NAACP exhorts voters to oust Bush
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| Mon, 07-12-2004 - 4:06pm |
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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In your example the two students had equal grades. In the past, the white student would have automatically been accepted over the black and the black student would resent that.
I just say, get over it. It reminds me of a person complaining they have a cracked window when all around them people's houses are flattened because of a typhoon.
Ok we'll work from your statement. So because we were discriminatory in the past the only way to fix the problem is to reverse it and now discriminate against non-blacks? Good sound theory you have there.
I just say, get over it. It reminds me of a person complaining they have a cracked window when all around them people's houses are flattened because of a typhoon. "
"Get over it" huh? Well you go on promoting racism and support AA. "Get over it" is nice but because you can't argue the validity of my arguements I'm suppose to get over it? I'm not complaining, but facts are what they are.
"is this really a matter of racial prejudice or rather a refection of his sorry lack of public speaking skills"
Could be the later, sure it isn't the former. My take is that he knows the NAACP doesn't support him, so probably doesn't want to waste his precious
Do you really believe that ANYONE at an NAACP meeting is going to listen to what Bush would have to say and be swayed? It's like going to a NRA meeting and promoting gun control and expecting one or two people to support your viewpoint.
Let's assume, just for giggles, that these individuals do exist and come to the meeting. Let's assume Bush convinces these people with an amazing speech. Let's assume it gets broadcast nation wide and Bush pics up an amazing 25% of NAACP members votes. It will have ZERO affect on the election. The black population doesnt have enough population in any one state to swing the an election unless you get close to 100% of their vote. THis is what the Dems are close to pulling.
So waste time, energy, and money to possibly win a fruitless group of votes. Seems like a really poor ROI to me.
Hi Spiegdon.
Does Bush think Marylanders are unimportant, no. Does he come to Maryland? No. The Democrat will carry this state easy so why waste the time. We are a done deal in the campaign. Does that mean every Republican in Maryland should feel unimportant? Hardly but you need to be realistic.
It may not be fair that the affirmative action be based on race, but life is not fair. It is *more fair* than allowing the discriminating screening processes that were in effect pre-Affirmative Action.
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