I try to keep an open mind about policies and regulations that impact communities of color. After all, the government’s number one priority should be the welfare of its people.
But with interest groups now linking arms despite having little if anything to do with each other, it can be hard for the average person to discern which policies will serve them best.
For example, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) released a new study released this month called “Fossil-Fueled Foolery,” which claims to reveal how the fossil fuel industry manipulates communities of color.
Yes, you heard that right.
The contradictory 28-page report criticizes the industry and even highlights its “Top 10 Fossil Fuel Industry Tactics” —but nowhere does it offer a solution to our growing energy needs.
There’s also no mention of energy poverty, a real phenomenon plaguing the black community in which households can’t afford basic electric and heating needs due to high energy prices.
Those energy prices are only pushed higher by “green agenda” policies. So the very people the NAACP claims they are helping are actually the ones being negatively impacted by the energy policies they promote.
The NAACP’s report states that “[t]he Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has put the world on a 12-year countdown to take urgent and aggressive action on eliminating the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.”
This same statement caused hysteria among environmentalists calling for drastic measures like the Green New Deal.
And despite studies and articles written about how the Green New Deal would hit minorities and black communities the hardest, many presidential hopefuls continue to embrace the plan.
In the report, the NAACP lists the “Top 10 Fossil Fuel Industry Tactics” that they claim are being used to manipulate communities of color. Yet some of these tactics are nonsensical, including the very first one, which says the fossil fuel industry “invest[s] in efforts that undermine democracy.”
The irony is that the NAACP is doing just that: investing in a study and promoting misleading information.
Another tactic listed (and the most absurd) is number 10: “Embrace renewables, seek to control the energy economy, and quell energy sovereignty.” Come again?
The NAACP is simply trying to smear conventional energy sources in an effort to stay in with the left. But such tactics will only backfire on the people the NAACP claims to represent: low-income and black communities.
We need to look no further than the city of Baltimore, the national headquarters of the NAACP, where some residents pay 50 to 75% more in energy bills because of green energy policies that have fallen short.
This reflects a loss of mission on the part of the NAACP, which was founded to advance the interests of black people—not buy wholesale into one side’s energy policies.
In recent years, new organizations like Black Lives Matter have fostered a stronger presence in the black community than the NAACP. Other groups like the African American Episcopal Church (AME) Council of Bishops have called for the NAACP to reinvent itself.
Many black people, including myself, have questioned the relevance of the NAACP and their views. There is, in fact, more diversity of viewpoint within the black community than the NAACP lets on.
Proving this point, Rev. Clenard Childress Jr. and Alveda King—the niece of Martin Luther King Jr.—slammed the NAACP in 2017 for supporting abortion, despite the fact that abortion is the largest destroyer of black lives in America.
Even the NAACP’s name is outdated. I can’t remember ever being called “colored.” That word was removed from the U.S. census report in 1980. It’s no wonder the NAACP is struggling to stay relevant.
The truth is that the NAACP has been left behind. This “Fossil Fuel Foolery” paper shows exactly who the NAACP serves: the coalition of the liberal elite. Low-income and black Americans will have to look elsewhere for genuine representation.
Read more at the Daily Signal
The Green Deal is a political weapon to hollow out the middle class and keep the poor where they are .
Nobody has to buy fossil fuels if they don’t want to so it’s foolish to blame fossil fuel companies for helping to bring about the highest standard of living in earth’s history .
What exactly have the Democrats ever done for blacks ? Until blacks break away from the people who fought to keep them as slaves they will always be
ripped off .
President Trump is winning the black vote one new job at a time.
The NAACP National Board Committee on Environmental and Climate Justice… WHAT?! Are Progressives in control of NAACP messaging?
“One of the most duplicitous strategies of the fossil fuel industry is manipulating messaging which feigns concern for the welfare of low income and communities of color. This is a self-serving effort to maintain their wealth,” says Kathy Egland, Chair of the NAACP National Board Committee on Environmental and Climate Justice. “The unmitigated gall, to use as pawns the very demographics that they have caused such disproportionate harm through their polluting practices, reflects the low levels to which they will sink. Greed has no moral or ethical bounds, and we will continue to expose their foolery in seeking to deceive our communities,” she added.
Me thinks surely some “long term foolery” is going on here because NAACP policy has been in lock-step with “advancing the Progressive political agenda”.
Were the sweeping social domestic policy programs initiated by President Lyndon B. Johnson during 1964 and 1965, focusing mainly on eliminating racial injustice and ending poverty in the United States, designed to accomplish just the opposite results???
Would the NAACP better serve the interests of “colored people” by adopting the following message?
One of the most duplicitous historic strategies of the Progressive Left has and is manipulating NAACP messaging which feigns concern for the welfare of low income and communities of color. This is a self-serving effort to maintain THEIR Power. The unmitigated gall, to use as pawns the very demographics that they have caused such disproportionate harm through their divisive policies, welfare programs and fake media messaging reflects the low levels to which they will sink to maintain power. 50 years of deceptive political misuse of power has no moral or ethical bounds, and we should aggressively seek to replace current NAACP governance and immediately campaign to expose the year’s long Progressive deceptive foolery of co-opting our struggle for freedom in determine our individual destiny.
The NAACP has a long history of working against the best interests of the very people they claim to support. In the late 60’s and early 70’s they sued for cross city forced bussing and were successful for a while. However, mothers are mothers, and black mothers didn’t want their children bussed across the city any more than white mothers did.
Today we see the organizations being manipulated by the environmental left. Blacks who are low income as well as everyone who is low income are hurt more by high energy prices. However, the NAACP is doing what its masters tell them to and just don’t seem to care.
From the article, “There is, in fact, more diversity of viewpoint within the black community than the NAACP lets on.” This is very true. I used to work with a black engineer who like me, was very conservative. We would go to the range together and practice shooing our handguns.
sovereignty is a word like ‘love’ – it can mean just about anything you want it to. In real life — it’s a word in the dictionary between ‘sober’ and ‘sozzled’.