NAACP Disgrace: Rev. Barber and the Negro’s loss of grievances

There can be no debate that a duplicitous hypocrisy exists when it comes to the vitriol black conservatives must face – not only from the white liberal establishment but from other blacks as well.

So enter the latest example of this heinous practice by Rev. William Barber II, a leader in the North Carolina NAACP. As reported in the Washington Post,

While speaking at Zion Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina, Rev. Barber made these comments referring to South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, “A ventriloquist can always find a good dummy. The extreme right wing down here finds a black guy to be senator and claims he’s the first black senator since Reconstruction, and then he goes to Washington, D.C., and articulates the agenda of the Tea Party.”

Senator Scott was appointed by Governor Nikki Haley to the position after former Senator Jim DeMint resigned in late 2012. Senator Scott issued this response, “To reflect seriously on the comments of a person, a pastor, that is filled with baseless and meaningless rhetoric would be to do a disservice to the very people who have sacrificed so much and paved a way. Instead, I will honor the memory of Dr. King by being proactive in holding the door for others and serving my fellow man. And Rev. Barber will remind me and others of what not to do.”

Rev. Barber made his remarks as he spoke on issues such as healthcare and voting. He is a staunch opponent of voter ID but one has to ask, did he speak out against the DNC requiring picture ID for entry into their convention held in Charlotte NC in 2012?

Barber later told FoxNews.com that King “emphasized love and justice rather than extremism,” and that support for “the far right” ignores problems in South Carolina such as aid to the poor and public education.

I wonder if Rev. Barber consents to the expanding poverty and food stamp rolls that have occurred under the past 5 years of the Obama administration. Furthermore, I suppose Rev. Barber concurs with President Obama and his decision in 2009 to cancel the DC school voucher program for deserving young black children — while Obama sends his own daughters to the prestigious Sidwell Friends School.

Such hypocrisy is unconscionable but not unexpected from individuals who Booker T. Washington — surely one of those extremist black “dummies” — described a century ago:

There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

The Rev. Kevin E. Donalson Sr., the Zion Baptist Church’s pastor who hosted Rev. Barber, meanwhile, told FoxNews.com that although he agreed “in principle” with Barber’s comments, he would not have used such language. And although he’s “grateful” that South Carolina has an African-American senator, he believes the policies Scott supports hurt the people whom King spent his life trying to help.

This is the insidious perspective coming from these so-called black leaders. They do not want to accept policies that support economic growth and prosperity for the black community. They are more than happy to keep the black community on a 21st century liberal plantation in exchange for votes and their own position of relevance.

Rev. Barber reminds me of the practice in Africa of certain black tribes capturing and selling other blacks to white slavers. It seems this practice continues but in a different manner, but the end result remains — economic servitude and enslavement to the welfare nanny-state, instead of the physical chains of bondage.

I find it shameful that any attempt to promote policies, such as urban economic empowerment zones, which would enable a better standard of living, are attacked as extreme.

The heart of the black community is conservative and these ministers preach individual salvation on Sunday. Unfortunately, they preach collective subjugation Monday to Saturday.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.