NAACP: Racism without the white sheets

The BBQ Pit
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From today’s Detroit News:
http://www.detnews.com/2000/tigers/0004/11/a06-34729.htm

Allow me to sum up the story. Today the Detroit Tigers open their new baseball stadium, Comerica Park. The home opener of the baseball season is always a big deal in Detroit, but particularly so this year, with the new park expected to help continue the rebirth of inner city Detroit that the owner of the Tigers, Mike Ilitch, has played a big part in bringing about.

Ilitch moved his Little Caesar’s pizza world headquarters to the city. He renovated the Fox Theater, opened a Second City comedy show and the Hockeytown Cafe, geared around another one of his teams that didn’t defect to the suburbs, the Red Wings.

Granted, he’s doing all of this to make a profit. But he’s also made a commitment to Detroit and its citizens that he didn’t have to make. He could have escaped to the very-much-whiter suburbs, where few would argue it would be easier for him to make a buck.

So, on this day when optimism should abound, out trudges the NAACP. What’s their bitch? Well, it seems the new ballpark has this concourse with five majestic, stainless steel statues of Tiger legends. I haven’t seen them, but they’re supposed to be quite impressive – up to 17 feet tall. The NAACP is mad because no African-Americans are depicted.

Who’s depicted? The five Tigers who are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and whose numbers have been retired by the team.

“If we continue to add statues, there is little doubt that a player of African-American heritage would be honored,” says Tigers spokesman Tyler Barnes.

Not good enough for Detroit NAACP Executive Director Hester Wheeler.

“Somebody had to make the conscious decision that it’s not an important issue,” he said. “Clearly, there was no commitment to (racial diversity).”

Fuck Wheeler, and fuck his organization. Whatever purpose the NAACP may have once served, now they are the racists.

What’s the definition of a racist? To me, at least one part of it has to be anyone who interjects race into discussions where it’s inappropriate. That’s the NAACP all over.

What a slap in the face to the Tigers owner. Must the race card ALWAYS be played? Is EVERYTHING really about race? Why isn’t it about baseball excellence?

Want a statue? Get 3,000 hits and 400 home runs, asshole! Then it won’t matter whether you’re Latvian or Aleutian.

The only bit of this argument that has any validity to me is that for many years, blacks weren’t allowed an equal opportunity to compete in Major League Baseball. So, if a qualified Detroit player from the old Negro Leagues is found worthy, by all means, give him a statue. But if his baseball skills aren’t up there with the guys who have statues, DON’T.

Whoever put that statue of Michael Jordan up in front of Chicago’s basketball stadium obviously didn’t care about racial diversity. I want a statue of Will Perdue erected immediately.

And if you think that’s silly, congratulations, you’re making my point for me.

“We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi

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I can not think of any African-American’s who played for the Tiger’s and are worthly of the hall of fame. I can come up with at least one for almost every other team.

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Get an effing clue, Milo, before you post your drivel here. You’re wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Come to your senses, man- Will Perdue?

I was just objecting to the Will Perdue part of your post. Everything else I agree with.

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The NAACP, like many other groups has realized that they can garner power, attention and money by being easily offended. you can’t be a cutting edge political activist unless you create a demon to battle. Oh, and that demon has to be white, rich and educated or a large company.

On another note, a lack of blacks in major roles in the bible has led to some groups rewriting history to the end that now Jesus was black.

Perhaps they shoudl just state that all of the hall of famers were actually black and be done with it.

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The NAACP is an advocacy group. As with any advocacy group, you must continue finding issues to keep yourself in the spotlight.

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Hmmm . … Sounds like the NAACP (and I am old enough to recall when that stood for “Never Antagonoze Adam Clayton Powell”) has gone the route of NOW. When they can’t find any real, important battles to fight, they find stupid little ones.

I’m as big a feminist as the next gal (unless the next gal is Camille Paglia). But I dropped my NOW membership when they sued a fire station for having girlie pin-ups on the wall. This sounds like much the same kind of nonsense.

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If Will Perdue gets a statue, then Bill Wennington should also, otherwise you people will be discriminating against Canadians.

And Milossarian, darn fine rant. It said what I have thought better than I could have done.

We went right out there and refused to do accoustical versions of the electrical songs that we had refused to record in the first place.

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I agree with you Milo, Wheeler sounds like a drummer for a bad brand of snake oil.

Ironically, Wheeler could have made a very different point and actually garnered some support for his message. The Tigers were just about the last team in the league to actually integrate their ball club, and when they did integrate, they made a point of picking slightly-better-than average players in non-key positions so that they didn’t have to actually field a big star who was black. (I always thought Jake Wood was a pretty decent second baseman, but he was certainly not the only black guy the Tigers could have acquired if they wanted talent. He does not, however, have the player stature of Greenberg or Kaline or Cobb.) Instead Wheeler blew it with his “conscious decision” nonsense in reference to today’s team and today’s stadium.

Tom~

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As founding member of the NAAJB, I must protest to the slanderous remarks which artificially raised Bill Wennington and Will Perdue above Judd Buechler. Come on, people!

Um, I feel silly, now, because I started this organization before I was absolutely sure I knew how to spell the honoree’s name.

stoli

Well, blessed is just about everyone with a vested interest in the status quo, as far as I can tell.

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P.J. O’Rourke has a very telling term for these divisive worrywarts and their overly intrusive organizations.
The Perennially Indignant.

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Out of curiosity, why doesn’t someone just ask the NAACP what Tiger player they think should be there? I’m wondering who they would say…

Overall, stupidity. I may rather vocally hate the far right, but the far left gives me the willies as well…

Yer pal,
Satan

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Please don’t think of this as indicative of the Far Left. I’m one of the biggest hippie commie pinko Nation-reading Nader-loving ACLU-card-carrying lefty liberals out there, and I think this is a load. (Now I know how the Libertarians feel about the Religious Right. :slight_smile: )

(Aside: Haven’t seen you over at the LBMB lately. Just hurts to see some claptrap go by without the appropriate commentary from NYC.)

Dr. J

“Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!” -Dr. Nick Riviera

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The word racist implies hatred or intolerance. I don’t consider the NAACP hateful or intolerant, but they seem to have done a good job of showing their asses on this one.

Otherwise, good rant!

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My mom called me today, very emotional about Opening Day (cut her and she bleeds orange and black). She didn’t say anything about this issue, though. Good rant, Milo.

This one needs to go on Opal’s board. Hysterical!

Cristi, Slayer of Peeps

I made my husband join a bridge club. He jumps next Tuesday.

(title & sig courtesy of UncleBeer and WallyM7!)

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NAACP? Do these people actually represent the “Colored People”, or just themselves? Personally, I have yet to meet a “Colored Person” who had anything good to say about the NAACP. “National Association of Always Complaining People” is what it should stand for, and I am strictly refering to the NAACP itself and not the people it supposedly represents/mis-represents.

In the beginning, God created the earth and rested. Then God created Man
and rested. Then God created Woman. Since then, neither God nor Man has
rested.

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You should live in the south. The NAACP monitors everything, whether it needs it or not. We put them right alongside the KKK here. Intolerant? To say the least. Necessary? Maybe at one point they were. Now they are considered just a whiny bunch of people with too much time on their hands.

** Sigh. So many men, so few who can afford me ** Original by Wally

I’ve learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it.