April D. Ryan

This week, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) held an emergency meeting on their involvement in the recent national controversies on race.  The Civil Rights organization called-in retired board chair and Civil Rights activist Julian Bond for the Wednesday evening session of senior staff and the organization’s Executive Board.  Sources contend NAACP President Ben Jealous was taken to the woodshed for his recent involvement in the current race-based national news stories.   Sources also confirm Rosalind Brock, the new NAACP Board Chairperson, is  now the point person on the current controversies.

Democratic sources close to the NAACP say this is a big warning shot for Jealous, who is said to be a good fundraiser for the nation’s oldest Civil Rights organization.  Sources have confirmed Jealous is taking the fall for the NAACP’s current black eye on these following situations:  This month at the 101st NAACP convention, 85 resolutions were issued.  Only one made national headlines and sparked a raging debate, raising the ire of Conservatives.  The resolution deemed some Tea Party activities racist.  This comes at a time when the apolitical NAACP has been trying to promote an umbrella for people from all political parties.  

Controversy swirled for the association again this week when it jumped the gun and denounced the statements by former black Georgia Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod at a March Freedom Fund Dinner. On tape, Sherrod said she withheld the “full force” of her position because a white farmer, asking for help, was acting superior.   The full 43-minute tape showed her comments were part of a racial redemption story. Thus, after reviewing the entire tape, the NAACP retracted its original statement.

On the Shirley Sherrod controversy, I contacted President Obama’s Senior advisor Valarie Jarrett via email. Ms. Jarrett acknowledges she and the President did indeed discuss the Sherrod issue. Jarrett would not give details accept that the President did try unsuccessfully to call Mrs. Sherrod Wed night.   The next day, Thursday at 12:35pm Eastern, President Obama, in his private office, held a seven minute phone conversation with Mrs. Sherrod. During the conversation, President Obama told Ms. Sherrod that this misfortune can present an opportunity for her to continue her hard work on behalf of those in need, and he hopes that she will do so. Robert gibbs white house press secretary says the president was not lobbying her to take her job back.   Robert Gibbs White House Press Secretary says the call was not about the President lobbying her to take the job. The white House feels it is her decision to make.

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Two new polls out this week show that both former President Bill Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama are enjoying higher favorability ratings than President Obama, himself.

A Gallup poll released on Thursday indicates that 61 percent of Americans say they have a favorable

The Huffington Post | Eleni Angelides First Posted: 07-22-10 01:27 PM | Updated: 07-22-10 01:27 PM

Read More: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton Poll, Michelle Obama, Michelle Obama Poll, Obama Poll, Politics News

Two new polls out this week show that both former President Bill Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama are enjoying higher favorability ratings than President Obama, himself.

A Gallup poll released on Thursday indicates that 61 percent of Americans say they have a favorable opinion of Clinton while 52 percent viewed Obama in a favorable light.

CNN reports that this is the first time in Gallup polling that Clinton’s favorability rating significantly exceeded Obama’s.

Meanwhile, Michelle Obama continues to hold higher favorability ratings than her husband, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.

Fifty-five percent of Americans view Mrs. Obama favorably compared to 49 percent who have a favorable view of the president — his lowest ratings since taking office in 2009.

Despite the First Lady’s many public appearances the poll found that 23 percent of Americans still said they had not heard enough about Mrs. Obama in order to have an opinion.
The Gallup poll was conducted July 8-11, with 1,020 adults and had a 4 percentage point margin of error. Quinnipiac University conducted its poll July 13-19, 2010 with 2,181 registered It had a 2.1 percentage point margin of error.

Obama Administration sources contend the United States Department of Agriculture made officials at various levels at the White House aware of the Shirley Sherrod story Monday evening. The source also says Obama officials asked what would be her fate but never told them to fire her.

The Administration source says shortly after the first call, the White House was made aware of her resignation.

Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign her post at the USDA for comments she says were taken out of context from a video decades ago at an NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner.    Sharrod even claims her resignation was pushed the White House.  The White House says, untrue. Meanwhile, she is calling out people for allegedyly throwing her under the bus to include Roland Martin for standing by the USDA for accepting her resignation.    Sherrod during a speech at the Freedom Fund Dinner said she did not give the full force of her job at the USDA to the White farmer because he was talking to her in a superior way when he was asking for help.  The USDA is not relenting on accepting her resignation. A written statement from the department says there is a “zero tolerance policy for discrimination.”   Currently, the USDA is conducting an external and internal audit on issue of discrimination to prevent it from happening. Those investigations result from the scores of black farmer lawsuits along with Hispanic and Native American discrimination suits.

The NAACP previously stood by the USDA and changed their stance once they reviewed the facts.  A written statement was then released.

(BALTIMORE, MD) NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous issued the following statement today after a careful investigation into the presentation of former USDA Official, Shirley Sherrod.

The NAACP has a zero tolerance policy against racial discrimination, whether practiced by blacks, whites, or any other group.

The NAACP also has long championed and embraced transformation by people who have moved beyond racial bias. Most notably, we have done so for late Alabama Governor George Wallace and late US Senator Robert Byrd–each a man who had associated with and supported white supremacists and their cause before embracing civil rights for all.

With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.

Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.

The fact is Ms. Sherrod did help the white farmers mentioned in her speech. They personally credit her with helping to save their family farm.

Moreover, this incident and the lesson it prompted occurred more that 20 years before she went to work for USDA.

Finally, she was sharing this account as part of a story of transformation and redemption. In the full video, Ms.Sherrod says she realized that the dislocation of farmers is about “haves and have nots.” “It’s not just about black people, it’s about poor people,” says Sherrod in the speech. “We have to get to the point where race exists but it doesn’t matter.”

This is a teachable moment, for activists and for journalists.

Most Americans agree that racism has no place in American Society. We also believe that civil and human rights have to be measured by a single yardstick.

The NAACP has demonstrated its commitment to live by that standard.

The Tea Party Federation took a step in that direction when it expelled the Tea Party Express over the weekend. Unfortunately, we have yet to hear from other leaders in the Tea Party movement like Dick Armey and Sarah Palin, who have been virtually silent on the “internal bigotry” issue.

Next time we are confronted by a racial controversy broken by Fox News or their allies in the Tea Party like Mr. Breitbart, we will consider the source and be more deliberate in responding. The tape of Ms. Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP banquet was deliberately edited to create a false impression of racial bias, and to create a controversy where none existed. This just shows the lengths to which extremist elements will go to discredit legitimate opposition.

According to the USDA, Sherrod’s statements prompted her dismissal. While we understand why Secretary Vilsack believes this false controversy will impede her ability to function in the role, we urge him to reconsider and give everyday Americans a chance to surprise him.

Finally, we hope this incident will heighten Congress’s urgency in dealing with the well documented findings of discrimination toward black, Latino, Asian American and Native American farmers, as well as female farmers of all races.

2010 Cambridge College Commencement Address by April Ryan Washington Bureau Chief and White House Correspondent for the American Urban Radio Networks.

The NAACP has passed a resolution that condemns what it feels is rampant racism in the Tea Party movement. Members passed the measure on Tuesday at the organization’s 101st annual convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

 
Tea Party activists have swiftly denounced the action as unfounded and unfair. 

Republican National Committee Chair, Michael Steele said in a written statement

 
“Recent statements claiming the Tea Party movement is racist are not only destructive, they are not true. Tea Party activists are your mom or dad, your local grocer, banker, hairdresser or doctor. They are a diverse group of passionate Americans who want to ensure that our nation returns to founding principles that honor the Constitution, limit government’s role in our lives, and support policies that empower free markets and free enterprise. Enough with the name-calling.”
 
The NAACP resolution pits the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, with its storied history of wins on behalf of racial justice, against a grassroots conservative movement that has won some recent political races and is flexing its muscle in Republican circles.

 
“We take no issue with the Tea Party. We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy,” Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a statement.

“We take issue with the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements. The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no space for racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in their movement,” Jealous said.

The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton sought Wednesday to steer attention away from an NAACP resolution condemning racism within the tea party movement, saying focus should remain on jobs and an upcoming march in Washington.

Jackson deflected questions about the resolution at a news conference during the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Kansas City.

“We will not be diverted or otherwise distracted by any other message except putting America back to work,” Jackson said a day after convention delegates approved the resolution. “We want jobs and justice and peace.”

Sharpton was a little more direct, saying issues surrounding the tea party go beyond claims of racism. He said the civil rights movement sought to pressure the federal government to step in when states were enforcing segregation laws, and the tea party’s focus on states’ rights puts people at risk.

“They talk about restoring dignity. They are really talking about restoring a time before the federal government intervened and protected the rights of people,” Sharpton said.

A new domestic AIDS policy rolled out by the White House on Tuesday asks states and federal agencies to find ways to cut new infections by 25 percent, get more patients treated quickly and educate Americans about the deadly and incurable virus.

As an immediate down payment, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced $30 million to develop better prevention methods using a combination of approaches.

 
“We need to ensure every HIV-positive American gets the care they need,” President Barack Obama told a White House gathering of AIDS experts and activists.

 
“We need to make sure all our efforts are coordinated within the federal government and across state and local governments.”

The plan directs government agencies to work together more closely to focus spending where it is most needed and identify where new spending would do the most good — for instance, among hard-hit communities of blacks, Hispanics, drug users and gay and bisexual men.

 
It urges the Food and Drug Administration to make review of new HIV tests a priority and says HIV patients need housing and other support in addition to medical care.

 
Many activists who have been in on the planning of the new strategy for the past 15 months praised it.

 
“I think this strategy points us in several very important directions in terms of informing and improving the domestic response to HIV,” Chris Collins, public policy director at The Foundation for AIDS Research or AMFAR, said in a telephone interview.

“It doesn’t speak to the need for more resources and that is one of the two critical issues.”

 Also, the organization Housing Works calls the Obama AIDS strategy as a step backwards.   One of the issues of concern for Housing works is the plans lack of new funding for housing for poor Americans living with HIV Aids.

Phil Wilson of the Black Aids Institute attended the White House reception for the National Aids policy roll out.  He had this to say.

The NAACP urged the Justice Department to file the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Arizona’s law targeting illegal immigrants. Hillary Shelton of the NAACP commends the Justice Department for “moving expeditiously.”    The DOJ lawsuit will argue that Arizona’s new measure requiring state and local police to question and possibly arrest illegal immigrants during the enforcement of other laws is a state takeover of federal authority.     Shelton says it is an “equal protections challenge” with a state policy that would be pervasively discriminatory, based on stopping and detaining individuals based on their appearance. The NAACP is looking for at the very least, a temporary injunction pending the outcome of the lawsuit.
The rights group has heard that some Arizona authorities are not enforcing the law because of the discriminatory nature. Shelton contends this law does not just target Latino’s but Caribbean nationals too.