IF WE LOOK INSIDE OUR BLACK HOUSE, WHETHER WE CHANGE THE WHITE HOUSE, WE COULD USE MORE POWER FROM GOD’S HOUSE
On October 25, 2023, I sent a proposal to National and State NAACP leaders respectfully proposing an investigative “audit of NAACP suspensions” handed down by National NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson beginning in 2019 to date, or a similar initiative to research, rectify, and resolve what appears to be numerous wrongful and/or politically timed suspensions that in addition to other questions, either indefinitely delay or avoid the NAACP-constitutional right for an NAACP Hearing.
Many grassroots legacies and much-needed work toward the mission of justice are being rudely interrupted, not by the expected acts of despicable racists and Trumpites, but by internally oppressive NAACP suspensions without a hearing.
This troubling trend also underhandedly prevents and in some cases, at the 11th hour of a scheduled NAACP election, some of the most socially conscious activists who are poised to win, too – without due process, be suspiciously removed from an NAACP election ballot and instantaneously denied their dream or their “eligible” right to run for an important state and/or local NAACP office as a formidable candidate.
This overwhelmingly unjust tactic became most conspicuous via the 2019 North Carolina State Conference NAACP Election of Officers where the grassroots-supported NC NAACP presidential candidate was poised to defeat an incumbent who was aggressively supported by the immediate former NC NAACP President who had ties to the National NAACP leadership.
Just days before the 2019 election, the former NAACP leader voluntarily held press conferences covered by worldwide media using character assassination and an unverified and unshared 2-year-old internal report of NAACP workplace allegations against the NC NAACP candidate.
Although the NAACP Constitution specifically calls for “the revocation of NAACP membership” for any members who would use media and “external acts” to expose unverified, workplace, and NAACP internal affairs in such a manner, the National NAACP President & CEO did not revoke the membership of the former NAACP leader but instead, without due process, suspended the 2019 candidate and removed his name from the election ballot on 9/26/19 as the NC NAACP election was scheduled for 10/5/19.
If the sudden suspension (without due process) of the incumbent’s only opposing candidate was not blatantly unjust enough, the National NAACP would allow the incumbent NC NAACP President to serve another full 2-year term while not allowing the voting delegates to vote, nor would the National hold a hearing as promised in the NAACP Constitution – “within 60 days or as soon as possible,” until 2 YEARS later and to this day has not released the findings of the said hearing panel.
Sadly, some of the NAACP’s most consistent, seasoned, tried-and-tested, and tireless freedom fighters are INTERNALLY targeted, demonized, character-assassinated, marginalized, blocked, and locked out of the need for due process while “Life Members” whose pride and joy was for decades NAACP membership, are finding their names indefinitely removed from the NAACP’s membership roster; “eligible NAACP candidates” are suddenly finding themselves ineligible and removed from internal election ballots and undemocratically removed from the NAACP’s own “democratic process.”
This real and troubling scenario constitutes a total abuse of the National NAACP President & CEO’s power. The National NAACP cannot politically pick and choose and honor only the parts of the NAACP Constitution that serve the powerful and not those parts of the NAACP Constitution that protect the people.
If the National NAACP is going to avoid the due diligence and power of the investigative and hearing process, then it must also avoid using the hierarchical and totalitarian power of one man (the National President) who gets away with suspending and irreparably harming some of the NAACP’s greatest and most effective workers without the imperative need for due process.
Those who do not understand that “due process” and “equal protection” are the most critical components of achieving justice are the ones who should not have power and do not belong in the NAACP.
Meanwhile, as the “nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization” has placed its heart and soul on the auction block, “Black Lives” appear to “matter” even LESS than 60 years ago; “Black Lives” die violently and prematurely in record numbers across the country. Furthermore, overall “Black progress” amongst the Black masses retrogressively trends toward mass incarceration’s expansion of prison plantations; economic enslavement’s deterioration of Black business ownership; and a “criminal” criminal justice system where judicial justice for Black Americans deteriorates to the point of nonexistence.
Black people today must wake up, organize, take a stand against, and refuse to tolerate the injustice, self-destruction, “voter suppression,” “unfair elections,” “profiling,” Black hatred, and premature death caused by the corruption happening inside some of our largest “Black-led” institutions if we are to defeat the institution of institutional racism.
If Black oppressed people are going to have our “advancement” suppressed and our rights violated by our own “largest and oldest civil rights organization;” have our spirits broken and plight ignored by our Black church; have our Black neighborhoods self-degraded into “hoods” that care nothing about its “neighbors;” and be repetitiously killed in record numbers by our guns of Black self-hatred, at what point do we look into the mirror of self-examination rise to integrity’s level of self-accountability and say – “Other than God the Almighty, WE are all we have, and if WE hate our Black selves and hate our Black neighbors WE don’t even have God.”
Furthermore, if WE look inside our “Black” house, regardless of whether WE change the oppressive sins of the White House, WE could be blessed by the TRUE head of God’s “House.”