My finance, a black woman, wants to join the NAACP. As a conservative, a little tentative, but I feel this could be due to lack of knowledge. I think the NAACP was a great organization 30-40 years ago when they were very much needed. However, today I feel as if they try to keep the race issue alive to keep themselves relevant. They feed on issues like the Trayvon Martin shooting and turn it into a racist act in order to drum up support and members for their organization. My finance expressed interest in going to a NAACP meeting to hear what it was about. She really wants to do something to help out poor people in the African American community. This has caused a big rift in our relationship over the last two weeks, because we both feel so passionately on the two ends of the spectrum. She just wants me to trust that she will make the best judgment and in fact if the organization is how I feel they can be, she wouldn’t be a part of it. I think we have worked everything out; I’m going to talk with a NAACP member just to get some insight into the organization at the local chapter. It came to the point last week; she asked me if she joined would I leave her. I told her “God NO!”, I love her and I would never leave her over something like this. Very few things would make me not want to be with her. By few I think two, her joining a group like the Black Panthers or her cheating on me. That’s about it; I love her more than anything on earth.

Sincerely,

“A Conservative Rainbeau”

Thanks for writing, Conservative Rainbeau. I’ve had some harsh criticisms of the NAACP as a collective, but individual chapters have a better reputation and activism, and aren’t so obsessed with race-baiting and getting on the 6 o’clock news. My father was a lifetime NAACP member, but he was 86 when he died, and when he joined the NAACP was a very different organization than it is today. I personally, would not join. Now about you and your fiance: The NAACP is VERY different from a nationalist terrorist group like the Black Panthers, who were full of sociopaths. I understand your concern, and even, I sense…your fear. But I think it’s unwarranted. However, and you can tell her I said this: There are many, many organizations that can be more hands on–less about racism though, and more about raising folks out of poverty, increasing education in the minority population–that I think she could find extremely rewarding.

What say you, BB&W Crew?