And So It Goes

The other day, someone asked me what it was really like dealing with stereotypes in today’s society. A strange question, I thought. Considering that the person who asked me was a White Anglo Saxon who said he never experienced stereotypes (uh..ok), I decided to answer him by relaying an incident to him that happened just the other morning.

While I walking to the subway, there was a woman who was on the same sidewalk as I was walking. She had her pocketbook on her left shoulder. As I walked closer to her, she turned around to see who was making noise behind her. When she saw it was me, she quickly switched the pocketbook to her right shoulder. As I passed her, I made no eye contact with her. I kept right on walking, since I was running a little late & wanted to get the next train. However, when I had passed to about 10 feet in front of her, I quickly looked back to play a hunch. “I’ll bet she switched the pocketbook back to her left shoulder”, I thought to myself. I was right. The switch happened when I had put sufficient distance between myself & her.

Now, before you come to the conclusion that the lady was White, she was not. She was Latino. Stereotypes & racism are restricted to the White community, despite the stereotype...and so it goes.

Obama's Letterman Video

Here is part of President Obama's visit to the Late Show with David Letterman last night.

What's Wrong With the NAACP?

Image via Wikipedia

     This year, the NAACP celebrates its 100th anniversary. This great organization has, against all odds, fought many great battles to make the lives of black Americans (indeed, ALL Americans) better. It stood up to the Jim Crow system. It fought for voting rights. It fought to desegregate schools. It fought for workers rights. My, how times have changed.

     The sad thing is that I’m not sure what they stand for any more. During their last convention this past summer, in speech after speech, all you heard was that the white man was working the system against us. I didn’t hear one word about taking responsibility for our own people (that came later when President Obama spoke). Not one word was said about black on black crime; only about police brutality. Nothing was said about saving money or about financial responsibility; only about how Wall Street & the banks screwed the black man.
     To most of the speakers, the black man was & still is the victim of white people. I don’t believe that to be true, for the most part. Yes, racism still exists. I feel it every day. However, there comes a point where you break free of that type of thinking & deal with doing things regardless of racism. You stand strong, you take care of each other, you get your priorities together, & above all, you stop making excuses for why you're not accomplishing your dreams.
     For the longest time, the NAACP was great at conveying that message. Now, not so much. For example, when Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist, what did the NAACP do? Did they march on Fox News headquarters? Did they organize a boycott? Nope. They put out a press release. When President Obama needed help pushing health care reform (an issue extremely important to the black community), what was the NAACP doing? They were busy protesting.....in support of dog killer Michael Vick.
     The NAACP needs to get back to basics again & start thinking about how to help the community. It saddens me to say this but new leadership is now needed.