(detnews.com) Recently a Detroit radio program exploring the city’s lack of quality grocery stores summarized the NAACP’s great dilemma. While a businessman tried to explain how his grocery store chain was failing to be profitable in Detroit, an activist called his company racist.
Never mind that the business executive actually wanted his company’s store to succeed. Never mind that the store was going bankrupt due to the lack of middle class customers and high security costs. Never mind about reality, at all. Racism sounded tougher.
That debate highlights the challenge for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which is gathering for its convention in Detroit this week. The NAACP is so insistent on sticking with its mid-century mindset and mission of combating racism, it is failing to reinvent itself to more practically address the problems so many African-Americans face today.
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Racism still exists, to be sure. But to simply focus on that issue to the exclusion of other forces that plague many African-Americans today is a disservice to them. Low-income urban blacks, in particular, are struggling with unequal access to high-quality schools, lack of preparation for good jobs, and the collapse of strong families and safe neighborhoods which are so apparent in cities such as Detroit.
The driving forces of these socio-economic plagues are far more complex than just racism. Economics, for example, is behind Detroit’s lack of high quality, big box grocery chains. Activists should be thinking about market-savvy solutions, rather than pointing fingers. (more…)
Here at blackinformant.com, I oftentimes run the risk of loosing my readers every time I do a long post on a particular subject. There are many places online you could go where writers are a lot better than I condensing material. My “problem” is that for certain subjects I want readers to really understand the situation instead of just arriving to the conclusion of ‘racism’.
Contrary to popular belief, most of the problems that we see in the public school system as it relates to the Black community DOES NOT stem from racism. Much of it is deeply rooted in poor administration, lack of accountability, funding, parents and students themselves. Local government, health and wealth are also issues that are not solely rooted in racism. Thinking like this is the equivalent of someone prioritizing the repair of a flat tire over a busted engine.
You can also apply this to how folks oftentimes refer to the Black male prison population as being “warehoused”. While this is true, what it suggests oftentimes by those who use it is that many of these Black men are completely innocent of criminal activity. In some cases, yes but in most cases no. Many of these folks oftentimes will lean on “racism” as the main pillar of their claim. But when you try to expand the discussion to other major factors that are not race-related, but personal responsibility related, you are viewed as one who is beating up on po’ Black folks. To put this issue in simpler terms, ANY setback or offense suffered by Black folks in this country must be viewed as yet another manifestation of Jim Crow (at least that is what many folks would want you to believe).
Until we as community begin to expect more from politicians beyond having the ability to sound like Bishop Butterfield up on 6th, we will in effect continue to vote for more of the same stuff we have been complaining about for years. Politicians live off of sound bites. We live in the real world that requires real solutions that are oftentimes not popular but needed–with or without the politician.
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