Rethinking the NAACP and The Silver - Not Civil - Rights Movement
Bruce S. Gordon's frantic sprint from his duties as president and chief executive of the NAACP this month after only 19 months portends a painful but long overdue shift in black folks tug of war with racial justice.
Gordon disagreed with "the NAACP's bored" on the direction of the group. He wanted to direct more resources toward social service programs such as wealth-building, tutoring and pregnancy counseling. Why, he should be hung like Suddam Hussein for such an extremist perspective!
"The bored" wanted to maintain its traditional emphasis on fighting racial discrimination and advocating for social justice. Financial and educational literacy be damned!
The civil rights old guard is stuck in quicksand -- pushing for government action to remedy the effects of discrimination the way someone would attempt to download an 8-track tape.
In one corner we had Gordon seeking to extend the reach of the NAACP to include another form of African American dissent: the politics of self-empowerment. In the other corner is Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP, who actually rejects the notion that we are in a post-civil-rights period, or that man has ever landed on the moon.
Our current civil rights leaders continue to confuse principle with tactics, behaving as though marching and petitioning the government for redress of grievances is the lone response to the unequal distribution of burdens and benefits in our democracy.
For them, it is either their way - or their way super sized.
The nation's oldest civil rights organization must understand that what's left of black America needs more. If it doesn't check itself - quickly - well, you how what Snoop would say.
When it's all said and done, Gordon didn't lost the battle with the NAACP.
We did!