NAALCP out of touch with people it claims to represent
Image by Kennesaw State University Archives via FlickrThe gulf between the priorities of civil rights leaders and the actual needs of the people they claim to represent has been growing for decades. And the trend continues with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's release of "Tea Party Nationalism."Given that the minimum wage so disadvantages black young people you have to wonder why Democrats push it. The reason is that it raises the wages of union people who make more than the minimum wage already. Democrats put these people ahead of the young blacks who can no longer find work. In schools they put the teachers unions ahead of the young black students who must stay in failing schools because the unions do not want them to get vouchers and escape.
The NAACP passed a resolution in July condemning "racist elements and activities" in the tea party. Now it has issued a report that accuses the movement of giving a "platform to anti-Semites, racists and bigots."
The report based its findings in part on tea party members' writings, including "blog posts and tweets," and on observations at tea party rallies. "It would be a mistake to claim that all tea partiers are nativist vigilantes or racists of one stripe or another," write the authors, but "all of the tea party factions have had problems in these areas." How's that for a smear?
Given that the tea party—a diffuse network of local groups with no central leadership—focuses not on race but on limited government, the NAACP's obsession with the movement might seem odd. And given the real challenges facing black Americans today, the fact that the nation's largest civil rights group is devoting time and resources to monitoring Sarah Palin rallies for Confederate flags is also rather sad.
The nation's unemployment rate is 9.6%, but it is 16.1% for blacks and an unconscionable 41% for black teens. Politicians continue to promote minimum-wage hikes that harm the job prospects of younger and less-skilled individuals, a disproportionate number of whom are black. Wal-Mart's attempts to open a store that would bring jobs and low-price goods to a depressed neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been thwarted repeatedly by labor unions. And the NAACP is issuing studies on the tea party movement?
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What has all this got to do with the Tea Party? The leaders of the civil rights groups fear that cutting spending will mean cuts in welfare payments. They want to keep poor blacks on the Democrat plantation.
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