Kevin Trainor writes, "My point was that Bill [Green] didn't seem to recoignize [sic] that the NAACP is not a `person' and therefore is subject to changes in its position due to changes in its personnel."
I think what Bill Green was pointing out was that a bunch of people, although suing the State of Minnesota and not the City of Minneapolis, disrupted Minneapolis school board meetings with drums and shouts, referring to him and other black members as "Uncle Toms," before finally negotiating $5 million dollars for metro desegregation--dollars that were blithely pulled off the table during the last legislative session. The silence of the NAACP, and other people who like to decry the disparity in outcomes between African Americans and Caucasians, probably struck him as ironic, if not hypocritical. If the current NAACP believes the former NAACP leadership was wrong to negotiate for those millions (they haven't said a peep, one way or the other), fine, then let their repudiation stand. I do wonder, however, how much credibility the NAACP will have the next time they sue somebody.
Trainor also states, with respect to Green's comments on the problems of mobility and poor record-keeping, "I guess it never occurred to anyone to actually test these kids and find out what they knew."
I guess Green figured that most readers would have sense enough to realize that, whether they are tested or not, valuable learning time is lost and school resources expended trying to determine something that a stable home situation and adequate record-keeping would have already provided.
Britt Robson
Lyndale
- [Mpls] More Bill Green comments and the Stribune KTrain9003
- Brobson34
