Benjamin T. Jealous and Micheal Steele Do They Have The Mettle To Wage The Internal Fight?

I read with interest the article in the NY Times about about the new Republican Party chairmen Mr. Michael Steele, who the NY Times wrote, waves the party flag; Mr. Steele smiles and shreds it. A man of constantly colliding analogies, he compares Republicans to drunks in need of a 12-step program and to the mentally ill. He has insulted Rush Limbaugh and moderate Republican senators alike, and he has promised a “hip-hop makeover” that would attract even “one-armed midgets” to his party.

The NY Times goes on to say, Mr. Steele is the party’s first African-American chairman, his election a response to a history-making Democratic president. But now his performance is raising questions: Does he have a strategy, or is he simply saying whatever comes to mind? Republican moderates have staked hopes of reform on him, betting that his race and frank style will foster a new image of the party, but is this what they expected?

“I’m trying to move an elephant that’s become mired in its own muck,” Mr. Steele said in an interview last week in his sunlit Capitol Hill office, pausing whenever he appeared on the giant television close by his desk.

Get this, the NY Times quotes the new NAACP President as one who applauds Mr. Steele’s vision of a more inclusive Republican Party but wonders if he can execute it. “Does he have the mettle to wage that type of fight?” asked Benjamin T. Jealous, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

AAPP: I have been wondering the same thing about the NAACP's new president. I too applaud Mr. Steele and Mr. Jealous vision of a more inclusive Republican Party and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I just wonder if they both can execute these visions within their own conservative organizations. Only time will tell, but judging from there actions thus far they have a struggle ahead of themselves. Nothing has changed at the Old Guard NAACP in some time. I'm reminded that John H Mc Whorter, wrote in the LA Times "The NAACP is stuck in a mind-set that worked 30 years ago but makes little sense today."

John also wrote, "Lifting blacks up is no longer a matter of getting whites off our necks. We are faced, rather, with the mundane tasks of teaching those "left behind" after the civil rights victory how to succeed in a complex society - one in which there will never be a second civil rights revolution. To be sure, racism still exists and must be stamped out. But it has been clearly and distinctly marginalized. And it is simply a fallacy to say that the only way people can achieve is when there is absolutely no bias whatsoever against them. The burgeoning of the black middle class has made it clear that societal racism doesn't condemn African Americans to failure." More HERE

There are a lot of bloggers on the left, right and middle who have been watching the NAACP for sometime. Some of us plan not only to watch but to be involved, if the NAACP will let us. I'm still waiting for return phone calls from my own local branch.

Check on Ron Paul on the DL Hughley Show regarding the Republicans and the GOP. Is Ron Paul too Human to be Republican? Did Congressman Ron Paul say the best way to have eliminated slavery in America was for the North to have bought the slaves, and just free the slaves? Check Him Out.