NAACP's "Family Priorities Crisis" - I Want My Money Back For Paying $0.15 For Copies At The Library

THIS IS A TRUE STORY

I went into the local library.  I was waiting for my children so I browsed through the magazine section that they have on display.

The public library has some magazines that I don't subscribe to so I use this time during my visits to the library to catch up on some issues that I had missed.   As I walked around the display I collected several magazines.  Some I was going to read while waiting. Some I was going to photocopy.

I saw the issue of the NAACP's "The Crisis" Magazine with the words 'The Black Family" sprawled upon the cover.

I gave my $5 bill to the librarian to break it into 5 $1s so I could feed it into the copier machine.  The article in "The Crisis" about "The Black Family" is one that I planned to photocopy for safe keeping.

In the back of my mind I felt - "The NAACP has changed its ways.  It sees 'the Black Family IN CRISIS' and the article in its premier oracle was going to represent the focus that the organization has on its PRIORITIES - "The Black Family In A HEALED State".

I spent about ($0.15 x 12) copying various articles out of "The Crisis" magazine.  (Including my first copy where I learned that I needed to put the magazine at the top edge of the glass and not the bottom edge. )

It was not until I got home and started to READ the articles that I learned that I was tricked.  Tricked by the NAACP.  They put a cover graphic on the front of the magazine to draw people in - only to show via the content of the article that they are NOT a serious organization that is focusing on MANAGING the key resources of the Black Community.

Had I spent my $1.80 on "XXL's Swim Suit Edition" or "Don Divia" it would have been money more well spent because I would have paid for what I had expected.

Just to show everyone that I do not "have it out for" the NAACP - I am going to provide intimate details of what - at least I EXPECT from an organization that has credibility and which prides itself on standards - versus what I saw in the pages of the Summer 2011 edition of "The Crisis".

Let me be clear - I make no pretense that my views are not in line with the prevailing body of the NAACP membership.   The issue that this body of people should be focused upon, however, is that the institution's views as expressed through its publications and actions are increasingly out of sync with the PRESSING NEEDS of the Black community.

Since I do not see the NAACP as a permanent appendage of the Black community but instead a corporation that houses a set of individual people who agree with the entity's agenda - I do not expect anything from this group beyond what it puts out as part of its dogma.

It is ONLY WHEN it represents itself as the "Voice Of The Black Community" that I chose to inspect it.

Just as one cannot grow Vadalia Onions in Savannah Georgia nor can one produce cognac using California grapes, fermented in Tennessee - so too is it necessary to enforce the branding of "The Voice Of The Black Community".  Otherwise the people will get confused between POPULARITY versus EFFECTIVENESS - which is our present problem as a community.

I vow to be HURT NO MORE.  It is "I" who have to be more consistent about my expectations.  You can't be "disappointed" by a force that you no longer affix any high expectations to.  This is the point that I have reached with certain "Occupiers Of Black Community Positions Of Influence".

Here is my analysis of the Summer 2011 Edition of "The Crisis Magazine".  I have the copies sitting right beside me, the words comprehensively underlined to understand the message that the organization is expressing through its official oracle.

NAACP - The Crisis Magazine Summer 2011 Edition	Analysis
Front Cover	Anyone glancing at this front cover of "The Crisis" magazine might take it to mean that the NAACP believes that the Black Family is in a precarious position and that the feature article in this particular edition of its main oracle plans to present a "hard hitting" review of the present state of "The Black Family" and - "Where Do We Go From Here" in order to hit more of our "Key Performance Objectives".  (Sorry - I am a "Corporate Negro".  KPIs and KPOs are a key component of my "entity" governance vernacular. Maybe this is why Bruce Gordon didn't last too long at the helm?  He tried to bring corporate management into an entity that is governed otherwise. Needless to say this cover drew me in and compelled me to make a series of photocopies of the articles that were of interest to me.  Allowing me to update my model of the NAACP and its function in our community
Publisher's Letter - We Are Family	The "Publisher's Letter" by Laura D. Blackburne, Chair - had I took it to heart a a representation of what I would later find in the magazine - I would have saved myself some money and stopped right there. Here is where I am people.   There is a debate WITHIN the Black community that hasn't yet been defined as such. On the one side of the issue are those who are expert historians. They are able to document the full set of exploitation that our people have suffered from the day that the "Slave Catchers" (their word not mime) set foot in Africa and snatched up our ancestors and stripped away their garments and their "Mystical Magical Africa Culture" that had us all as Kings and Queens" and fully conscious of ourselves. As the slave master split apart each of our family members in the name of "Chattel Slavery", thanks to the good graces of "Ancestors.com" - and the Chruch Of Jesus Christ Of Later Day Saints - they can type into their computer the day and month and millisecond of the sales transaction that "Split Up The Black Family".   Thanks to the magic of a cotton swab upon our inner cheeks - we can be reunited to these family members - if we deposit a money order or a credit card number to give us this "connection". As they proceed forward into time Ms Blackburne notates that the "Prison Industrial Complex" and the illicit drug trade that was hoisted upon our community produced the "Family Splitting" effect of "The Slave Master's Commerce". Ms Blackburne reminds us - (note though I use caps in my writing - this is her caps in the article) "WE MUST REGISTER ALL ELIGIBLE FAMILY MEMBERS TO VOTE." This old NAACP cartoon from the NAACP came out about the same time that Bayard Rustin told us that we could achieve community salvation by VOTING. The reason why I was let down by Ms Blackburne's "Publisher's Letter" is that she casts "The Black Family" as "resilient" through the journey of EXTERNAL attacks upon it.   She corrects us against expecting to see the "Traditional - Male/Female headed 'Black Family" as she reminds us that today's Black family must be seen in its divergent form - because the "Criminal Industrial Process" has snatched away so many of our men. "We have arrived at this point because of our LOYALTY, COURAGE, and SACRIFICE", she says. In my assessment she is claiming that the Black Family was forged in STRUGGLE.  I don't think this is accurate. The STRUCTURE of "The Black Family" provided the infrastructure to allow us to cope with any of the challenges that society-past through our way.  I sense that Ms Blackburne is intent on vocalizing "The Struggle" and us USING the Black family structure to advance her agenda. This is borne out by a more rational argument as we look at the truth of our existence today.   With so much disarray in the influences and expectations - the "norming" if you will - of the trajectory for a young Black male and female in relation to each other - it should come as no surprise that many of the ancillary issues that flow from this bedrock is problem plagued: The inculcation of our young people into "Pillars Of Our Community" The educational system that prepares them for the task The basic enforcement of respect and dignity   FROM the strong institutions among our people came the ability to cope with whatever the greater society threw our way.  NOT the other way around. Still - I let all of this slide as merely editorial differences than what I would have chosen.  This UNTIL I got to the next article.
Issues & Views Section - Politics - "When Ignorance Dares To Lead" (Note THIS Is The Marquee Article That Drove The Cover Text)	This again is a true story. As I began flipping through "The Crisis" magazine, looking for the marquee article that triggered the prominent cover I came across an article entitled "When Ignorance Dares To Lead".  It featured a mocked up graphic of Republican Representative and Presidential Candidate Michele Bachmann. If you recall she signed a "Marriage Pledged" that has a preamble which claimed that more Black families were intact during "Reconstruction" than is the case at present. (Again a true story) When you all were in college - you know how you are forced to go to the library to find a magazine for your research?  You search the stacks, to find the article that you are looking for - only to find that some IGNORANT person before you RIPPED OUT the page that you needed - because they did not want to spend the $0.15 per page at the library's copier machine as I did?       YES I can recall an article from "Ebony Magazine" that I need in undergrad for a Black Studies class that I took and the scenario happened to me. This was my assumption as I looked at the "Black Family" edition of "The Crisis", saw only the "Michele Bachmann" hit piece, noted that one page prior to this article was ripped out and assumed that the main BLACK FAMILY ARTICLE was taken by some sheisty individual prior to my arrival. I checked the table of contents from the article and - to my surprise this article was the triggering set of content for the cover. Here is were my own "true up" with reality comes into play. When I do my samplings of the NAACP and see a "Progressive-Fundamentalist" organization - who - while the IRS says they can't traffic in partisan politics - this IS their genetic disposition - it is the same conscious awareness that had me a few months ago assuming that "Africa was sacred ground" and thus any US military intervention would meet stiff resistance and protest from "The American Negro" that also has me assuming that "The NAACP is a permanent and legitimate appendage to 'The Black Community' ". My adult understanding has forced me to see that they are merely an ideological operative group.  When it comes to the integrity of the Black community versus their own marginal ideological and partisan political intersts - the later is going to win out every time. To be clear this is an issue for ME to work out in my mind and assumptions NOT something for the NAACP to return to. NO RESPECT FOR THE BLACK FAMILY The graphic to the left was produced after a news story had broke about an air traffic controller who brought his young son 'into the office' with him while he was on duty. This little kid was allowed to give scripted commands to the pilots of active commercial aircraft that carried 200 or more people each. Even though the father who was an air traffic controller was affirming the little boy's words to ensure that they were not eronious - the AUTHORITIES disciplined the controller. THIS - the OFFICIAL and REGULATED CHANNEL for communication between the safety regulators and the vehicles in the air is not a toy. Even though most of the pilots listening into the broadcast where fathers and mothers themselves - and thought that it was "cut" the AUTHORITY that enforces the INTEGRITY of the channel disciplined this well-meaning controller for placing hundreds of people in the air at risk as well as hundreds more on the ground - if the plane were to crash, let alone the hundreds of millions in property damage. The point of my narrative is that the "Controlling Agents" of the "channel" stepped up and enforced the integrity of the entity that it is responsible for.  It knows the consequences of its failure to do so - hundreds dead and millions of dollars squandered.  Lawsuits abundant. When I was reading "The Crisis" and then assuming that it was not "Don Diva" or "The Source" or "XXL" but instead the official oracle of a venerable civil rights organization - it was clearly ME who's expectations were out of line with the agenda. Content Analysis To be clear the content in "The Crisis" was no different that that which one could readily find on "The Grio.com", "The Root.com", "Loop21.com", "Black America Web.com" or many other Black Progressive-Fundamentalist messaging oracles.  For me - these others are not "The NAACP".  But again I am at fault for assuming that today's NAACP operates as a beacon of integrity for these others to follow.  Instead they all are arrayed in a particular confidence game that is heavily fused with partisan politics.  The new "soul" of the "Black (Progressive) Agenda. I was personally hurt to see that even though WE DO have massive problems with the permanent interest of "Healthy Relationship Outcomes" in our community the NAACP was more intent in first - expanding the "normal" or "goal line" that we should aspire to as the ideal - this when they talked about all of the gradations of "the Black Family".  Then they framed the family interms of the struggle against RACISM(!!!!) - which was the conversation that they wanted to have anyway.   Both the "historic racism" and the style of "racism" that Republcians like Michele Bachmann practice. Sadly - if Bachmann never entered the presidential race nor was ever elected into the US House - the past, present and future of the Black community with respect to healthy and loving and enduring male/female relationships would not be altered at all. The lack of discipline expressed by the NAACP in which it chose to find more valuable our need as a people to "Vote Right" had trumped their consciousness of us as a people who need to "Get Right" by realigning our consciousenss toward that which is most important and enduring. Again I felt used and drawn in.
Education - Mother Arrested For Seeking Better Education	Then there is the story of the woman in Ohio who "stole" educational services for her children as she absconded from the failing "Mission Accomplished" Akron Ohio school system in order to provide more opportunity for her offspring by having them sit in a classroom in neighboring Copley-Fairlawn School District. In the finest tradition of "Justice Thurgood Marshall Justice" the NAACP and other Black Progressive-Fundamentalists walked past their perspective indictment of Akron Schools for failing their Black kids (after receiving their "Equal Black Ballots" invested for the cause of quality education) and instead making an indictment against the ENTIRE STRUCTURE of Ohio and the school funding/ educational access. I have to admit being slightly envious of Black Progressives. Regardless of how much they "WIN" in regards to convincing Black peopel to make an investment into what they compel us to - any LOSSES suffered by the Black community will be necessarily cast outward upon some other antagonist that blocked our final victory despite having all of the elements (and elected officials) in place to bring forth that elusive success. In truth this is nothing more than a permutation of the "Establishment Authority Repudiation" scheme that I have documented. Sadly - the Black Community, seemingly unwilling to see the necessity to distinguish OUR OWN INTERESTS from the POLITICAL OVERLAY that has encamped upon our interests - is unwilling to demand transparent appraisal of the "Return On Investment" received. Far too often the sight of the "Favorable Person In Power" IS the return that we need to be warmed with pride over AND need to protect lest criticisms and failure of him will harm the chances of "future Blacks". IN MY ESTIMATE - the failure of a bevy of majority Black school systems play a far greater role in the scarcity of "replacements.

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I try to go out of my way to make it plain that my issue IS NOT against "The NAACP" but only their antics.

They require Black people who are willing to put their own thumb on the scale - to allow them to continue unchecked and unabated from executing their agenda.  




Management Of The Full Compliment Of "Needs" For The Black Community Must Be Managed For Uplift To Occur

My frustration with certain organizations and individuals that are marinated with a certain ideology and world view is that their success at gaining POWER within the Black community per their message that appeals to Black people in our present prevailing consciousness is often leads to the misappropriation of the needed organization and "messaging" that our people need to build our people up to the desired future.


Those who are "expert historians" proudly tell a tale of "Black Struggle And Continued Victory In (Racial) Battles".     The primary purpose of these narratives are the same that one might hear in an independent nation's 'founding history' - to highlight the heroes of "The Revolution" and to define the enemy that they conquered.  Black people are a "virtual nation" within a nation.  These narratives have a place in the definition of our history in the context of "American History".




My complaint is that these narratives often are used to FILL THE VOID that is present in the "Human Resource Development Competencies" for people and forces that now occupy key institutional positions within our community.

• The tales of our "Victimization" are used in the consciousness of "Reparation"
• The tales of our our knowledge of how "They Act" is used as a basis for our present "Collective Lawsuits" against "Them"
• Upon obtaining power over our institutions yet not delivering the desired outcome - this narrative is used by certain operatives to OBFUSCATE their failings and the potential accountability for our condition while they are in control of our institutions

The only solution to this conflict of interests is to SEPARATE the ability for an "Authority Figure" to be the prevailing voice who can "Self-Diagnose" our pain / "Self-Prescribe" a remedy / "Self-Appraise" the results.

In as much as we are "Equal Human Beings" - the tendency to corruptly use this power for self-serving purposes, when not counterbalanced by a transparent appraiser - too often works against the long term interests of our people.

Even when THEY control the police and fire department we'll still be seeing images of "police dogs" and "fire hoses" trained upon our people from the past as a means of precipitating "Congregational Unity" and suppression of skeptical questioning of our direction and actual progress.