democratic Party.

If someone who is reading this can convince me otherwise I will not join the NAACP. Sound like a cliquish group of people to me. If I was a new person thinking about joining the NAACP I would (1) do some research on the group and (2) see if this is an orgaization that reflects my personal values.