My StumbleUpon Page
Bruce Gordon Resigns From NAACP
Earlier this month it was widely reported Bruce Gordon, the former Verizon Communications executive, resigned from the position of CEO of the venerated civil rights organization the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
After less than 2 years on the job Gordon decided he and the organization’s 17 member executive committee had what we can best describe as “irreconcilable differences”.
To quote Gordon in an interview with Essence magazine: “It’s a lot easier to change the CEO than it is to change the executive committee. So I took the initiative and made a very difficult, and in some respects disappointing, but necessary decision.”
We agree with Gordon. After last year’s celebrated “Bell South is Wonderful and Target Sucks” awards, at the NAACP Annual National Convention in Washington, D.C. , we think Gordon should have resigned sooner than he did. It was disclosed by investigators on this blogsite BellSouth was offering Target gift cards to former BellSouth customers as an inducement to purchase BellSouth telecommunications services.
This incentive was being promoted before, after and during the big hoopla about the NAACP’s Coporate Race Relations Report Card last year. The grades being issued ranged from outstanding to failing. That’s right BellSouth, now the new AT&T, was given the equivalent of a scholastic honor society grade, while Target Stores languished with the poor performers.
We still question now, as we did last year, if this meeting of the two corporate entities is remedial for Target and ego bolstering for the new AT&T? Or is it just to show those black people have no real influence over their own money?
We imagine the conversation in the corporate boardrooms between Target and the new AT&T, formerly BellSouth, might have gone something like this:
“They have no real economic power to speak of. They’ve been repeatedly hoodwinked and bamboozled; that’s how they arrived on these shores. Plymouth Rock has landed on them once again and there’s nothing they can, want or will do about it. We’ve successfully rendered their so-called champion civil rights organization impotent. It has no teeth. It is powerless to do anything to retaliate because the membership doesn’t care; in fact the membership is dwindling. This is quite a coup. We managed to embarrass a former Verizon executive of color and hammer a pain in the ass civil rights activist group. It was a stroke of genius for BellSouth to promote Target while those silly sanctimonious black people attended their convention with approving national publicity for BellSouth being celebrated for its hiring practices and its compassion towards blacks in business. ”
As a result of last year’s NAACP celebration of American business institutions that are real good to black folk is that Bank of America find itself looking at the wrong end of another lawsuit. Bank of America, along with Wachovia Bank, now Wachovia World Bank, were rated as the best banks for black people to conduct their financial business, both personal and entrepreneurial.
Ooops! Seems some employees and former employees vehemently disagree with that assessment, as they have filed a class action law suit claiming discrimination in hiring and employment practices.
Bruce Gordon we support your decision to resign from an organization that pays lip service to being active in making changes for the betterment of the whole nation and specifically black people.
Recently
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.