Randall Kennedy: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Fool How the NAACP Handled the N-word… J.C. Watts, Gone in a Flash

Mr. Randall is a selfish fool, and making a lot of money at the expense of his people and his heritage. He’s truly playing into the hand of the many whites who have been dying to use the “N” word. Whites will now think it’s politically correct.

The NAACP’s Pre-emptive Cyber-Strike

The goal of treachery is to surprise the victim. Certainly, the NAACP could not have predicted, back in 1999, that the new century’s most aggressive popularizer of the word “nigger” would be a Black law professor from Harvard University. Rather, the civil rights organization had its eyes on the usual suspects among white hate groups when it registered nigger.com as a domain name, along with other permutations of the word.

“We wanted to make sure these domain names would not be used for derogatory purposes,” NAACP director of communications John White told Wired News, three years ago. “We are the oldest civil rights organization and it is within our charter to reduce hate in whatever way we can.”

The Anti-Defamation League used a similar strategy to deny Jew-haters access to domains such as kike.com, .net and .org. However, ADL spokeswoman Elizabeth Coleman admitted that any attempt to corner the market on hate names amounts to “a symbolic gesture.”

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation decided that taking “fag” and other slurs out of online circulation wasn’t worth the money. “We’d rather focus on spending our limited funds on responding to defamation,” said GLAAD’s Will Doherty.

Gone in a Flash

J.C. Watts, the four-term Black Republican Congressman from a mostly white, conservative Oklahoma district, is retiring at the age of 44. His departure will have no substantive political effect whatsoever. Nevertheless, his party will miss him.

Watts spent all but the first two of his eight years on Capitol Hill as the GOP’s lone Black representative in the House. The former football player must have withered under the endless photographic demands made on his person, the only loyal Black body available. Each congressional occasion of “conservative compassion” demanded his presence – photos with everyone. No Republican “outreach” event was complete without J.C. Watts on the marquee. Flash! Flash! Flash! A man could catch a sunburn like this! It must have been maddening.

The only threat Watts ever represented was to the decorum of the Congressional Black Caucus. When Watts was swept into office on the Newt Gingrich tide of 1994, Black Democrats dreaded having to figure out which rules of etiquette apply when the enemy starts taking his meals in your living room. Thankfully, the youthful lawmaker expressed no interest in joining the CBC.

The Caucus need not have worried. Watts was too busy posing for pictures to spend time with the brothers and sisters of the opposition. He was his party’s indispensable man.

After just two terms in the House, Watts became the GOP’s fourth-ranking member. Don’t believe for a second that his breathtaking ascent was undeserved. This man worked! What other congressperson had had his picture taken with every other Republican in the House? Not one, I wager! What other colleague’s picture could a Utah congressman show to the three Black Mormon Republicans back in Salt Lake City? Only J.C. would suffice.

As chairman of the House Republican Conference, Watts was in charge of communications, which meant – more pictures. One can hardly imagine the strain. Watts was the executive in charge of producing messages praising the congressional GOP’s record of racial inclusion. Yet, he was also required to play a featured role in every publicity package. Producer, director, the only Black actor – don’t tell me the man didn’t have talent.

Goodbye, Picture-Man.

Sincerely,

Glen Ford

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