The NAACP has been known as a venerable civil rights organization--so
venerable that the "CP" stands for "Colored People," and everyone
understands that is a relic of a time when that phrase provoked no
offense. Founded on Feb. 12, 1909, the centenary of Lincoln's birth, the
organization fought Jim Crow laws and segregation. It was NAACP chief
counsel Thurgood Marshall who successfully argued the landmark case of
Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court, a court
Marshall himself would join 13 years later as the first black justice.
If you respect the NAACP's heritage, you will be disgusted to learn that
the organization's Detroit chapter plans to honor a man who says that
AIDS is a U.S. government plot to kill black people and that the Sept.
11 attacks were "America's chickens . . . coming home to roost," and who
declares: "God damn America." As the Detroit Free Press re****ts:
Controversial minister Jeremiah Wright will speak at
the Detroit branch of the NAACP 53rd Annual Fight for
Freedom Fund dinner. . . .
The Fight for Freedom dinner, which annually attracts
about 10,000 people, will be held April 27 at Cobo Hall.
The gathering is a key fund-raiser for the Detroit Branch
NAACP, and is billed as the largest sit-down dinner in
the country.
This appears to be a case of circling the wagons: Wright, a black man,
is under attack, so the NAACP, an organization that seeks the
advancement of black people, is defending him. In doing so, the NAACP is
committing an analytical and moral error. Wright is under attack not for
the color of his skin, but for the content of his ideas. To defend him
is to countenance those ideas. Through its actions, the NAACP is in
effect arguing that anti-Americanism is acceptable, so long as its
source is black. The association is sanctioning both invidious ideas and
an invidious racial double standard.
Over the past few weeks, several people have accused those of racism for
criticizing Wright's ideas and for noting their disturbing prevalence
among the black community. This accusation is nonsense. It is no more
antiblack to oppose ugly views that are common among blacks than the
NAACP was antiwhite in opposing the racism and anti-Americanism that
were once common among Southern whites.
For a century, Southern white politicians were effective in preserving
segregation, but they were marginalized in national politics. Between
the end of the Civil War and the passage of the Civil Rights Act, no
Southerner was elected president (with the partial exception of Woodrow
Wilson, a Southerner by birth who moved North). In order to enter the
American political mainstream, Southern whites had to give up defending
segregation--or rather they had to be forced by a series of legislative,
judicial and executive actions to give it up.
Although white supremacy is _morally_ distinguishable from black
separatism, there is this similarity: Ideas like Jeremiah Wright's
contribute to the political marginalization of blacks. Barack Obama
would be a much more attractive presidential candidate were he not the
spiritual protégé of a man who declares, "God damn America."
In his famous "race" speech last month, Obama declared of Wright, "I can
no more disown him than I can disown the black community." This was
supposed to sound like a statement of personal loyalty, but given the
way that community has rallied behind Wright, in retrospect it seems
more a cynical assessment of what Obama had to do to keep his electoral
base from disintegrating.
Obama is already the most successful black presidential candidate in
American history, and he is more likely than not to become the first
black major-party nominee. He claims to be interested in racial
reconciliation, and he has a great op****tunity to promote it by taking a
clear stand against the extreme views that are depressingly common in
the black community and that have been espoused by his own "spiritual
mentor."
So far, though, Obama has displayed a lot more ambition than courage.
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.
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