Time for a new black organization Harry Alford Guest Columnist The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, is in the midst of another annual con vention. It is fitting that the venue is Detroit, a city void of viable Black economic empowerment, education and real political vision. All in a place that is 83 percent Black. As the saying goes "If something is wrong, someone Black did it or let it happen". Detroit is broken. Black school board. Black politicians at all levels and nothing that amounts to a hill of beans is happening for the advancement of Black folks. It is also not surprising that the nation's largest NAACP chapter is located in Detroit. It's crazy. I was asked, strangely by a White person, to come and partake in a press confer ence that will publicly criti cize the leadership of the NAACP and demand signif icant changes. That would be shameful to the legacy of this institu tion. My father was a life time member of this organi zation and my uncle, Fred Brown, ran the Ventura County, Calif., chapter for decades. We shouldn't do this. I have an unconditional love for this great institu tion. However, that does not exempt it from scrutiny or constructive criticism. Everyone seems to be anx ious about doing something different in the civil rights arena - not only nationally but globally. Now is the time for something different. Extreme rightists want to return to Jim Crow and we fight it like wimps. We can't teach our children reading and math skills past the eighth grade level. Our tMKHmdjtJL... J1ALTJHE USE KIT Photo A woman casts a vote at a recent NAACP National Convention. unemployment remains in the double digits despite the best overall levels in some time for the nation as a whole. People in our com munities are being gentrified and local Black govern ments seem to be encourag ing it rather than preventing it. Guns and crack are more available than books or good encouraging movies. In fact, crime, especially drugs, is the biggest competitor to new entrepreneurship as a generator of economic inter action. Right now, there is no civil rights organization, directed by the Black com munity that is actually doing progressive and productive work. Beholding to their few sponsors, they cannot dwell into the arena of pure advo cacy for Black communities. What this world needs is a new self - funded institu tion dedicated to the civil rights and economic vitality of Black communities everywhere. We need a major convention. All organ izing convention that will be democratic and well struc tured to prevent cliques or dictators from manipulating and will allow a fluid move ment to address a written Strategic Plan and an under standable mission. No prin cipals from existing organi zations need apply. An.ii organizing committee needs to start in Washington, DC, the center of the free world. This organizing committee, if it has any worth and cred itability will grow quickly. If it does not, it will be duplicated and wither away. Another will take its place until we get it right. Funding? That's pretty simple. 40 million African Americans have nearly $1 trillion dollars per year in disposable income. A mem bership fee of $5 should pro duce millions in contribu tions if the message and Plan are clear. A few million dollars with the right struc ture, management and Plan will be quite sufficient. The leadership, board and offi cers. should be few but totally dedicated I he Strategic Plan, concise but comprehensive or shall we say succinct. The implemen tation is key and must be deployed in a very simplistic fashion Oh. how sweet was my elementary educational experience Our kinder garten teacher was Mrs. Womack who charmed us into wanting to learn and explore. Our first through third grade teacher was Mrs. Meyers (that's right, three straight years). She used repetition to give us the gift of reading, writing, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. When she got through with us we all had it down - everyone! This included the new immi grants flowing in from China and Mexico. They had functional English by the third grade. By the time we got into high school, we could handle anything they threw at us. By the time we grew up. being unemployed was actually inconceivable to my crew. The question was "How far do you want to go? How wealthy do you want to be?" Today, these questions seem so remote. This new organization can defeat the shameless state of our educational per formance as a starter. From there, we can move to the next shame. In regards to Africa, we can simply drill a water well in every village. That alone would eliminate the majority of annual child deaths in the continent It can be done for about $100 per well. 1 just don't know where the Sbillions spent by US AID go. The answers are right before us. We just need an organization that is commit ted to it and geared for it. Harry Alford is the co founder, president/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, Inc. Reach him at www.nationalbcc.org. Quintessential white supremacist justice I A. Peter Bailey Guest I Columnist When first hearing about the then 17-year old Black male teenager being sentenced to 10 years in prison for a non-forced sex ual encounter with a 15-year old girl, my first reaction was that the gii^ must be White. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that there is no way that a Georgia court would give someone that kind of time for non-forced sex with a 15-year old black girl. Don't get me wrong, I have a 15 year old granddaughter and would be extremely angry at a 17-year old male having non-forced sex with her but it would be near criminal for me to push for a ten-year prison sentence . for the teenager. The lesson to be learned from this is that we Black folks had better wake up and smell the collard greens and come out of the delusional trance that too many of us have been oper ating under during the past 35 plus years. Old schoolers had better warn young Black men that though they may have their interracial flings in major metropolitan areas with some degree of safety, they put their lives in jeopardy when they have these flings in small cities and towns, especially in the South. Meanwhile whatever is necessary must be done to get that now 20-year old young man released from jail immediately. ?***??***??* Over 25,000 librarians poured into Washington D.C. for the annual conven tion of The American Library Association. It was enlightening to see several Black book publishers and one black distributor dis playing their books in the huge Exhibit Hall of the D.C. Convention Center. These included Brand Nu Words (www.brandnu words.com). Sights Productions (eric@sights productions.com) Solar Publishing LLC (www.solarpub.com), Africa World Press (www.africa worldpressbooks.com), Boqks Subscribers (book subscrib@hotmail.com). and Third World Press (http://thirdworldpressinc.c om). The latter is celebrating Clingman its 40th Anniversary this year. Their books cover a wide variety of subjects of importance and interest. They need our support. Don't be like the NAACP which, according to colum nist James Clingman, con tracted a non-Black publish er to manage the Authors' Pavilion at its 2007 Conference in Detroit. When asked why, says Clingman. a NAACP repre sentative "responded with an equally outrageous excuse that they were not aware of Black bookstores, distributors or publishers in Detroit..." No wonder that organization is having a serious relevancy problem. Those of us coming out of the Malcolm X wing of the civil and human rights movements of the 1960s always had a problem with the premise of Brown v. Board of Education that all Black schools are inherently inferior. We regard that as psychologically damaging. All-Black schools were/are inferior because of deliber ate malign neglect by public officials and too much apa thy from too many Black folks. We believe strongly that neighborhood schools, readily accessible to con cerned parents, guardians and activists then and now can provide the quality edu cation needed by our chil dren if we are unified in making that happen. Think about it. What vested inter est do believers in white supremacy have in educat ing Black children so they can successfully compete with their children? We are the only ones who have a vested interest in providing our children with a quality education. And we can do that if we are serious. A. Peter Bailey is an Afracenlric journalist, author, lecturer, college pro fessor and activist. Nigel Alston is on vacation. He will return the first Thursday in August. ELLISON -J ? Residential Heal Estate Closings ? 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