By: E&P Staff In a new column, longtime syndicated columnist and civil liberties expert Nat Hentoff sheds light on new the NAACP's ongoing fight to make New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas' dead-chimp cartoon a national issue.
Hentoff, a former columnist for E&P, writes of how fellow civil rights and civil liberties champion Michael Meyers, the NAACP?s Harlem-born former assistant director, was refused permission to speak in opposition during the group?s annual meeting on Feb. 21 -- and was subsequently removed by NAACP security.
Hentoff writes: ?Meyers, a widely publicized defender of the First Amendment, had publicly objected to ?this exercise in sheer racial rhetoric,? adding: ?Demagoguery is not the standard of effective leadership in addressing serious social justice issues.? Meyers has often written and lectured on race relations, police abuse, housing and education. And as a passionate civil libertarian, he said of the rage to punish those connected with the cartoon: ?All political pundits deserve a wide berth for social criticism and for parodying and poking fun at and criticizing our political leaders, no matter the skin color or race of the public official.?
?At the NAACP's annual meeting in the ballroom of the New York Hilton, Meyers rose following a member's speech calling for a boycott of the New York Post but also of all the national enterprises of its owner, Rupert Murdock. At the microphone, addressing Chairman Julian Bond, Meyers began: ?I wish to speak in opposition.?
??I do not recognize you,? Bond sharply cut off the NAACP's former assistant director and personal assistant to Roy Wilkins. ?Your views are not welcomed here.??
Check out Hentoff?s full column,
here.
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