Prometheus 6

. . . . real health care reform with real results that will ensure every American has access to quality, affordable health care coverage... and help solve the health problems that plague our parents, children, friends, and communities.

With the current administrations inability or unwillingness to really fight for REAL health care reform thats a tall order to fill, notwithstanding what the president ran on. I'm not a gambling man but if I were I'd bet rent money that any "reform" in health care will be marginal and piecemeal at best. Despite the rhetoric these people, including Obama, have shown that they are woefully drunk with the status quo and do not intend to "change" anything.

I'm with Osris_E. I think the National Association for the Advancement of Certain People et al. are a little late to the party. Where have they been all this time? Nine million black folks didn't suddenly not have health care coverage this year.

that the NAACP is only speaking up now..not only where have they been all the time, but where the hell were they and why weren't they holding their OWN Townhall meetings during the craziness of this Summer?

I totally understand your positions on the N.A.A.C.P.I understand links are currency and me bringing the link has a different impact than allowing the link. That's why in the midst of clowning Republicans, just prior to the penetration attempts started around here, a tourist said I should link some video for my readers' perusal instead of making his point.

My position on the organization is really similar to my position on Obama...through my disappointment I still want them to succeed. And I make that statement about both with a really clear view of what they are doing and why. The organization performs a function for the nation. They have been the bridge (in a static, not active sense) between races, advocating enough to maintain that function and no more. Yes, certain people, but their existence has impact. They are a national symbol, to us and to white folk. It makes no sense to ignore them. So I'm going to keep an eye on them, linking and reporting as I feel is appropriate, and y'all can smack 'em upside the head as you see fit.

and y'all can smack 'em upside the head as you see fit.

'preciate it.

They are a national symbol. . . .

And thats one of our (Black Americas') problems. We get too enchanted with symbols - with how things look - as opposed to real results. This health care debate is showing Obama to be just a symbol of change but not a vessel for change. Unles it is a win-win for him politically don't expect this president to be anything other than a shrud politician who pacifies the people's thirst for change with good speaches. There is a reason they (the NAACP) haven't thrown in their two cents 'till now: They are too busy being symbols. These people haven't been in touch with the true issues surrounding the ". . . Advancement of Colored People" for decades. They have been more in touch with their own individual careers, corporate shakedowns, and professional protestism, as evidenced by the conditions of ". . .Colored People".

If Datsun could go to Nissan and survive... well, anyway... I think it just gives people an easy way to dig at the NAACP. It matters what you call people.

Names notwithstanding... I think you do have to judge them on what issues they engage with, what they choose to ignore, etc. And you must decide if it's OK with you that they try to walk and chew gum (tackle more than one issue). As I've said elsewhere in these pages, I don't dis our regional chapter because, frankly, they're the ones who show up when there's a local or regional problem, and they don't check to see if you paid your dues either. If national could be as on top of it as regional/local, we wouldn't have repeat conversations about it. I think it's a matter of how long do you give the new kid (Jealous, not Obama) before you say he isn't changing the direction?

I mostly concur with P6 that I'd like NAACP to succeed overall, even if their old all-in-one devices didn't work well cross-platform they didn't seem to directly support a particular segment of the community. I think there's room for NAACP because, frankly, we still aren't a monolith. Otherwise the conversations above wouldn't be all "us" and "them." I don't know anymore if there's a general direction we can collectively agree on, aside from insisting on full personhood. That's the only common denominator I've seen so far.

I understand the defenses offered on behalf of the NAACP but I think they miss the point. I don't want or expect organizations such as the NAACP, Urban League or (B)Lack Leadership Forum to disappear or fail (whatever that means in this context). What I find continually disheartening about them is their lack of vision and their failure or refusal to articulate a plan or program for addressing these problems. Health care, for example, has been an ongoing problem within the Black Electorate for generations. Yes, it is better that these organizations are speaking out now but their silence on this issue, i.e., the lack of health coverage for African Americans, has been deafening for decades. And they have displayed a similar lack of vision on a host of critical issues again and again.

Aman ptcruiser!!

You mistake them for a radical or progressive organization. They are not, and never have been. They've been activist, but not progressive. The solution they extend toward White America has always been to present the best of us (and you know what I mean) as representative and to make concerned white folk feel helpful by doing the thing they do best: spend money. The solution extended toward us has always been to get yo' shit together.

Someone tell me I'm wrong.

Though a half century of life foreshortens one's view of the decades, it doesn't seem that long ago the N.A.A.C.P. and Urban League were the organizations Middle Black America trusted most. The organization has always been a passive bridge, a physical representation of the human continuity spanning the race divide. It's problems started when it thought for a minute, immediately pre-Chavez, to stretch out a bit. Chavez' partnership with Minister Farakhan to approach Black radical organizations was a disaster for the N.A.A.C.P. Farakhan's presence, in current political parlance, became a distraction within the organization, which is just as proud of its white heritage as its Black heritage. Farakhan literally frightened white folks, and as humans the corporate leaders that funded the N.A.A.C.P. pulled back physically and financially. In response the organization pulled back from Black radical organizations, which left its connections to both sides of the racial divide in tenuous condition and they've been trying to reconnect to both sides ever since. But you have to connect to a place people want to cross over from on the one hand, and a place those same people want to cross over to. It's not clear to me that second place exists.

All that without taking the personal issues into account. Look at CORE and you see how leadership decisions can turn a storied institution into a clown show. Its existence IS at risk.

Someone tell me I'm wrong.

Tomorrow, my friend, tomorrow. I'm tired now and I've exhausted my allotted share of profundities for the day.

Why you're mistaken about the NAACP: it doesn't have an analysis, critique, agenda or program that is based on changing the material conditions of black folks lives. The organization can be forgiven for believing, thinking and acting that removing legal, extra-legal and illegal barriers to racial discrimination would change these conditions but once it became clear that other forms of organization and process were required it refused to change its method of work.

None of this would have required the NAACP to adopt a radical political agenda. Organizing and promoting community-based credit unions or promoting cooperative housing in the inner-city, for example, would not have required the NAACP to turn itself into a fire-breathing dragon threatening to burn Wall Street's minions into crispy critters. Look at how behind the curve it is, for example, for exploiting and using new media such as the Internet.

Why you're mistaken about the NAACP: it doesn't have an analysis, critique, agenda or program that is based on changing the material conditions of black folks lives.

Has that ever been its purpose? At best (speaking as a progressive sort) hasn't it's method been to maximize Black responses within the existing paradigm?

Organizing and promoting community-based credit unions or promoting cooperative housing in the inner-city, for example, would not have required the NAACP to turn itself into a fire-breathing dragon threatening to burn Wall Street's minions into crispy critters.

Would Wall Street's minions agree with you?

Look at how behind the curve it is, for example, for exploiting and using new media such as the Internet.

Of course they're behind the curve. They were bleeding to death...from the organization's perspective they've only recently gotten healthy enough to worry about that.

I think they're going to have a bigger problem with that than they assume, too. In my memory, the NAACP has always taken the safe position, which made them slow as hell on this health care issue. That's always going to look bad when you're trying to talk through the activist medium.

Has that ever been its purpose?

That has always been its purpose although its founders, for the most part, were convinced that these changes would take place as a result of knocking down racially discriminatory laws etc. Over time some of its leaders such as DuBose became disenchanted with this approach.

its founders, for the most part, were convinced that these changes would take place as a result of knocking down racially discriminatory laws etc.

Yes. They believed deeply in the formal American system.

Over time some of its leaders such as DuBose became disenchanted with this approach.

...and left.

At some point I'll ask what you think I'm asserting that I'm wrong about.

Yes. They believed deeply in the formal American system.

I think the problem is that they had a narrow, constricted and relatively uninformed view of the American system. Despite their university degrees and professional accomplishments, they were not able to see beyond a certain set of assumptions which they regarded, wrongly, as the horizon of possibilities.

P6: At some point I'll ask what you think I'm asserting that I'm wrong about.

I was trying to follow that in the conversation. The part where you asked "someone tell me I'm wrong" hasn't been rebutted. Would've been fun to haggle, but you weren't wrong.

I think it would help all concerned to remember who the actual founders were. That's still there at the core (no pun intended). And to remember that no bureaucracy changes easily. They have to want to change-- we can't make 'em.

The part where you asked "someone tell me I'm wrong" hasn't been rebutted. Would've been fun to haggle, but you weren't wrong.

I didn't want to haggle about that point which is why I used the word "mistaken" when I responded. The shortcomings of the National Association for the Advancement of Certain People, IMO, don't arise as a result of its lack of political radicalism but, rather, its lack of imagination and critical thinking. Sometimes when I think of the NAACP I'm reminded of what one of my undergrad college advsors once told me. He said that it was not important to be the smartest or one of the smartest persons in the room. What was more important, he said, was to read better books. Reading better books, he went on, leads you to think about things in different ways that other people don't think about even if they are very smart. The folks running the NAACP need to read better books.

My previous ("fun to haggle") was snarkier than intended, sorry. Some physical-world issues I'm dealing with leaked through to my text. However, I think you and P6 have provided interesting perspectives on NAACP that IMO have yet to contradict each other. P6's seems to be: Here is what they did decades ago, and what they're doing now is consistent with that old approach-- represent to "White America" broadly writ, fund-raise... Yours seems to be: Here are examples of what they could be doing beyond that role, as they do not live up to their potential. So... what is mistaken? That's what I don't get.

So... what is mistaken? That's what I don't get.

I thought P6 was implying (or arguing) that we can't blame the NAACP's for its behavior today because that behavior is consistent with or dictated by the core principles, beliefs and outlook that caused its founders to seek its creation. My view is regardless of the efficacy or reach of its founding charter there is nothing in that charter that should prevent it from addressing problems such as health care or economic development.

Our explanations are perpendicular planes of a three dimensional object.