Charges of Bias by 5 Stars Spark Row Inside NAACP

A dispute arose Monday inside the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People over claims by one NAACP official that five black recording artists have been discriminating against black professionals who work behind the scenes in the recording industry.

The dispute stems from a denouncement of the five last week by regional NAACP coordinator Melanie Lomax during an interview with The Times about a new national NAACP campaign to negotiate “fair share” employment agreements with six major record companies.

During the interview, Lomax charged that five artists--Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, Prince and Diana Ross--began practicing “hypocritical discrimination” against black photographers, video-makers and other professionals after the artists “crossed over” into white music markets. In a story about the issue published in The Times last Wednesday, spokesmen for the five denied any discrimination.

On Monday, however, officials in Los Angeles and at NAACP headquarters in New York denounced Lomax’s decision to publicly criticize the recording stars.

The dispute emerged Monday morning when the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills-Hollywood branches of the NAACP issued a joint press release saying that research into discrimination in the industry was not complete, and that they had not authorized any such statements by Lomax.

“We, therefore, apologize to those entertainers named,” the brief release said.

Willis Edwards, president of the Beverly Hills-Hollywood branch, said the two chapters had not been informed of the decision to make the campaign public and had received numerous complaints from the entertainment industry after the story appeared in The Times.

He said the two chapters opposed Lomax’s decision to name any artists or record companies because it was against national NAACP policy to criticize anyone who had not been first approached for cooperation in private.

The dispute escalated Monday night when Fred Rasheed--a national director of the NAACP, who coordinates the organization’s fair share campaigns with industry--was asked to clarify national policy on the issue.

“It was unfair of Miss Lomax to name the artists,” he said in a telephone interview from New York.

Aim at Record Industry

“NAACP’s national position is that we have not targeted any specific entertainers because we have not approached them personally for their support. However, we do want to meet with them and plan to approach them soon. . . . I want to make it clear, though, that we are targeting the record industry.”

Asked why he had not denounced Lomax’s comments in an interview conducted before the story was published last week, Rasheed said he had been hesitant to publicly criticize a NAACP officer. Instead, he had stressed in the interview that the campaign was against the record companies, not recording stars.

Rasheed reconfirmed Monday that the NAACP is targeting six major companies that distribute the great majority of all records: Capitol Industries-EMI Inc., CBS Records, RCA Records, MCA Records Inc., Warner Bros. Records Inc. and Polygram Records Inc.

Lomax said Monday that she was “disappointed” by the public criticism of the local leaders. “They disagree with the goal of targeting blacks,” she said. “And I think they’re uncomfortable with the fact that we’re talking about top stars.”

She could not be reached later to respond to Rasheed’s comment.

Criticism Called ‘Mild’

However, Fritz Goode, a founder of a Los Angeles-based group called Black Business for Equity in Entertainment, whose complaints largely prompted the campaign, said Lomax’s criticism was “mild” compared to their own.

“We have approached these stars over and over on an individual basis even if the NAACP hasn’t,” said Goode, owner of a video and film production company. “We went to the NAACP in the first place because neither the companies nor these stars had responded to our approaches. . . . The bottom line is that there is a difference of opinion here over strategy. But nobody’s disputing there is a problem in the industry.”

Over the last four years, the NAACP has signed fair share agreements with 36 companies, including McDonald’s and Coors. The agreements commit the companies to return to the black community in the form of jobs, contracts and contributions a “fair share” of the profits the companies take in from black consumers.