Head of GLADD resigns of AT&T payout. Will NAACP follow suit?
on June 20th, 2011 at 6:00 am
Not too long ago, I commented on the Politico story that exposed the fact that left leaning groups like GLADD, NAACP and others received money from AT&T. Nothing wrong with that in of itself. However, what raised a lot of eyebrows was how these same groups pleaded to the FCC to allow the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile to go through. The problem with that is that this merger would have a zero sum effect on Black or gay issues. In other words, these organizations rented their clout out to AT&T.
—>”The president of the group Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is under pressure to resign from within his own organization after aligning his group with AT&T’s regulatory issues.
POLITICO’s Eliza Krigman reported recently that GLAAD was among a number of progressive groups with no obvious institutional interest in telecom issues who received money from AT&T and subsequently issued public statements supporting AT&T’s merger with T-Mobile. Another letter was sent from GLAAD to the FCC opposing possible net neutrality rules. GLAAD later rescinded the letter, claiming it was sent in error. The issue had created an uproar in the gay blogosphere.
A source familiar with the board’s deliberations told POLITICO that the executive committee voted in favor of removing president Jarrett Barrios, who refused to resign. Barrios may now take the issue to the full board of directors. A GLAAD spokesman declined to comment on the board’s internal deliberations.”<—
Ben Jealous isn’t going anywhere. From what I have seen, there has been no major uproar in the Black blogosphere over this and I am willing to bet that other than a few mentions of the NAACP involvement in other media, most Black folks don’t know about this.
I don’t think holding the NAACP to a lower standard was quite their intention. But that is exactly what is happening here.
