How dare the NAACP tell me who I can or cannot endorse

Aug 9 02:08 UTC 2003

Los Angeles civil rights attorney and radio talk show host Leo Terrell
(search), who has made headlines in recent years for defending friend O.J.
Simpson, and speaking out against the Bush administration, accused the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (search) of "an
old-fashioned backdoor power-play," and vowed to use his weekly radio show
to incriminate the 94-year-old civil rights organization. 

"How dare the NAACP tell me who I can or cannot endorse on an individual
basis. That is the part that makes this so outrageous," Terrell told
Foxnews.com. "I am going to tell the whole world what the NAACP did to me."

Terrell said he has been a vocal supporter of California judge Carolyn Kuhl
(search), nominated by President Bush to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
(search). The Senate vote on her confirmation was postponed until September
by Democratic opponents who cite legal briefs she wrote in the 1980s under
the Reagan administration to suggest her record is too far to the right on
privacy, civil rights and abortion.

response 2 of 57:

Aug 9 08:12 UTC 2003

Oh man, not Girl Power!

response 6 of 57:

Aug 9 21:01 UTC 2003

*yawn*

response 10 of 57:

Aug 10 12:31 UTC 2003

Maybe racist is the wrong word.  But they sure try to force people to believe
as they do.  Maybe they are a religion?

response 12 of 57:

Aug 10 16:04 UTC 2003

Anyone is allowed to tell virtually anyone to do virtually anything.
The NAACP not only tells people who to endorse, it actually has the
nerve to tell people who to vote for.  So does the NRA, the ACLU, and
the Sierra Club.  This is not exciting or scandalous.

If the NAACP kidnapped this guy's kids and threatened to give them to
George Bush for adoption unless he endorsed their candidate, then we'd
have a news story.  However, if the NAACP is engaged in any kind of
intimidation beyond "if you don't do it our way, you won't be one of us"
then there is no hint of it in the story above.

I also don't see where you see "racism" in the story above.  Is there
anything particularly racial going on there?  There is a sort of thing
some might called racism, but that could be equally well found in any
newspaper story that even mentions the NAACP.  Look at the name:

   National Association for the Advancement of Color People

They are "for" a particular race.  If you broaden the definition of racism
enough so that doing anything in a non-color-blind manner is racism, then
clearly the NAACP is racist, and we can determine this without reference
to the news story quoted above, which is just as well, since that news story
is so utterly lacking in content.

Of course, if we are dumb enough to accept that definition, then it is
impossible to be opposed to racism.  If your countrymen are holding all black
people as slaves, you can't work to try to free them, because then you'd
be working for the exclusive benefit for one race, and thus you'd be just
as racist as they are.  Darn it, you might as well throw in the hat and
just let the slaves remain slaves, rather than stoop to the same moral
level as the slave owners.

Either that, or that definition of racism is absurd.

response 14 of 57:

Aug 11 19:22 UTC 2003

Btw, "coloured" is coloured opposed to??? 

response 16 of 57:

Aug 11 22:24 UTC 2003

Historical review for non-Americans:  The terminology for Afro-Americans has
gone through a century of torture.  At different periods, different names have
had different connotations.  I'm not sure I have it all right, but I think
"Negro" used to be the polite word, while "Nigger" was the most popular
impolite term.  Early in the civil rights movement, "Negro" was rejected, and
"Colored" became the prefered replacement.  It's during that period that the
NAACP was started.  "Colored" fell into disfavor and is now, like "Negro"
mostly just obsolete (at one time using these words would have branded you
a racist, but now you'd be more likely thought just plain time-warped, like
an escapee from a "Leave it to Beaver" episode).  "Afro-American" was, I think
the next wave.  "Black" tried to displace it, and mostly did, but I don't
think "Afro-American" ever became offensive - just awkward.  "Nigger" never
went obsolete, and is still offensive, except when it isn't - it's very
context sensitive and the rules for when it is OK to use are complex enough
that amatures should just avoid it completely.  It's meaning has also shifted.
"White nigger" now means some something, though I'm not sure exactly what.
All this time whites have been "whites".

An Indian in the US is usually not any of these things, though in the
backwoods of Texas, Indians are generally mistaken for either Blacks or
Hispanics and have been known to run into some trouble.  Actually, I used
to know a Indian immigrant named "Ronald Fernandez".  I think he could
actually be legally considered Hispanic in Texas, since the key requirement
seems to have been a "Hispanic surname" not any kind of Hispanic heredity.

Basically, race in America is a huge mess.

response 18 of 57:

Aug 12 03:47 UTC 2003

Re #16:  The NAACP was founded in 1909, long before the modern civil
rights movement.  I think the sequence of "polite" terms for Americans
of African descent, starting with the earliest I can remember (1940s)
was this:

        Negro           -from my earliest memories until around 1965
        Black           -mid-1960s until sometime in the 1970s
        Afro-American
        African-American

I'm not sure where "Colored" fits into all this.  Given the NAACP's
choice of name in 1909, it must certainly have been in common use
in the early 20th century, and not considered derogatory.

response 22 of 57:

Aug 12 15:40 UTC 2003

Was it that clear Pepsi stuff they were trying to sell a few years ago? ;)

response 24 of 57:

Aug 12 23:07 UTC 2003

Re #19:  I should have said something to the effect that prior to being on
         the Supreme Court, he was best known for Brown.