# Hoops and yoyo: Cute greeting card characters or HEARTLESS RACIST BASTARDS?? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 10, 2010, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601 "2010-06-10T01:21:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/61 "2010-06-11T04:54:18Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > Well, we are talking about the NAA **C** P. Actually, the Pitting is of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP. It is not the entirety of the organization. The NAACP chapters are all pretty much independent and are not taking orders from the National Headquarters. It IS mind numbingly stupid, but it appears to be the efforts of the five or six people who sit around the Los Angeles offices looking for something over which to be outraged, rather than an actual movement by an entire organization with thousands of volunteers to demonstrate that everyone with skin darker than a grocery bag is a hypersensitive idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/62 "2010-06-11T05:19:01Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > After they recall them, just imagine all of the blank slots in greeting card sections across the country. So you could say, they’re basically black holes in the greeting card section? 😃 (As for the NAACP – were they the ones who put out that long list of item that were supposedly invented by blacks – even when it was determined to be factually incorrect? I think it was a campaign for Black History Month.) ---
**Author:** ![minlokwat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minlokwat/32/2844_2.png) [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/63 "2010-06-11T10:47:55Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Actually, the Pitting is of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP. > It is not the entirety of the organization. The NAACP chapters are all pretty much independent and are not taking orders from the National Headquarters. > > It IS mind numbingly stupid, but it appears to be the efforts of the five or six people who sit around the Los Angeles offices looking for something over which to be outraged, rather than an actual movement by an entire organization with thousands of volunteers to demonstrate that everyone with skin darker than a grocery bag is a hypersensitive idiot. Right. Go to the NAACP website and of the 30 or so press-related stories of interest on their front page, there isn’t any mention of this ‘controversy’ whatsoever. I know plenty of folks enjoy taking shots at the NAACP but I wouldn’t use this as fodder for fresh ammo. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/64 "2010-06-11T11:53:13Z")
The Los Angeles NAACP is in a difficult position. They can’t do anything, or say anything, about the number one issue facing black Americans in Los Angeles, which is illegal immigration and its [downstream consequences.](http://da.co.la.ca.us/mr/032510b.htm) [http://www.losangelescriminalattorneyblog.com/2009/02/canoga\_park\_men\_charged\_with\_h\_1.html](http://www.losangelescriminalattorneyblog.com/2009/02/canoga_park_men_charged_with_h_1.html) [http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2006/winter/la-blackout](http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2006/winter/la-blackout) Sure, they’re buffoons, but their world is ending and they don’t really know what to do about it. ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/65 "2010-06-11T12:25:46Z")
I wasn’t impugning the NAACP in general - go look at the context and the bolding (I knew I should have used red text instead!). MeanOldLady used the term “colored people,” (winkingly, I believe). Lobohan jokingly called her out on it. And I was trying to point out that “colored” is right there in the name of the organization (as we went through a period when that was the preferred, respectful term). When I was lambasting the dingbats who are featured in the story, I always made sure to refer to them as the NAACP of LA, since the NAACP at large isn’t doing this, and does do lots of helpful work. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/66 "2010-06-11T12:49:50Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > You have no idea how hard I’m restraining myself from digging up a situationally appropriate TV Tropes link to respond with. The problem with that is it’s a MAD kind of problem. Try to waste someone’s afternoon, and end up with 40 tabs of your own wasted afternoon. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/67 "2010-06-11T15:11:09Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > The problem with that is it’s a MAD kind of problem. Try to waste someone’s afternoon, and end up with 40 tabs of your own wasted afternoon. I’m shockingly all right with that. ETA: Must… not… wiki… mutually… assured… destruction… ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/68 "2010-06-11T15:31:24Z")
The NAACP was once an activist organization which pioneered peaceful community action, at times protests, at other times civil actions, and court actions at a time when no one else in the entire US was really willing to even admit that “Land of the Free” was a meaningless slogan to a very large minority of Americans. Sadly, that day has passed into history. Now it is mostly a clearing ground for educated, privileged black people to wear their psychic slave chains publicly for political capital. In a very sad way, it is a perfect reflection of what white social activist organizations have done over history. Labor organizers of the early twentieth century were beaten, hunted, and killed for speaking out against massive corporate crimes. Now days, union bosses are probably mostly aware of criminals in their ranks, even in the rare case where they are not criminals themselves. Folks are fairly decent, by and large. Of course you get them together in groups. . . well, with mobs, at least the phenomenon passes quickly. With Organizations, the only difference is they tend to last forever. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Chicagojeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@Chicagojeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicagojeff)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/69 "2010-06-11T15:59:13Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I was expecting, “you got a diploma, nigga!” > > This was… well, not that. HAHAHAHAA that’s funny as hell. now seriously. i might by THAT card.. ---
**Author:** ![Chicagojeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@Chicagojeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicagojeff)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/70 "2010-06-11T16:03:58Z")
> [@A\_Spoonful\_of\_Awesome](#): > > I think it’s time Hallmark _properly_ apologizes to Jesse Jackson for this one. > > “Kiss it. That’s right… a’pologize”. Thats incorrect.. Jesse Jackson is not the NAACP.. the NAACP isn’t Reverend Jackson.. I know the tendency to pigeonhole them all.. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/71 "2010-06-11T16:06:14Z")
> [@Chicagojeff](#): > > Thats incorrect.. Jesse Jackson is not the NAACP.. the NAACP isn’t Reverend Jackson.. I know the tendency to pigeonhole them all.. Well, they both claim to speak on behalf of all darker people, so obviously they speak for each other as well. And both are capable of saying some pretty dumb shit. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/72 "2010-06-11T16:13:51Z")
> [@Chicagojeff](#): > > HAHAHAHAA that’s funny as hell. now seriously. i might by THAT card.. Pretty sure that’s their [Mahogany](http://www.mahoganyhallmark.com/) line. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/73 "2010-06-11T16:52:25Z")
> [@Chicagojeff](#): > > HAHAHAHAA that’s funny as hell. now seriously. i might by THAT card.. Hell, I might buy that card in utter seriousness. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601/74 "2010-06-15T03:55:21Z")
By some grace of the gods, the term ‘black hole’ actually came up – as a dirty non-double entendre (for once, Pierce wasn’t being racist/sexist) – on a \*Community \*rerun the other night. Doesn’t change my opinion, but a weird coincidence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hoops-and-yoyo-cute-greeting-card-characters-or-heartless-racist-bastards/542601.md?page=3)