Racism, or “White Supremacy Ideology” as I like to refer to it as, is a syndrome that will never go away. Not in my lifetime at least… and I doubt very much in my son’s. It’s difficult enough combating the numerous legitimate cases of racism we face individually or as a community, whether blatant or systemic, that we don’t need to create “imaginary” incidents. These fantasy based events do nothing but provide more fodder for those in the dominant community to dismiss… or at least question the credibility… of the real consequences regarding white supremacy ideology.
The Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP claims that a Hallmark graduation audio card, featuring cartoon characters Hoops and Yoyo is racist and advocates violence against Black women. Here’s the card:
Here’s the press conference by Jasmine Cannick and the NAACP:
Are you freaking kidding me!? This is what the L.A. chapter of the NAACP is spending their time and energy on!? They’re no actual incidents of racism for them to combat, so they have to make this sh*t up!?
It’s for antics such as this one that long, looong ago, I stopped caring (or even commenting) about the activities of the NAACP. They have become a caricature, an embarrassingly bad caricature, of a civil rights organization. Lately they are known more for their back-stabbing and in-fighting for personal power, as well as ridiculous publicity stunts (which includes their so-called “Image Awards”), than being involved in anything relevant in regards empowering the African-American community. They’ve become cartoon characters like Hoops and Yoyo, but with less relevance, even less credibility and no entertainment value.
I don’t usually agree with the views of Bob Parks of Project 21, but in this case he’s pretty much right on point:
Crying Wolf Over a “Racist” Cat and Rabbit
It is said that you can’t debate the insane. That must have been Hallmark’s strategy.
After three years on the market, the greeting card giant Hallmark quickly pulled a graduation card after half-baked claims were made by the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP that the card is racist.
Starring the Hallmark-designed characters Hoops and Yoyo, the controversial card contains a small speaker from which the cartoon cat and rabbit exclaim: “This graduate is going to run the world, run the universe and run everything after that. Yeah, whatever that is. And you black holes? You’re so ominous.” A few seconds later, they add: “And you planets? Watch your back.”
Apart from the audio, the card reads: “You’re graduating? Well then, it’s time to let the world know what’s coming. But not only the world. NOOOO! We’re talking the entire Solar System.” It additionally boasts: “Watch out, Saturn, this grad is going to run rings around you.”
Despite all the astronomical references, the NAACP members insist Hoops and Yoyo are advocating violence against “black whores,” not “black holes.” That’s what they claim the card says.
The logic of Leon Jenkins, the president of the NAACP’s Los Angeles chapter, certainly seems airtight. In a video posted on YouTube by community activist Jasmyne Cannick, Jenkins points out that something that is “ominous” is evil. Something that is evil must have a “body” or “conscious thought.” That fits a black woman — not a collapsed star, he says. And then, he adds, there’s the card’s “watch your back” threat.
Q.E.D.
Pay no mind that the “watch your back” taunt is made toward planets and not to whatever one might think that one particular word is. But Jenkins has that covered. As he explains in the Cannick-posted video, “if reasonable people can listen to this and interpret it the way I did, you need to pull it.”
Reasonable, eh?
Whether or not reasonable people can debate the legitimacy of cartoon animals personifying celestial objects is debatable all by itself. Whether this is a sinister conspiracy to incite children’s anger against a specific race and gender through a throwaway greeting card is yet another.
Both are silly, and Jenkins and his pals don’t have an intellectual leg to stand on.
It might have also been to the group’s benefit if everyone was on the same page. In a local news segment, NAACP member Minnie Hartley claimed the card says “black whores” and insisted “the r is in there.” Cannick transcribes it on her video as “black hos.” Jenkins seems to hear both, as he alternates in interviews.
Has there been an unexplained, up to now, surge in assaults on African-American prostitutes by recent grade-school graduates over the past three years? That might lend some credibility to wild-eyed claims of corporate conspiracy.
But why should logic prevail? Hallmark couldn’t rush to pull the card fast enough. Before the activists even had their press conference, Hallmark called to announce the card was being pulled.
Drug stores chains such as CVS and Walgreens also called Leon Jenkins to apologize for having it in stock. Jenkins says he is going to have a sit-down with CVS to “look at how they can do some… things for the black community.”
Do some things? It sounds like Jenkins might have tipped his hand.
Two things come to mind as a motivation for this greeting card controversy: a cry for attention or set-up for a shakedown.
For every inspired modern NAACP crusade such as their funeral for the “n-word,” there are many more complaints about too few black actors on television, Confederate flags or this greeting card. There’s a failure to realize that flailing for relevance demeans the NAACP’s successful and storied history.
If this is the more sinister of the two — that racism is being cried to solicit money or influence — it’s a much more serious and possibly criminal situation.
What’s worse, a racist rabbit or a corrupt civil rights group?
To answer your question: A corrupt civil rights group.
::Sigh::
When I read the news account, and then saw the card about which the NAACP was so exorcised, all I could say was, “Lord have mercy.”
For an organization which was at the forefront of the most pivotal civil rights issues, it has surely gone off the proverbial deep end, and has rendered itself virtually insignificant.
Wow, this is just sad.
I just want to hang my head in shame, the shame these NAACP folks are too far gone to feel. It’s such an embarassment to have such a stellar organization–one that inspired people of many creeds and nationalities to fight for freedom, one that fought in the courts and in the streets, one that strategized with the young and old, one that won battles and wars, to come to this horrific conclusion–not the misheard words of a card, but the collapse of their star as a premiere organization for freedom’s fight. The new “stars” of the NAACP have dragged the hard won legacy of this organization through the mud. It’s like when parents work hard through poverty and build up a little something, a nice little business and then hand it over to their lazy children who promptly and recklessly spend through the nest egg without working or investing any of the wealth in anything worthwhile. The new NAACP is that arrogant and rebellious child who refused to follow its parents footsteps. “do some things for the black community”? Really?
‘Racism, or ”White Supremacy Ideology” as I like to refer to it as, is a syndrome that will never go away.’
Listen, I think you need to get off your high horse on the whole ‘white people are our enemy’ thing. The biggest racists these days are blacks. And please don’t label me a racist, you claim this blog is for people of African descent. We are ALL of African descent. I have nothing against black people, or any other people, but it pisses me off with incidents like this from the NAACP, and your jibes at white folks in an article that has nothing to do with whites.
You shall have the day, of course. Whites are a dying race, which I have come to terms with. I just wish you’d show some support to your lighter cousins, instead of being on their back all of the time.
@Lock, if any human being, other than an African-American, would take the time to understand the depth of ABUSE and DESPAIR that the AA race has ENDURED at the hands of “lighter cousins” and ALL of the psychological fall-out it has caused, and is causing. You would never be pissed off again. No one has the right to do what has been done to Black People by Europeans. From the casting of the first slave net until now. And yet, we have risen to absolute greatness in Medicine, Law, Politics, Aerospace, Athletics, Entertainment, Literature, Education, even Nobel Laureates. And yet Black People are disproportionately being electrocuted (50,000 volts) to death with taser guns just about every week, in any given city, in America, in 2010, for reasons other than being caught in a criminal act. Are you by any chance pissed off at that COUSIN?
@ Lock, please read “The Destruction of Black Civilization” by Dr. Chancellor Williams.
You are the epitome of the light skinned person that white people set out to create, just as William Lynch described, and just as Arabs and other Europeans did in Africa to infiltrate and break up the race, to make blacks weaker, so that they can assume power.
Willie Lynch said “If you listen to me, we can condition the Nigger in the mindset we want, and keep it like this for 300 years or more.” “You must use the DARK skin slaves vs. the LIGHT skin slaves, and the LIGHT skin slaves vs. the DARK skin slaves.” “But it is NECESSARY THAT YOUR SLAVES TRUST AND DEPEND ON US. THEY MUST LOVE, RESPECT AND TRUST ONLY US.”
He also said “Crossbreeding a horse means taking a horse and breeding it with an ass and you get a dumb, backward, ass long-headed mule that is not reproductive nor productive by itself. Crossbreeding niggers mean taking so many drops of good white blood and putting them into as many nigger women as possible, varying the drops by the various tone that you want, and then letting them breed with each other until another circle of color appears as you desire. What this means is this: Put the niggers and the horse in a breeding pot, mix some asses and some good white blood and what do you get? You got a multiplicity of colors of ass backward, unusual niggers, running, tied to backward ass long-headed mules, the one productive of itself, the other sterile. (The one constant, the other dying, we keep the nigger constant for we may replace the mules for another tool) both mule and nigger tied to each other, neither knowing where the other came from and neither productive for itself, nor without each other.”
Perhaps it’s time for the NAACP to be dismantled, it has failed to evolve into the 21st century.
This definitely does not help the movement. How ridiculous! Our sons and daughters are being murdered in the streets and we have people protesting Hallmark cards that are referencing Black holes in space. What the F? Its both hilarious and embarrassing at the same time. We got to do better.
Asa, I agree absolutely with you position.
This just in! The California NAACP gets on board for the legalization of recreational use of marijuana in California!!
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/state-naacp-backs-marijuana-legalization.html
One young weed user questions why the NAACP would join that bandwagon. She said that there are so many other pressing issues that blacks in California face. like high unemployment.
So does Ron Allen, the president of the International Faith Based Coalition, based in California’s capitol city of Sacramento.
Anyway I just heard this on my local news. Hmmmmm……
Our naacp hard at work.