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The Library => The SGA => Topic started by: CCTAU on January 20, 2011, 10:44:56 AM
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This is just too stupid to even be true. There is no more divisive group than the NAACP.
NAACP Draws Complaints for Covering George Washington Statue on Martin Luther King Day
Published January 19, 2011
The NAACP's South Carolina office chose to cover a statue of George Washington during its annual rally honoring Martin Luther King Jr., drawing complaints from conservatives that the group was offending the legacy of the nation's Founding Father.
The state chapter of the civil rights group claims it meant no disrespect and only covered up the statue to provide a more suitable backdrop for speakers at Monday's event. Pictures taken at the event show the statue was completely covered on three sides by a wooden, box-like structure.
But those pictures prompted an outcry on conservative blogs. Tea Party activist Lloyd Marcus was among those who quickly wrote a retort to the NAACP's decision.
"I thought, you know, this is just totally absurd, totally ridiculous," Marcus told FoxNews.com. "I don't know if George Washington had slaves or whatever but ... George Washington was our first president."
Marcus, who is black, is a Florida-based activist who works with the Tea Party Express. He said the NAACP should stop putting its energy into apparently symbolic statements like this and start doing more to address problems like high-school dropout rates in the black community.
"These are things the NAACP should be dealing with rather than running around covering up statues of dead white guys," Marcus said.
The King rally was held near the State House in Columbia, S.C. South Carolina NAACP director Dwight James told The State newspaper that his group was not trying to offend Washington's legacy. He said the NAACP wanted to use the structure around the statue as a backdrop for speakers and a graphic, which incidentally was not finished in time to be displayed.
The newspaper reported that most rallies in the capital use the statue of America's first president as part of the natural backdrop -- though the NAACP has tried to cover it up in the past. Marcus said he didn't buy the state chapter's explanation.
But Joanne Jones, vice chairwoman of the Charleston Tea Party board, said she assumes the NAACP was not intentionally disrespecting a founding father. She said the decision was just "surprising," considering how image-conscious the group is. "I would have thought they would have thought it through," she said. "They must not have had any alternative."
Karen Martin, founder of the Spartanburg Tea Party in South Carolina, said many local Tea Party groups just aren't paying attention to the flap in Columbia.
"We really don't care about what the NAACP did," she said. "They lost their credibility to be any sort of reasonable voice for Americans."
The South Carolina NAACP did not return a request for comment.
The Columbia statue incident wasn't the only controversy involving the NAACP on the Martin Luther King holiday. In Maine, Gov. Paul LePage drew criticism from the group after urging its members to "kiss my butt" over the fallout from his decision to skip the group's MLK Day festivities. In the end, the GOP governor on Monday attended a breakfast in King's honor, though it was not sponsored by the NAACP.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/19/naacp-draws-complaints-covering-george-washington-statue-mlk-day/#ixzz1BagX8Z4P
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/19/naacp-draws-complaints-covering-george-washington-statue-mlk-day/
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This is just too stupid to even be true. There is no more divisive group than the NAACP.
The NAACP has been spurning the Founders for as long as they've been around over the slavery issue of course. Most of the Founders were slave owners and they knew that slavery could not be reconciled with the idealistic form of a representative republic of freedom that they intended for this country. They also knew full well that by addressing that issue at the founding of this nation it would have ripped it apart even before it even got a good start.
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Well at least they didn't throw a sheet over the statue.
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Well at least they didn't throw a sheet over the statue.
That's an ugly thing to say...Racist!
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Well at least they didn't throw a sheet over the statue.
Just the sheet would have been ok... it was the hood with the cut out eyes that pissed everyone off.
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Just the sheet would have been ok... it was the hood with the cut out eyes that pissed everyone off.
Actually I don't get the whole uproar. The statue looked really dark to me. Who could tell?