Where is the game plan

Jonathan Ray, CEO of the Urban League suggested at the Men of 's meeting that as an organization it can't be everything to all people. Ray was suggesting to the Men of Action group a need to focus on one area and do that area of focus well. This was after I had suggested that many of the programs that Men of Action were brainstorming were readily available resources in the community. Just knowing how to access these resource and incorporate them would free up valuable manpower and hours. To my surprise many leaders of the group were not aware of resources or contacts. How can this be,as I begin to feel frustration. How can you lead when you can't provide the people what they need or show them where to get their needs met?

Anyways, I goes over to Villager, and I find a lovely article about NAACP disagreement with Bruce Gordon. Gordon wanted to incorporate a service element in growing membership. The Board members did not necessary want to provide services but to continue battling the corporations on the legal battle fields. In essence, NAACP was leaving the component of meeting the service needs of the people to the Urban League. The lack of mutual agreement and the NAACP lost Bruce Gordon.

What it is means that the Board privileges its historic identity and therefore, honors the struggle to achieve full civil rights by a forceful agenda and set of strategies.

This calls into question any attempt to change the organization's mission into a service role. Without question, as Gordon has indicated, there is a huge role for leadership in turning inward and marshalling the strengths of the Black community to do what is necessary to achieve our goal of self-determination. However, the NAACP cannot do both civil rights and social service, effectively. And why should it, there is a fine black social service organization in existence known as the National Urban League, created just one year after the NAACP, such that they were clear then of the difference between the functions of the organizations. We have gotten somewhat confused today.

The article suggest that the Board members and Bruce Gordon could have come to a mutual agreement, I believe. The article suggest that the civil right organization battled for laws to be written. But, implemented of the law for the needs of the people is the current and even harder battle in which the NAACP should be focusing on.

What we are seeing is that in some ways, the fight to establish civil right laws was easier than its implementation, since all of them have been distorted to a major degree. Thus, the mission to infuse meaning into these laws is essentially one that pre-supposes a constant confrontation with systemic oppression, and it should do the work of such organizations - even if it continues to make all of us uncomfortable. For, as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, it is this discomfort that produces the seeds of change.

In essence, the people needs to know how these laws are being used to further oppress them rather than used in a manner to improve their lives. The purpose of the law is not to help the servant but to maintain the master house. This is the distortion. The gatekeepers may appear as nice guys, but they lack a pure,clean and good heart. It's a difference.

So, when I suggest that gun amnesty program is a front and not meeting the needs of the people. I say it is a photo op for a political objective rather than meeting the social needs of the community. The community wants crime reductions for safe neighborhoods and jobs for their families. And I surmise to achieve these goals, to reduce crime and fund jobs for our youth, both the Urban League and the NAACP can do this. And not allow Sheriff Fries to waste precious dollars to help our community be used for photo ops. So why is not the NAACP addressing the laws and the Urban League the jobs to achieve this goal simultaneously? Men of Action what is your strategy or is this one more photo op moments, here, here and here.