Jonetta Rose Barras, Washington Post, April 19, 2009
Watching the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s annual Image Awards in February, I found myself asking the question I always ask: Why, in an age of integration, do blacks still need our own Oscar-like program to honor “the outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in the arts”? Come to think of it, why do we even need the NAACP?
The organization is as anachronistic as colored-only water fountains and white-only bathrooms. Its racial focus perpetuates the evils it claims it wants to eradicate, and its audiovisual rendering of America as “them vs. us” abets the nation’s balkanization.
{snip}
I don’t mean this as a post-racial diatribe. Racism is not completely dead. But it isn’t the bogeyman it once was, and the NAACP hasn’t recognized African Americans’ new status or 21st-century realities. It’s stuck on permanent replay, seeing the battles of the past in every situation.
“It has been less than forty-five years that all black Americans have exercised their rights as full citizens,” NAACP chairman Julian Bond said recently. “Only my father’s generation stands between [me] and slavery.”
See what I mean? The NAACP is like a favorite elderly relative, telling the same story every time he sees you.
{snip}
At the very least, it should drop the Image Awards. After all, celebrating one-dimensional characters like those in Tyler Perry’s “House of Payne” isn’t that far from praising the 1950s portrayals of blacks in “Amos ’n’ Andy,” is it?
Jonetta Rose Barras.
Original article
(Posted on April 21, 2009)
Comments
Racism is not completely dead. It will never be.And racism comes in other colors besides white. Black, for instance.
This organization isn’t going away anytime soon. There’s too much money to be made in the shakedown racket.
Jonetta is permitted to recommend the end of the NAACP because she believes it’s bad for blacks.
What White journalist would dare make the same recommendation on the grounds that the NAACP is bad for Whites?
Double standard? What double standard?
The sad thing is that when the naacp started, the black community (there was such a thing as the black community then) was following the finest black man America has ever produced, Booker T. Washington. He told the blacks that in order to become true Americans, they had to work hard and become respectable citizens and they were working along those lines. Then, this lousy naacp started telling blacks that there was a shortcut and that they didn’t have to work to get what they wanted. That’s when everything started to come apart for black people.
Using this logic, we don’t need a Southern Poverty Law Center or an Anti-Defamation League, because the problems which they claim exist such that you need to send them money really don’t exist.
“At the very least, it should drop the Image Awards. After all, celebrating one-dimensional characters like those in Tyler Perry’s “House of Payne” isn’t that far from praising the 1950s portrayals of blacks in ‘Amos ’n’ Andy,’ is it?”
I was there; I remember the “Amos and Andy” sitcom. The Black characters were decent and sensible people, who took responsibility for the own well being. They did not blame White men or Western civilization for their problems. Perhaps this civilized behaviour was the reason that Blacks forced the show to be terminated, and Barras finds it objectionable.
The plot of most of the shows was the financial and personal problems of the main character, George Stevens. These were not caused by his laziness, stupidity, or malice but by his perennial bad luck*. The Blacks, that I went to school with, were regular viewers of the show, and took real pride in its being the funniest sitcom on television.
*Compare this with the Seinfeld character George Castanza, whose problems are always caused by his laziness, stupidity, or malice.
these race pimps never cease to amaze me…julian bonds dad was born on nov.4th 1904, long after slavery. his name was dr. horace mann bond. he had a masters, and doctorate degree from university of chicago, and became the president of lincoln university. poor old julian. someone should expose these phonies for what they are, they are cry baby children, who prey on peoples sympathies, to get free money. expose them all.
I hope they stay active. The worst thing that could happen to this country is that we truly become a ‘post-racial’ society, that everyone loses their racial feelings. Not just us, the way it is now, but also the blacks and other non-whites. We need their ethnocentrism, their race-based policies to get White Americans to develop the same.
Pretty well-reasoned article, and I basically agree with it. I only wish a White columnist had written it, with a little different perspective, i.e., THEY don’t need the NAACP anymore. Having a black write it shows that either the Washington Post thought that only a black had the RIGHT to write it; or the Post flinched, afraid of the outcry if a White wrote such a critical piece.
Of course the NAACP is an anachronism, fighting the battles of 50 years ago. It has filed lawsuit after lawsuit over the years in its turgid pursuit of racial advantage for the people it claims to represent. Of course, it could have been stopped, and probably bankrupted, if the targets of those lawsuits had only done what any first-year law student could recommend: Counter-sue, and counter-sue, and counter-sue, until the NAACP is broke.
“Jonetta is permitted to recommend the end of the NAACP because she believes it’s bad for blacks.
Don’t you think she’s going to get a lot of criticism from all sides for this article? And the Post ran it!
I thought I used to read Rose Barras in the Washington Times. She’s a good writer.
“Why We Should Get Rid of the NAACP.”
Don’t even try. If they thought they were in danger of being terminated and losing all that money and influence, they’d scream hysterically for a general uprising of all blacks world wide, telling them the white man was out to kill them all.
Hats off to Ms. Barras. It’s people like her and Bill Cosby that have kept me from sliding into outright racism these last few years. I haven’t read the WaPo comments yet, but I’m sure she’ll take a lot of heat for speaking the truth. I was just thinking today about how the Black civil rights movement just doesn’t know when to quit, or at least tone it down. Other groups that initially followed their lead, like the women’s movement, gay rights, etc., seem to realize that once they make their point and receive significant concessions it’s time to tone it down or risk being perceived as an inflamed boil on the backside of the American public, which is how myself and a good number of my otherwise liberal friends are starting to see them (I know a lot of people here will disagree, but you have to admit the level of invective has significantly dropped since the peak years of the ’70s and ’80s, with the exception of a few strident nutballs. Even the Hispanics, with the exception of the by definition racist La Raza, are showing more of a willingness to peacefully coexist. I have a sense that while they don’t exactly adore us gringos, they at least have some sense of which side their tortilla is buttered on, so to speak. Sure, I don’t want to be around Latino gangbangers, but at least they keep their violence more within their own group than Blacks. Nothing compares to the outright hatred and hostility displayed by Black kids). We don’t have to agree with everything they say, but I do believe people have a right to stand up for themselves, as long as it’s in a responsible, reasonable way. To misquote Ken Kesey, once you’ve made your point, it’s time to hang up the phone.
The NAACP won’t disband because playing the “victim” has paid very nicely and they have no intention of giving that status up. You could have a black majority running the US government and heading up every Fortune 500 company and the NAACP would still be telling the same tired old stories of “slavery” and “racism” and telling anyone that will listen how they are still needed to fight the evil of “white racism”.
“The NAACP is like a favorite elderly relative, telling the same story every time he sees you.”
Yes indeed! And the same for the SPLC and the ADL. These organizations are stuck on permanent replay due to the petty worldview of the people who run them. To the people who run said organizations, it’s not a matter of being up to date, nor out of date, it’s a matter of maintaining their entrenched power and shoring up orthodoxy with lawsuits and intimidation. And these people tell you to “fight the hate” with a straight face.
“We need their (NAACP, etc) ethnocentrism, their race-based policies to get White Americans to develop the same.”
I think that’s the most delusional thing I’ve ever heard. No one is asking about what’s best for whites, and they’ll never ask as long as only the NAACP is being listened to. It’s probably a hate crime To ask. The only thing that is true is that these groups like the NAACP aren’t going anywhere.
If they couldn’t complain about the white man’s injustice to them, they’d really be on their own with nothing to complain about? Then what would they do?
The goals of their black organizations are not to be responsibile and independent.
They want to stay separate from whites. They know the push for diversity is meaningless and misguided. Talking about something doesn’t make it true. People don’t change at their core.
no chance that the naacp wil disband or go away. just look at south africe 95% black, and black ruled and they still have BEE, black empowerment enterprise, a program by law that discriminates against the minority white people, and which has put most whites out of work. even the whites in business for themselves have to have a black partner. these people will stop at nothing to discriminate against you. our white politicains should be voted out of office for not standing up for white rights. then when they come home they should be tarred and feathered.
Since the election of BHO, racism has ended in America. The mission of the NAACP is complete. They can be dissolved. I am hoping to get a good deal on their used office furniture.
The fact is that blacks have been ruined and bamboozled as much as whites, maybe more because they are more vulnerable. A serpent in the garden has sold blacks the lie that “they are as talented as whites, they are just being held back by rassss-ism.”
This has caused blacks to throw away everything that they have and built for themselves during segregation times to try to integrate with the whites, which will never happen. Even the most liberal PC whites to this day stick to their own except for a few “token” minorities here and their in their elite schools and gated communities.
Good post. The NAACP continues because its a forum for the self-appointed leaders of American blacks. If they were to admit that institutional racism is dead, they would be out of a job, its as simple as that.
Don’t you think she’s going to get a lot of criticism from all sides for this article?
Oh, a few token gripes here and there from the usual suspects. But she won’t lose her job, become discredited or be forced to grovel and apologize as a White would likely have.
I thought I used to read Rose Barras in the Washington Times. She’s a good writer.
Maybe so, but she’s a black writer, with an explicitly racial viewpoint. Blacks get to do that — Whites don’t.
Tom Iron at 6:14 PM on April 21 wrote:
“The sad thing is that when the naacp started, the black community (there was such a thing as the black community then) was following the finest black man America has ever produced, Booker T. Washington.”
No. The truly sad thing is “the finest black man America has ever produced” was 3/4 White.
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0851531.html
The NAACP and related organizations were inevitable. The innate tendencies of blacks towards indolent behavior plus their pitifully low average IQs (compared to Whites) virtually guaranteed it. Add to the mix their habit of blaming all their shortcomings on Whitey, and you have a people ripe for demagoguery.
http://www.finalcall.com/national/savioursday2k/farrakhan.htm
As a wise man once inferred, a leopard cannot change his spots, and blacks cannot
I want the NAACP to stay exactly the way they are today, led by the same old men and women, beating on the same doors to empty buildings, preaching the same black gospel, and collecting money, while producing very little……except the best excuse for continued resentment.
Worse is better, boys. The worse it gets the close we get to what we really want.
Jonetta Rose Barras.