The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

First the news…

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The NAACP’s economic boycott of South Carolina may bother Gov. Mark Sanford and even hurt some minority businesses, but the civil rights group has no plans to end the sanctions before the confederate flag is taken off Statehouse grounds, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said Friday.

Bond’s comments came one day after Sanford called for the civil rights group to end its boycott. Sanford addressed the state National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during a forum held in Augusta, Ga., to honor the boycott.

Sanford said the boycott is not an effective tool.

“But if it’s ineffective why is he asking us to end it,” Bond said. “We know that it’s an effective tool. We know that the NCAA and other organizations have stayed away rather than come here. We wish more groups would do so. I think the very fact that he’s asking us to stop it means that it bothers him.”

Some black business owners have complained the boycott is hurting them. Bond said that’s

unfortunate.

“In any movement for social change people suffer and we’re sorry about that and try as much as we can to minimize that suffering but that’s just a consequence of change,” Bond said. (more…)

In case you have not been following this story, please refer to this link.

Black businesses are suffering and he calls that unfortunate?

Mind you, these are probably Black folks who are NOT members of the NAACP nor agreed to suffer economically for this ridiculous boycott. This is a perfect example of the “We know what’s best for you–you don’t” attitude from the Liberal camp.

Lastly, I hope Bond remembers his other comment.

“In any movement for social change people suffer and we’re sorry about that and try as much as we can to minimize that suffering but that’s just a consequence of change,”

You can’t make a statement like that and totally ignore the great efforts our military has taken to “…minimize the suffering.”

Here are some clips from the following article: “Boycott having little impact”

The NAACP insists the boycott is still having an effect. But hard numbers are difficult to come by.

If there has been an effect, it is not reflected in tourism-related tax collections, Edmonds said. According to his agency, accommodations tax receipts increased $3.5 million during the boycott period, and admissions tax collections grew $2.5 million — slow but steady.

(Here are some comments from some Black students that attended Black Bike week down in SC)

Sitting in a lawn chair outside his hotel on the strip, Lamar Banks, an Air Force staff sergeant from Hampton, Va., said: “Most of the people working in these hotels, cleaning the rooms, sitting at the front desk are African-American. So if we don’t come down here, then we’re taking money out of their pocket and food off their table. How’s that helping us as a whole?”

Hunt, one of the bathing suit rebels, says the NAACP should be focusing on more important things, like educating poor black youth. If the boycott hasn’t achieved its objective in five years, she said, it never will.

“It’s silly,” said Hunt, a criminal justice student at Fayetteville State University. “It’s a new millennium. Everybody’s not worried about a flag.”