Who Needs This Kind of Thing?

For almost a century, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People has struggled to instruct Americans in the perils of bigotry. We all have profited from its tutelage, as we have from that of other organizations similarly conceived, such as the Anti-Defamation League.

This week’s national NAACP convention in Los Angeles provided another chapter in this ongoing lesson, though it was unexpected and--for the organization’s leaders and its many friends--unwelcome.

One of the convention’s workshops was entitled “Blacks in the Entertainment Industry: Distribution and Marketing of African-American Films and Music.” Six of the seven panelists who participated actually work in the film and music fields. The other is a minor city official in Compton, who also heads an occasionally vocal media watchdog group. His mysterious inclusion in such company is something NAACP leaders doubtless will wish to explore.

In any event, the latter individual concluded his remarks with a disjointed denunciation of what he alleged was collective “Jewish racism” and excessive Jewish influence in Hollywood. His comments need not be dignified with detail; suffice it to say they included familiar anti-Semitic calumnies and conspiratorial innuendoes.

That an individual might hold such views is regrettable but unremarkable. Pre-

judice, like poverty, is always with us. What was more distressing in this instance was the fact that the speaker’s slurs drew enthusiastic applause from many in the audience. They also went unrebutted by any of his fellow panelists. Worse, the NAACP’s leaders were divided in their response to the incident: National Chairman William F. Gibson forthrightly rejected the comments; Executive Director Benjamin L. Hooks unfortunately equivocated: “We don’t agree with the statement, but we don’t exercise thought control.”.

One of valuable lessons the NAACP has brought home to us all is that bigotry must be confronted wherever it arises. In this instance, the organization has failed to keep faith with its own principles.