NAACP Chairman Julian Bonds set the course for his group at their 2008 convention over the weekend...

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"It can be said that Katrina, like lynching, not only destroyed the work of generations in a single day, but is resulting in a deliberate effort to dispossess black landholders."

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He went on to tell us how the Iraq war "weakened, rather than strengthened, our defenses, including our levees." And here I thought Bush had carefully orchestrated the hurricane and then bombed the levees.

Can anyone here explain how this kind of delusional nonsense, and how injecting racism where there is none is going to solve anything? Or do the "leaders" of the black community even want to solve racism? And how do you think Julian would look in this?

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

NAACP Chairman Julian Bonds set the course for his group at their 2008 convention over the weekend...



He went on to tell us how the Iraq war "weakened, rather than strengthened, our defenses, including our levees." And here I thought Bush had carefully orchestrated the hurricane and then bombed the levees.

Can anyone here explain how this kind of delusional nonsense, and how injecting racism where there is none is going to solve anything? Or do the "leaders" of the black community even want to solve racism? And how do you think Julian would look in this?

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I'm not sure what the Black Leaders of today have for an agenda, nor do they seem to be able to articulate one… except for the Black Nationalist, like the Black Muslims, who today even seem to have taken back stage. Many of the leaders want their community to believe they are engaged in a tough battle with the “White Man” who are to blame for their woes. These woe's today though they seem unable to articulate, for the whole of the Black community; given that the only Black Community is in big city Ghettos and Prisons; while the great majority are scattered throughout white suburbs. Maybe instead of trying to find others on whom to place blame for those problems within their communities, they [The Black Leaders] need to look at the communities themselves…

Julian Bond. Have not heard that name in a long time. Cannot say I missed him either. I remember him from the "old days". Katrina did not favor white or black or yellow or red or purple - I saw it destroy homes and property of all kinds of people.

For Julian Bond to come out and make such a off the wall assertion, does not speak well for his intelligence. I would have hoped better of him.

Robert Tracinski has a different take on the New Orleans disaster The Intellectual Activist

The NAACP would be better served if they would change their priorities from a focus on combatting racial discrimination to an organization that focuses on empowerment ;economic progress;and a return to traditional family values. Jullian Bond is not the answer . He was clear in his stated aims that the organization remain as it has been

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dedicated to an aggressive campaign of social justice, fighting racial discrimination,"...."We've done this in the past and will continue to do it in the future. We know we have much more work to do."

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Ending racism remains top goal

Joblessness, bad schools, gang violence, single motherhood play second fiddle under his priorities to finger-pointing .Pernicious is his belief that blacks cannot solve their problems on their own .The blame is deflected to whites and the government and by extension they should provide the solutions. That gives him the luxury to sit back without offering any real solutions on his own .

His critique of Bush reeks of BDS and as you point out tin-foil hat logic . It ignores some real significant progress during the Bush term (and when I say progress I don't only mean gains but also a "progressive agenda " ) .

* The Bush Administration has increased spending on elementary and secondary education by 41 percent.

* Minority students are also making progress at a faster rate, so the achievement gap is narrowing. According to NAEP, African-American and Hispanic fourth graders set records in both reading and math scores. Eighth grade Hispanic and African-American students achieved the highest math scores ever. (January 2006)

* Reading and math scores for African-American nine-year-olds reached their highest levels in the history of the test, with reading scores up 14 points and math scores up 13 points in the past five years.

* African-American Business Ownership Is At An All Time High.

* Bush cut taxes on small businesses, and increased Small Business Administration loans to African-American businesses by more than 28 percent.

* The Administration is working to give minority-owned businesses better access to compete for Federal contracts, and has provided $8 billion in New Market Tax credits to boost investment and community development in low-income areas.

* Nearly Half Of All African-Americans Now Own Their Own Home. The minority home ownership rate rose a record 51.6 percent during the first quarter of 2005, as 15.7 ethnic minorities claimed ownership of the roof over their heads, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

* Violent crime is at a 30 year low. Violent crime rates in Canada, the EU and have begun to equal or surpass the rates in the US (see France).

* The Bush Administration has awarded $2 billion in competitive grants to faith-based institutions that are working to transform minority neighborhoods with faith and compassion.

* The Bush Administration partnered with the National Urban League in a new initiative to expand business ownership and entrepreneurship among minorities July, 2004.

* Minority unemployment rates are lower now (Black 9.3, Latino 6.0) than they were in 1997 (Black 9.9, Latino 7.5)

* George Bush has put more blacks in prominent positions than any other president in US history.

* The President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. PEPFAR, the largest international health initiative dedicated to a single disease in history, is providing historic levels of support to the fight against the AIDS pandemic.

* The President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Has Supported Life-Saving Treatments For Approximately 400,000 Sub-Saharan Africans Living With HIV/AIDS.

More here Encouraging Minority Entrepreneurship

Is this any different from Ray Nagin's rantings?

"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country....Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses...."

"It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. And I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day."

---Excerpts of Ray Nagin's Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech, January 16, 2006

Elliot

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Originally Posted by Dark_crow

I’m not sure what the Black Leaders of today have for an agenda, nor do they seem to be able to articulate one… except for the Black Nationalist, like the Black Muslims, who today even seem to have taken back stage. Many of the leaders want their community to believe they are engaged in a tough battle with the “White Man” who are to blame for their woes. These woe’s today though they seem unable to articulate, for the whole of the Black community; given that the only Black Community is in big city Ghettos and Prisons; while the great majority are scattered throughout white suburbs. Maybe instead of trying to find others on whom to place blame for those problems within their communities, they [The Black Leaders] need to look at the communities themselves…

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Actually, people like Bill Cosby, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have been articulating a positive, proactive message for some time, but theirs goes against the grain of the black "leadership." Back in March, NAACP president Bruce S. Gordon resigned after only 19 months because the organization didn't want to change their focus. He dared to believe things could be better for the black community, “We are going to be very outcome-oriented, very results-oriented, as opposed to activity and effort-oriented.”

Obviously, this "leadership" prefers to remain activist and adversarial instead of actually fixing anything.

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Originally Posted by ETWolverine

Is this any different from Ray Nagin's rantings?

"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country....Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses...."

"It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. And I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day."

---Excerpts of Ray Nagin's Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech, January 16, 2006

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Or how about Kanye West, "George Bush doesn't care about black people". It just gets more ridiculous every day. Case in point:

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There was no mourning at this funeral.

Hundreds of onlookers cheered this afternoon as the NAACP put to rest a long-standing expression of racism by holding a public burial for the N-word during its annual convention.

The ceremony, which NAACP leaders called "historic," included a 20-minute procession led by two pale gray Percheron horses slowly pulling a simple pine coffin from downtown Detroit's Cobo Center to Hart Plaza.

As it reached the plaza, the coffin -- adorned with a bouquet of fake black roses and a ribbon with a derivative of the word -- was carried on the shoulders of eight pallbearers to a spot in the outdoor amphitheater as a church choir sang: "We've Come This Far By Faith."

The coffin will be buried beneath a headstone at historically black, Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery.

"Today we're not just burying the N-word, we're taking it out of our spirit," Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said to loud applause and cheers. "We gather burying all the things that go with the N-word. We have to bury the 'pimps' and the 'hos' that go with it."

He continued: "Die N-word, and we don't want to see you 'round here no more!"

The N-word has been used as a slur against blacks for more than a century. It remains a symbol of racism, but also is used by blacks when referring to other blacks, especially in comedy routines and rap and hip-hop music.

"This was the greatest child that racism ever birthed," the Rev. Otis Moss III, assistant pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, said in his eulogy.

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Hmm, and I thought slavery would have been far worse. Michelle Malkin pointed out this week's no. 4 Hip Hop chart buster (warning, explicit lyrics) shows the "N-word" to be alive and well.