If you plan on joining the NAACP, you’d better check your brain at the door.
Unless you’re ranting about so-called “great issues of racism, politics, social calamities, health crisis’s (sic), war and peace,” don’t bother having, let alone expressing, a negative opinion about another black person. Follow the script, and you won’t be called out and emasculated even more than you already are as people apologize on your behalf as though you were a child instead of a grown man.
A man named J. Whyatt Mondesire, president of the NAACP’s Philadelphia chapter, wrote, in so many words, that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback god Donovan McNabb was overrated. Mondesire’s fellow dinosaurs in the NAACP hit the proverbial roof. (See the press release)
Be warned. Mondesire’s column is atrocious; it contains grammatical errors, incomplete sentences, etc. Standards in just about every area of life have fallen very low in the past generation, and “excellence” is an archaic concept. Consequently, if we were to ignore Mondesire’s column for those reasons, we may as well stop reading altogether. It’ll be a struggle, but try to get through the whole column. An excerpt:
The pressure, the hype, the clock–they all just converged and your nerve collapsed under their combined weight. Mediocre isn’t horrible in and of itself. Most of us don’t live up to our dreams. It’s when we fake it that most of the rest of us get irritated.So, for you to continue to deny we [the word should be "us"] fans (as well as yourself) one of the strongest elements of your game by claiming that “everybody expects black quarterbacks to scramble” not only amounts to a breach of faith but also belittles the real struggles of black athletes who’ve had to overcome real racial stereotypcasting [A new word you just made up should be in quotation marks] in addition to downright segregation.
First, I wonder if the Philadelphia Sunday Sun has editors. If not, I’d be willing to help out if they could meet my hourly rate.
Second, the NAACP shouldn’t apologize for what Mondesire said about god McNabb. They ought to prostrate themselves for appointing a man with such terrible writing skills to the position of chapter president! This is today’s dinosaur-like NAACP. They complain about Mondesire’s column for the most imbecilic of reasons, yet they’re not embarrassed at all that such a poorly-written piece by one of their members saw the light of day and is still getting so much press. As I’ve said many times on this blog, the NAACP is long past its prime.
Third, who really cares what some NAACP hack says about god McNabb? We all know the Eagle is off-limits to criticism, and what a small-time bad writer has to say isn’t important, is it? McNabb can do what he wants and say what he wants, and you’d better not “go there” by daring to express an opinion about him or his game. The castrated Mondesire has learned his lesson, I’m sure, and he’ll be sufficiently muted next time.
The National Association for the “Advancement” of Colored People has no room for independent thinking or concern about high educational standards. But criticizing other black folks (excluding black conservatives) or snubbing one of their fancy dinners will lead to your figurative crucifixion.
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The civil rights community is no longer deeply relevant to the lives of most black people. The civil rights establishment now exists to try to get media attention and the illusion of power through access to Democratic politicians. You are right that it says something that Mondesire would be the head of a chapter in a major metropolitan area. It shows that the sort of highly intelligent black professionals who once were the NAACP’s leadership cadre now find other things to do than be engaged in civil rights work. The best and brightest blacks are in academia, the professions, business and other endeavors. The sort of people who run the NAACP now seen the be politician types–people who crave attention and who want to be seen as the “leaders” of something. The outpouring of civil rights establishment support for “Tookie” Williams shows how desperate for attention, demagogic and irrelevant they have become. Perhaps its a sign of progress that black people no longer have so much of a need for professional black leaders. Other ethnic groups flourish without them.
We should be calling organizations by names that describe what they do, not what the may have done in the past. So:
NAACP: National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peonage.
ACLU: Anti-Christian Litigation Union.
And while we are looking at the grammar don’t forget the crisis’s! Or is it just British English that has the plural as crises…
That’s why I placed the mark “sic” beside the word so readers would know I quoted it as written. ;)- Admin
The United Nergo Collage Fund is right in its ads A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE and they should,nt waste it in the NAACP
La Shawn, Keep up the good fight! The NAACP is definitely a dinosaur and it seems that its only reason to exist now is to brainwash people into believing that they are victims while they truly victimize those who don’t agree with their views.
La Shawn:
Unfortunately, the entire Federal Government is a dinosaur:
1 The Military has more resources in “safe” countries like Germany, S Korea, and Bosnia than in Iraq.
2 The Post Office has not downsized, in spite of more people than ever paying bills and communicating by the Internet.
3 The Department of Education is getting bigger despite shameful performance.
The NAACP is no different.
I’m sending a copy of your comment to your boss and IT department at Fidelity Investments in Boston. We’ll see if they share your opinion. - Admin
It’s sad that my generation lost out on seeing the NAACP as a viable organization that fostered, not stifled, divergent thinking.
The NAACP is a pathetic organization by and large, so I have called them on the mat and asked CEO Bruce Gordon for a commment about why they turned-tail on me like a bunch of sally-asses.
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2005/12/king-raps-naacp-wmur-for-public.html
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2005/12/taint-of-government-and-naacp.html
Heh, a pox on the NAACP.
Ciao!
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