Wasted Time

I don’t have a problem with people exercising their Freedom of Speech right. There is not too much someone can say that will offend me or hurt my feelings. I rarely get upset when I see an image that many would find offensive. I just don’t. I don’t care what people think unless it is directed to me by someone I know. Someone I consider an associate and/or friend. Even then it depends on what is lodged at/against me. If a white friend calls me a nigger, it will sting a little. If a black friend refers to me as Satan, it will bother me for a day or two. Actually, the Satan insult that typically comes from a sanctified brotha or sista hurts more. Both occurrences can be handled with grace and dignity. Crying about it or becoming forcefully agitated (fight) is a waste of time.

Why black people continue to waste time, I am not sure.

The NAACP is wasting valuable time passing a resolution of condemnation against the Tea Party Movement. Well, that part of the Tea Party Movement that refers to President Obama as a Black Hilter, that refers to black people as monkeys, that fringe part that continues to embarrass those well-meaning men and women who want to exercise their Freedom of Speech via protest.

http://www.naacp.org/news/entry/slideshow-tea-party-signs/

Protest is what literally established the NAACP. Men and women decided to stand up against what they believed to be governmental wrongs e.g. segregation, non-voting rights, whole scale discrimination, and racist activity. Protest is/was the basis of the NAACP’s agenda. When someone is/was wronged the NAACP comes/came a running!

On several occasions the NAACP should have stayed in their comfortable offices - and there have been NUMEROUS occasions when I believed that they should have came out blazing. Like when a black child is shot by a black gang banger while sleeping in her bed. Like when a local church is trying their best with limited resources to address obesity within the black community. Like when black parents appear to care less about their children’s educational development. Like when black kids become so socially and morally out of touch that they appear to be entitlement zombies.

Think about what NAACP stands for, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. http://www.naacp.org/content/main. The word ADVANCEMENT stands out to me. You?

We can advance in protest against crime that still to this day destroys our future, the black child. We can advance in protest against how fat we are becoming. Just morbidly fat and drastically out of shape. We can advance in protest against the rising high school dropout rate among black teenagers. We can advance in protest against our children living such carefree and ancestral unaccountable lives that they have no idea who Booker T. Washington is - and when our children tell us, ‘I am going to wear my pants and sneakers like this because it is the style.’

There is so much we can be doing besides sitting around a board room table passing a meaningless resolution or burying the N-word.

Does the average black person care that President Obama is being portrayed as a gorilla on a placard? Yes, the average black person does care. I find that to be so off-base. So out of touch with what is really important. So shallow. So limited. So ridiculous considering we (black people) rarely get this upset when we are the cause of our demise.

Read/heard all this before? Rhetorical minutia?

If yes, that in itself is the problem. We continue to miss the message. The message that will free us. Our freedom could have been purchased then controlled by us if we would have addressed this:

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2009-05-30-29verg_600.jpg

without whining to the system that planted the seeds of self hatred. Black people still begging their oppressor to respect them when in fact they refuse to honor themselves.

Written by Brian E. Payne

Roland Martin:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/16/martin.tea.party.civil.rights/index.html