Crystal Wright: The NAACP vs. Harlem School Kids

The National Association for the ADVANCEMENT of Colored People, emphasis on the word “advancement,”claims “for 102 years, the NAACP has fought to ensure that all our children have access to high-quality public education.”

If this is indeed true, then why would the NAACP, which used to be the most revered civil rights organization for black Americans, throw New York City black kids under the bus to save unionized teachers’ jobs and keep failing schools open?

In May to the shock and awe of thousands of New York City parents, the NAACP locked arms with the United Federation of Teachers (emphasis on union) and filed a lawsuit in the State Supreme Court to stop the city from closing 22 poor performing schools and giving 20 charter schools space inside public schools.



After 2,500 charter school parents and students protested in Harlem last week, blasting the NAACP, it wrote an op-ed arguing that allowing charter school students to use available space in NYC schools “impedes learning” or “tears at the fabric of communities.” Tell me how giving parents’ access to 20 charter schools impedes learning. What the NAACP failed to mention in weak defense of its actions was that by filing the lawsuit with the teachers’ union, the NAACP prevented 4,100 teachers from losing their jobs and denied 7,000 children access to a better education. That is called hypocrisy!

If the NAACP really espoused Shirley Chisholm’s maxim as it wrote in its op-ed “there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests,” particularly when it comes to education of black kids, then the NAACP should be praising Republicans. GOP policies support charter schools, vouchers and programs like the DC Scholarship Program, which House Speaker John Boehner brought back to life after Obama killed the program which helped 1,700 black kids escape failing DC schools.

The NAACP does have permanent enemies, they include Republicans and those enlightened people against teachers unions and possibly the very black people it claims to protect! The one honest thing NAACP wrote in that flimsy op-ed was “we are independent actors.” Yes, you are but not for the good of the constituents you claim to serve.

This NYC school madness is another reason the NAACP has become an irrelevant organization, a distant shadow of the Civil Rights group which worked so assiduously during the 1950s and 1960s to combat racial discrimination. Sadly, it seems the NAACP can be bought by anyone at the expense of black people, who it is supposed to serve and in this case NAACP was bought by the teachers union. As former DC Councilmember Kevin Chavous noted Supreme Court Justice and former NAACP Chief Counsel Thurgood Marshall, who won the infamous 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case, “must be shaking his head.”

News flash, school choice, vouchers, and charter schools, all are Republican policies, help BLACKS escape education ghettos and succeed in life. As my good friend Michelle Bernard says often “education is the great equalizer.” Stop being stupid my Black people and throwing your vote blindly to Democrats, get educated on who and what you vote for!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Crystal Wright is a black conservative woman living in Washington, DC. Some would say she is a triple minority: woman, black and a Republican living in a Democrat dominated city. She’s contemplating moving back to her home state of Virginia, where her vote would count for something. By day, Crystal is a communications consultant and editor and publisher of the new website http://www.conservativeblackchick.com/  . Crystal earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Georgetown University and holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre from Virginia Commonwealth University