Manage Delivery
Mitt Romney’s speech to the NAACP convention in Houston was – according to one’s political perspective – a “calculated move on his part to get booed” to help his white base (House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.) or a presentation to “independent-thinking adult citizens” whom he treated as equals (talk-show host Rush Limbaugh).
Having an adult conversation in a racially and politically polarized age is nearly impossible, especially when our current political culture does not require a solution to problems, only the use of rhetoric and symbols to gain political power.
The second “A” in NAACP stands for “advancement.” By any standard, African-Americans receiving government assistance do not appear to have advanced much, if by advancement one means progress toward a steady job. In fact, a serious argument could be made that they are falling further behind.
“If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact,” Romney told his Houston audience, “then a chronically bad economy would be equally bad for everyone. Instead, it’s worse for African-Americans in almost every way.… In June, while the overall unemployment rate remained stuck at 8.2 percent, the unemployment rate for African-Americans actually went up, from 13.6 percent to 14.4 percent.”
Equally disconcerting are the number of births to single African-American women, the incarceration rate for African-American men, the number of failing public schools that sustain the cycle of poverty and crime in disadvantaged communities, and a federal government that offers checks instead of solutions to problems, leading to a dependence on taxpayer dollars.
This was what Romney was getting at in his speech. He spoke of an economy that creates jobs. He spoke of creating stronger families and more opportunities for all Americans. He endorsed school choice. Why would members of the NAACP oppose parents choosing the school that offers the best education for their children?
Reaction to Romney’s measured speech was predictable. Charlette Stokes-Manning, a chairwoman of Women in NAACP, said: “You cannot possibly talk about jobs for black people at the level he’s coming from. He’s talking about entrepreneurship, savings accounts – black people can barely find a way to get back and forth from work.”
If a white person had said this, he would have been accused of racial stereotyping.
NAACP president Ben Jealous said of Romney’s speech, “He really wasn’t trying to talk to them (the audience). He was trying to talk to somebody else.”
He’s right. Romney was not speaking just to the Houston audience, mostly composed of those tied to the civil rights establishment, but to those seeking jobs and a better life.
President Obama did not make the NAACP convention, citing a scheduling conflict. Instead, Vice President Joe Biden attended and imagined what a Romney Justice Department would look like. The unserious Biden gave an unserious speech, but he was applauded. So was Romney at the end, though he was booed for saying he would repeal Obamacare.
What would the NAACP delegates have preferred to hear from Romney? A speech advocating higher black unemployment? More people on food stamps? That is what the Obama administration is giving them.
What the NAACP needs is a freedom-from-government movement, but it won’t get one because the organization’s allegiance is less to African-American advancement than it is to the Democratic Party and the scraps it provides in exchange for votes.
