ED JONES: NAACP has little to do with anyone's advancement
The NAACP was once a noble organization that worked hard to bring individual rights to blacks and other minorities. The organization fought against racist Jim Crow and other segregation laws. It helped to bring about civil rights for all and change opinions about racism and segregation so that everyone, regardless of race, had an equal opportunity to achieve the American dream. However, the NAACP has evolved into a rubber stamp for the so-called Progressive movement and pushes policies that are not only discriminatory against whites and Asians, but are also detrimental to the “colored people” they claim to support.
One of the worst policies championed by the NAACP is affirmative action. The initial goal of affirmative action was to give minority students a chance to catch up with their white and Asian peers. This may have been a good idea decades ago, when some colleges and industries still maintained barriers to minority groups; today affirmative action not only is discriminatory toward whites and Asians, but also is harmful to minorities.
The discrimination against whites and Asians is obvious. If a white student and a black student apply for college, the black student gets extra points based solely on his skin color. If someone can explain to me how that isn’t discrimination, I would love to hear it. However, this practice also harms the black student. It tells black students that they can’t succeed on their own merits. The system tells them that they are inferior to whites and Asians and can only get ahead if whites create a program to give them bonus points simply for being black. It is condescending and insulting.
The argument is made that minority children need the extra leg up because they don’t have the same educational opportunities as white and Asian students. Whose fault is this? Once again the NAACP supports policies that hurt not only black children, but all poor children by opposing school choice reforms. Their opposition to school-choice reforms dooms students, of all races, to failing inner-city public schools.
On another front, the NAACP’s “Climate Change solutions” will cause many of these same poor families’ energy costs to, as President Obama said in January 2008, “necessarily skyrocket.” It is one thing for people like James Cameron and Al Gore to tell people that they will have to do with less. What about people who are already living below the poverty line? What about the low- to lower-middle income people who work at the coal plants or mines that Cap and Trade would close? Why does the NAACP again support policies that will keep people in poverty? Cap and Trade and other “Climate Change Solutions” supported by the NAACP, would make it harder for struggling families to heat their homes and get to work. The more money these families spend on energy costs, the less money they have for food, education, and luxuries that wealthy people like Al Gore take for granted. Even luxuries like traveling to see relatives will be out of reach for many lower-income people if the NAACP has its way.
The NAACP was once a force for good and fought for individual rights for all Americans. Its agenda today, however, promotes racism, forces poor children into failing schools and makes it harder for people to pay their bills and get to work. The NAACP has the audacity to accuse the tea party movement of being racist, when it is the tea party members who support policies that improve individual rights for all races. Merit-based application processes, school choice, and free-market environmental reforms all work to lift people of all races out of poverty and improve the standard of living for everyone.
The NAACP either needs to support individual rights and polices that will improve the lives of everyone, or it should go away.
Jones, of Colorado Springs, is a former El Paso County commissioner and former member of the Colorado Senate.
