The
need for the emergence of new forms of black civic leadership in Cleveland has been
demonstrated yet again by the continuing implosion of the local NAACP chapter.
In
a show of staggering incompetence, fueled by the illusory pursuit of “little p”
personal power and the continued abandonment of principle, the reigning
potentates failed to follow their own rules in conducting the biannual election
of officers, forcing the national office to call a time out.
Many
people ask, with good reason, why this desiccated mess of a once powerful civil
rights organization is worthy of any note when decade after decade it has engaged
in self-dealing, credibility-destroying ways to render itself irrelevant?
Clearly,
the Cleveland NAACP no longer resembles the mid-20th century
juggernaut that had 10,000 dues-paying members. Still, it stands in the gap,
like an abandoned fort, between the tens of thousands of ordinary black people just
trying to get through the month, the week, and sometimes the day, and those
whose control of institutions — state offices, the legislature, the public
safety and criminal justice systems, the schools and workplaces — allow them to
ignore and devalue black life.
The
poster event for black impotence is the impunity with which more than 100
Cleveland police officers disregarded departmental rules and procedures to
chase two people across town at high speeds and when the prey was cornered, 13
police fired 137 bullets into one car, killing its two unarmed occupants.
The
community response to this outrageous police misconduct has been muted. To some
extent this can be attributed to the fact that Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson
has adopted his usual calm stance. But we are approaching the second
anniversary of “The Chase” and who in our community is monitoring the monitors
in the Jackson administration?
The
lack of effective organizational leadership is manifest in other areas as well.
We may be at a moment when self-interest on the part of general contractors,
property owners, and labor unions offer opportunities for real gains for black
contractors, laborers, and neighborhoods. Some black business and leaders —
Dominic Ozanne, for one, but there are others, including Natoya Walker-Minor of
the Jackson administration — have helped drive a process where sizable business
projects can be impacted by the views and wishes of area residents. But there
is too often no community organization ready to sit down with affected parties
to negotiate a Community Benefits Agreement even when the framework is already
in place.
This
is not to say that there are no effective black organizations or agencies here.
There are scores, including the Black Professionals Association Charitable
Foundation; Delta Sigma Theta; Sigma Pi Phi [the Boule]; Burten, Bell, Carr Development Inc.; to
name but a few. But there is not one with the portfolio, the history, or the
name to eclipse the NAACP.
If
the NAACP were a public school, it would be ripe for reconstitution. Throw out
all the officers and start anew. Try and keep the executive director, Sheila
Wright. She is bright, passionate, innovative, and young. But she hasn’t been
paid in five months, and we know what happens to romance when there is no
finance.
Cleveland’s
establishment has coasted on the inclusion tip for a very long time. One might
say that coasting parallels the weakness of the local NAACP. The old boy
network that runs this community needs to be broken up before it consigns us to
eternal mediocrity. Black Cleveland needs to be in the vanguard of the
modernization of our political, economic and social structures. That process
has to begin at home, and it ought to begin with a thorough housecleaning at
the NAACP.
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