The New Face of the NAACP
Internet surfing on Saturday revealed that the NAACP had elected its new leader - Benjamin Todd Jealous, a Rhodes Scholar and Human Rights Activist. Jealous at age 35 is the youngest President and CEO in the 99 year history of the organization.
Not knowing Mr. Jealous, there are two things that struck me at first glance when I read the news. First, his age. I thought it was a bold and encouraging move by the organization to elect a young man to lead the organization forward. It sends a signal that the NAACP is serious about recruiting more youth to the organization to be true partners in determining future steps. It’s no secret that the NAACP - like other “old guard” civil rights organizations/figureheads- has struggled to remain relevant in quickly changing times. Hopefully, Jealous will help.
The second thing that struck me was his image. To be quite honest, when I first saw his picture I thought that he was caucasian. I was shocked to think that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had elected a White man to lead the organization into the future! Now I know that this wouldn’t have been a first for the NAACP (White people have always been involved with the leadership and funding of the organization), but let’s just say I would have considered it a very surprising move. I can hear Jasmyne Cannick already saying that White people are not stealing our cultural distinctives - WE’RE GIVING THEM AWAY!
Thank goodness I kept reading the article.
Jealous’ mother is Black and his father is White. Jean Marbella from the Baltimore Sun calls him “very Obama” - with the parallels of ivy league credentials, biracial parentage, lawyer spouses, and contentious battles to win versus older, established candidates.
One of the other candidates for the presidency - Dr. Freddy Haynes, pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, was my choice. Knowing him personally and his rootage in the Black Church experience would have poised the organization to continue blowing the trumpet for justice no matter how unpopular it would be. (I would be curious to learn how Haynes connection to Dr. Jeremiah Wright impacted the Board’s decision. It’s no secret that Haynes is a protege of Wright and is doing a fantastic job continuing in the Black Liberation Theology tradition.)
Well apparently, the “social justice” trumpet won’t be the bugle nearest Benjamin Jealous’ hand - his top priority is fundraising. According to a Baltimore Sun article:
Jealous said he will make financial stability a priority for the organization and plans to use his personal relationships with top foundations around the country to build fund-raising.
This is of great concern to me because I do not believe that the nation’s foundations are going to make contributions without strings attached. My boy “E Double” shared a Haki Madhubuti quote with me sometime ago that went something like, “It is generally understood that he who butters your bread dictates your appetite.”
Toward that end, I recently finished reading a fascinating book entitled, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial Complex edited by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence. The book demands your eyes to be opened to the fact that Foundations and other Grantmaking Institutions have historically been used to indirectly control the activities of organizations that claim social change as their goal. Nonprofit organizations are, by and large, used to dissiminate crumbs to the poor, oppressed masses and manage their dissent as opposed to nourishing the seeds of revolution that are present in their souls. It is the blossoming of those seeds that is needed to bring this system of government which is unjust at its core to an end. According to this must-read book, the Non-profit Industrial Complex (NPIC) is used to:
If these concepts hold to be true, and I suspect they will, we can look forward to a NAACP that becomes further “americanized” and absorbed into the corporate realm rendering it unable to truly challenge an unjust power structure that it will rely so heavily on for financial support. They won’t bark too loud - lest the hand that feeds them gets offended.
Not only will the revolution not be televised, but I agree with argument of the book, the revolution will not be funded either!
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Awesome analysis!
In order to become more relevant in the eyes of the people that the organization hopes to serve, the NAACP must recognize that most of us do not consider ourselves to be ‘colored people’, we look at ourselves as what we really are, ‘people’. Besides disenfranchised people of all races need a lift up.
The NAACP, in my opinion, needs to rename itself, develop a broader civil rights perspective and work in tandem with other organizations that fight for civil and social justice for all people. Another ACLU like organization? Perhaps! The world is changing around us, the organization will have to become more inclusive!
May 27th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Rev. Solomon,
No, but seriously the N.A.A.C.P is a victim of it’s own success. They have fought tirelessly over the years and have won victories. Now, thanks to them and countless others, times have changed. Things are not perfect but far from what they were. Job well done.
I agree with your analysis wholeheartedly. I think Heber may have lost his breathe though when you said rename the organization!
But now the challenge for the N.A.A.C.P is to realize that the battlefront is different. Bottom line, admit it. It’s not racial, it’s not based on skin color. It’s Global Economic oppression. A new Monster has been revealed.
The new foe is just as ugly as the last, but doesn’t discriminate based on skin color. This new foe has longer tentacles that leap out onto all areas of our lives. It’s only discrimination is that you stay under their thumb of control and never move.
N.A.A.C.P rename yourselves, fight the new cause or find yourselves irrelevant in the changing times. The Battle is bigger now so let’s stop fighting street fights and enter the Battle that is before us.
Peace.
May 27th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
To say that the battlefront is not racial shows a lack of understanding of reality. That is not all it is but the racial Utopia that some would have you believe is nowhere to be found on this earth. Some would have you support Hillary Clinton who is hoping that Obama gets killed or some game-changing incident as such. Economics have always been a lifeblood of any community. How and where to spend says or will determine your lot. We have never been properly trained as a people to be fiscally solvent. That is what the enemy banks on. Whether we are called colored or not, without new YOUNG leadership and a wholesale purge of these old, tolerant of the disrespectful way that the powers that be treat us type of elders or blacks that “think” that they have made it, our plight will get worse.
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:41 pm
[...] He wanted my take on the then recent news regarding the new president of the NAACP. He had read the piece I did about this issue and wanted me to elaborate and provide some quotes for his [...]