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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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July 12, 2005
Bush snubs NAACP in favor of Black Expo
President Bush this week is again bypassing an NAACP convention. He has not attended an NAACP event since becoming president.
Instead, he'll be attending the Black Expo in Indianapolis, along with our governor Mitch Daniels- his former budget director.
I applaud the president for sticking to his guns on the NAACP. This former civil rights organization has long since turned into an openly partisan wholly owned subsidiary plantation of the Democrat Party. After, for one thing, the infamous evil demagoguery of the James Byrd ads this organization sponsored on black radio during the 2000 election, why should the president lend them legitimacy by attending their functions and acting as if he had any chance of talking rationally with them?
Also, in particular, screw Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP. Speaking of the president and his party during the re-election campaign last year, he said "their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side." Why should the president lend the prestige of his office to this kind of hostile nonsense?
The immediately politically expedient thing would probably be for Dubya to choke it down, and go talk to these jackasses. NOT going gets him endless criticism that he supposedly doesn't care about black people, or even that he's openly hostile to blacks. It'd be easier to go, and say that he tried.
But it wouldn't be right. I'm no supporter of the president, and I cuss him up one side and down the other on a fairly regular basis. Nonetheless, he's doing the right thing here. By simple benign neglect, he's marginalized an organization that has clearly long since outlived its usefulness.
It's not like he doesn't talk to black folk, starting with, uh, his Secretary of State. He'll certainly be talking to some black Hoosiers this week. I would particularly encourage him to seek out the advice of black businessmen, as they might have more useful and legitimate insights than some hack politicians. He meets with black leaders frequently- just not this one discredited organization.
Why should he? Who decided that they are the official and necessary spokesman for black folks?
I have a modest proposal for how the president can make up to black folks for these NAACP snubs: a Supreme Court appointment. Specifically, he should name federal appellate judge Janice Rogers Brown to the SCOTUS. A major Supreme Court appointment surely means more than a speech.
The best part of appointing Justice Brown would be that, like Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell and Clarence Thomas before, the president will be able to honestly say that it's not a racial appointment, but simply the best person for the job. A black role model means a lot more if they're there on merit rather than quota.
DEBATE THIS TOPIC
posted by Al at 7/12/2005 10:51:00 PM
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