NAACP exhorts voters to oust Bush

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
NAACP exhorts voters to oust Bush
109
Mon, 07-12-2004 - 4:06pm
Group condemns education, economic policies.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/12/naacp.convention.ap/index.html


NAACP chairman Julian Bond urged members of the nation's oldest civil rights organization to increase voter turnout to oust President Bush, and condemned the administration's policies on education, the economy and the war in Iraq.


"They preach racial neutrality and practice racial division," Bond said Sunday night in the 95th annual convention's keynote address. "They've tried to patch the leaky economy and every other domestic problem with duct tape and plastic sheets. They write a new constitution of Iraq and they ignore the Constitution here at home."


Volunteers with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have been working on voter drives in black communities across the country, registering more than 100,000 so far in 11 key states, including Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and New Mexico, Bond said.


Bond, a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s civil rights movement and a Georgia legislator for 20 years, became chairman of the NAACP in 1998.


Leaders of the Baltimore-based group are upset that President Bush has no plans to attend the convention. Bush spoke at the 2000 NAACP convention when he was a candidate but has declined invitations to speak in each year of his presidency, making him the first president since the 1930s to skip it, officials said.


Democratic challenger John Kerry has accepted an invitation to speak Thursday on the final day of the convention, the group said.


Bond said that 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on school desegregation, and 40 years after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, schools remain segregated based on income, and racism still exists in many forms.


Minority children still face inequality in school spending and are being disproportionately hurt by the accountability aims of Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, he said.


"On our present course, we are formalizing two school systems: one filled with middle-class children, most of them white, and the other filled with low-income minorities," Bond said.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 2:15pm
This president is shielded from speaking very often at public events. Heaven forbid should he be asked any tricky questions that make him have to think on his feet and stray from his pre-programmed speech notes (Maybe requiring a little research and knowledge on his part).

He has attended the fewest press conferences than any other modern president and tends to evade anything that requires a different answer than his typical 3 or 4 stock anwers that he usually gives (me good, Saddam bad......stay the course.....blah blah.....they're on the run....the world is a better place because of me).

So the question remains, is this really a matter of racial prejudice or rather a refection of his sorry lack of public speaking skills and the fact that his handlers are constantly tying to protect him from events that would grant him the opportunity to make a fool out of himself by sticking both feet in his mouth?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-01-2004
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 2:27pm
>"Instead teach all children to be assertive, confident, and take control of their own future."

What if these children have parents & grandparents that don't have these qualities & therefore are unable teach them? Don't have these qualities because their forebears were slaves & slaves aren't instilled with those qualities."<

It has been my experience that the black people I have known in my life were of the most strong, resilient fiber I've ever seen. No matter whether they were what most people would consider "successful" or "upstanding members of the community", they were and are strong people. Black women, in general are very assertive people...I'd say more so than myself or most other white women I know...the problem is, while a black mother may ingrain her assertiveness in her children (even without knowing it), she can only do so much to keep her kids out of trouble when there is no father present and she's working full time...maybe even two jobs...to support her family. I have been very poor. I have sat in the FIA office waiting to get my state issued medical insurance and food assistance for my family, and seen just as many poor white people with me, as black people. However, statistically, more women raise children without a father present in black communities than do women from any other racial class in this country. One person can only do so much....I think the biggest problem with the economic status of the black community has little to do with opportunities that are or aren't given to them, but with the fact that a single parent is generally beat down and drug out trying to do it all. Two parents in the home, even if both working, would most definitely have a greater opportunity to give their children the support and guidance they need than one parent trying to be everything to everyone.

Support + Guidance + Encouragement = A more self-assured, secure child -- which, in any race or economical status, equates to better chances for the child in the future.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 2:54pm


On the contrary, I do not think that affirmative action is for the talentless and unmotivated, but I do feel like it creates an unnecessary imbalance. I have no problem offering someone an opportunity that they may not have been afforded when they have the desire to succeed, but why not offer it to someone because of their hard work and success without regard to skin color or gender. I am not arguing that we should not help people to make a better life for themselves, but I am arguing that we should base that help on race or gender.

< I find it very offensive that you have chosen to stereotype an entire generation of children. This is precisely the reason why affirmative action is, in some ways, still necessary. Some of these children will, not only, put forth the effort necessary to succeed, some of them will succeed. In this statement alone you have revealed your own bias. >

I agree that every single minority child of this generation who use their race as an excuse, but I do feel for more use that excuse than choose to succeed. Create an equal playing field where a person's success or failure depends on their effort and not on their skin color or gender and we will truly have a nation where all are created and treated equal. As I said before, if race or gender is a deciding factor at all, then affirmative action is biased and racially unequal.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 3:22pm
< Support + Guidance + Encouragement = A more self-assured, secure child -- which, in any race or economical status, equates to better chances for the child in the future. >

I agree, all people need support, guidance and encouragement. Give to them because everyone deserves a chance at success and happiness not because of race or gender.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 3:23pm
>>"I wanted to snatch the kid up and take him home".

"A perfect example of A-A at work. That kid IS going need help to be equal, as you yourself admit. "

AA will not help this child. He will in all likelyhood grow up in the same rut that the woman dragging him down the street is in. He will liekly have a "woe is me attitude, life isn't fair, I hate the white man" outlook. He should hate the woman who drug him down that street.

If the NAACP wanted to help this is where they are needed, not arguing for Kerry or against Bush. Neither of them are going to improve that child's life.

I could help by giving him a stable home, love and attention. Tell me how AA is going to help this child? He probably won't care about college if he lives that long.

AA has run its course and is now just promoting race relation problems.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 3:32pm
""The economics of the situation and the mindset of poor people are the biggest problem in their situation. "

"This appears to be a sweeping generalization so please enlighten me on what you specifially know about the mindset of poor people. "

How about the fact that a woman stands in front of me in a grocery store in gold, furs, nails and pays for her food with an Welfare card.

How about driving through a run down area of town and seeing Luxury cars parked in front of run down row homes.

How about perfectly maintained basketball courts and libraries that have graffitti spray painted on them.

What about a mother/father blaring rap music with vile profanity and racial slurs with a kid in the back seat.

How about a woman screaming and berating a child in public for asking a question.

I could keep going. The problem is these people are so infatuated with themselves instead of doing what really needs to be done. How about working two jobs, marrying the father of the children, taking the bus, saving your money, moving away from the poor neighborhoods. Cracking the kid when he ignores his schoolwork instead of doing it when they ask a question. Cleaning up the library before replacing the nets of a basketball court. Loving your children more than you love yourself. Set an example. Pull your children and your children's children out of poverty by showing them hard work works. Teaching them that they don't need AA or welfare or the NAACP to succeed. Teach them the only person holding them back is themselves.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 3:39pm
EXACTLY...great post!
Avatar for atlantagirl74
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-07-2004
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 3:47pm
"Why should minorities work to achieve things when they can sit back and whine how unfair things are and never choose to make life better for themselves?"

This statement really struck a chord with me. As a white female, I am a minority in the largest city in the racially-divided South. I was born and raised in a very white, small city in the Northeast and thought I had an open mind when it came to race issues. What I really had was inexperience. I used to think AA was a great idea. Now I am living in the thick of it. I am surrounded by the results and effects of a naively constructed bad idea. I work with people who just aren't qualified to their job. Every day I deal with people who just don't give a cr#p about the poor job they do because they know they can't get fired. Because if they do... just cry "discrimination", go to court, and never have to work again. Ahhh, the American Dream...

I come from a lower-middle class family. I'm the first female in my family to graduate from high school, the first person to get a bachelor's degree, and I set the bar even higher by getting my master's degree. Everything I have, I earned. And it makes me sick to see unmotivated slackers handed scholarships based on skin color while I'm in debt to my ears paying off student loans. And then, they have the nerve to expect even more because they are "disadvantaged". Bull. You need to create your own opportunities. The world is out there for anybody to grab. All it takes is motivation. At some point, everybody needs to make the choice to either get up and succeed or to sit there and whine about their situation. I chose to succeed. Anybody can.

 

AtlantaGirl74

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-01-2004
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 6:29pm
>"Everything I have, I earned. And it makes me sick to see unmotivated slackers handed scholarships based on skin color while I'm in debt to my ears paying off student loans."<

I'm a white woman, married, in my 20's with two toddlers that I stay home to raise. I was fortunate enough to be awarded a Pell grant that is allowing me to get a business degree...several years after high school. I find scholarships and grants based on financial need a wonderful thing. Many people can't just up and pay for their school. Don't get me wrong...I'm not going to some fancy, big university...just my local community college. I don't think it's fair, however, when two people meet the same financial need criteria and the choice to give the grant or scholarship is awarded based on skin color. Helping people is one thing...but the help should always go to those who are dedicated to helping themselves first. It's wrong when kids with higher gpa's get passed up to meet some racial quota. The government should AT LEAST be investing our money in people who have proven by past example that they really care about and desire the education they're getting. Otherwise, essentially, our tax dollars are getting flushed down the toilet.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Thu, 07-15-2004 - 7:04pm
<>

You get my vote. Not appearing doesn't look good, but facing a audience that has serious questions could be worse. Take the course of least damage.

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