Did Minneapolis NAACP loan $85,000 for investment in grocery stores
Topic: NAACP
Subj: Re: [Mpls] Did Mpls NAACP branch "loan" $85, 000 for investment in grocery st...
Date: 4/6/2005 6:24:31 PM Central Standard Time
From: Socialist2001
To: eric mitchell, t madden, mpls@mnforum.org

Also see: "Ron Edwards comments on Mpls issues forum discussion"
re: Did Mpls NAACP branch "loan" $85,000 for investment in grocery stores.
Blog Post by Ron Edwards, April 5, 2005
https://educationright.tripod.com/id460.htm

In a message dated 4/1/2005 3:03:18 PM Central Daylight Time, eric mitchell writes:

<< ...Clearly this is about a small group who cannot get elected to run the Mpls NAACP so they have decided to run the once credible organization into the ground... >>

[Comment by Doug Mann]
For the past 6 years the Minneapolis Branch has been run more like a mutual aid society for African-American politicians and businessmen than a civil rights and human rights advocacy organization. The NAACP leadership has been using its influence as representative of an oppressed people as a bargaining chip in back door deals to help their friends get jobs, contracts, etc.

The situation here reflects a shift by the National NAACP leadership toward a closer relationship with the Democratic Party in 1995. Kweisi Mfume was appointed President / CEO that year. The NAACP has also oriented itself more and more toward black professionals and their networks of friends and business associates.

In Minneapolis, Mfume's administration helped a slate headed by Ricky Campbell, representing a conservative faction within the NAACP branch, win an election of officers in 1999, with considerable help from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the Links (a club for well-to-do, college-educated African-Americans). The Cambell group represented a fairly small minority of members who regularly attended meetings, worked on committees, etc.

The settlement of the NAACP educational adequacy lawsuit in 2000 is a good example of the back door deals mentioned above. The settlement stipulated that the NAACP agreed that "the choice is yours program" (a limited, one-way city-to-suburb bussing program) and other provisions of the settlement "solved the problem" of students of color getting an inadequate education.

In my opinion, the settlement agreement was not consistent with educational policy statements approved by any NAACP convention that I know about. The basic problem since the 1890's has been the segregation of black students into inferior schools and into "low-ability" curriculum tracks in racially integrated schools.

The NAACP educational settlement also set far lower standards for the Minneapolis School District than Minnesota's "Voluntary" Desegregation Rule with respect to giving students in racially identifiable schools the right to attend schools that are not racially identifiable, and with respect to accountability measures. For example, the Deseg rule states that the commissioner of education shall ask for, and the district shall provide, in its deseg plan, specific information needed to determine if resources are equitably distributed, including data on teacher qualifications and experience. The Minneapolis School District and the MN Dept. of Education are not in compliance with the Desegregation rule, and you don't hear a peep out of the NAACP leadership about that.

The NAACP's contract with the MN Department of Ed to run Parent Information Centers was the NAACP's payoff for betraying its constituency and supporting the status quo.

The NAACP leadership, at the branch and national level, also repeatedly took actions in relation to monitoring implementation of the Hollman Consent Decree (the settlement of a housing discrimination lawsuit) that served the interests of the city of Minneapolis (one of the defendants) at the expense of the plaintiff class. See:

The Fight Against Urban Cleansing and Gentrification in Minneapolis
https://educationright.tripod.com/id41.htm

Hollman Achieves
https://educationright.tripod.com/id290.htm

-Doug Mann, King Field
Bureaucratically removed member at large
Minneapolis NAACP branch executive committee

Appeal of Removal from NAACP branch exec. committee
Topic: NAACP
Subj: Appeal of removal from NAACP branch Executive Committee
Date: 4/8/2005 7:56:43 PM Central Standard Time
From: Socialist2001
To: mpls@mnforum.org
-------------------------
From: Doug Mann
3619 Grand Ave S
Minneapolis MN 55409

To: [by certified mail] Chief of National Field Operations
Department of Branch and Field Services
4805 Mt. Hope Drive
Baltimore, MD 21215

CC: [by certified mail] Dennis Courtland Hayes,
Acting President and CEO, National NAACP
CC: [by certified mail] James Ghee, Chair of National Committee on Branches
CC: Members, NAACP National Board of Directors
CC: Members, Minneapolis NAACP Branch Executive Committee

April 8, 2005

Dear Chief of Field Operations,

Enclosed is a copy of a letter dated March 24, 2005 from Carl Breeding, Level II administrator (with my immediate response, distributed at the Mpls. branch membership meeting [of 26 March 2005], on the reverse side), in which Mr. Breeding writes,

"...I have determined that your conduct has been inimical to the best interest of the Minneapolis Branch NAACP and effective at 12:01 am, March 25, 2005, I am removing you, Douglas Mann, from the Executive Committee of the Minneapolis NAACP Branch."

I reject the allegation that my conduct has been inimical to the best interest of the Minneapolis NAACP Branch.

I request a full hearing.

Please immediately forward, or cause to be forwarded a report stating specifically what conduct is being characterized as inimical to the best interests of the Minneapolis NAACP branch and evidence to support that characterization of my conduct.

Sincerely,
[signed]
Doug Mann

-Doug Mann, King Field
Bureaucratically removed member at large
Minneapolis NAACP branch executive committee
www.educationright.com
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Minneapolis NAACP membership drive targets black elite
Topic: NAACP
[Excerpt from]
Minneapolis Branch NAACP (Unit 4050)
Report to the executive committee
Membership Committee - Meeting the challenge 2005 and beyond
Submitted March 23, 2005
Stephanie Maggitt [Medtronic executive] - Membership chair

...The Membership Committee has adopted a goal of 500 new members for the 2005 calendar year. To reach its goal the membership committee will adopt a nine month campaign to increase the membership by 500.

STRATEGY

Key contact personnel will be established at all faith community places of worship within the Minneapolis area. Membership committee will direct the marketing and support activities to this group and identify volunteers from each church to support the goal of 200 new membership from this group.

Contacts will be established with the Fraternities and Sororities within the Twin Cities for soliciting their membership for membership with the NAACP. A goal of 50 new members has been set for this group.

Establish and identify key personnel within African American social organizations and solicit new members from each organization. Groups identified include but not limited to the Jack and Jill organization, The Links, The Boule, The Monitors and The Sterling Club. A goal of 50 new members has been set for this group.

Professional organizations such as the Black MBA, Black Accountants, Black Engineers, Black Lawyers and Black Medical will be targeted for Life memberships. 50 Life memberships have been set as a goal and 100 regular memberships has been set as a goal.

Black Employee Groups will be targeted and solicited for 150 new memberships. This group includes employees at American Express, Medtronic, Honeywell, General Mills, Best Buy, Target, GE, 3M, US Bank, and Wells Fargo.....

-Doug Mann
Bureaucratically removed member-at-large
Minneapolis NAACP branch executive committee

The Superintendent's New Clothes
Now Playing: Phony audit doesn't address issue of equity
Topic: Mpls. Public Schools
The Minneapolis school district's latest public relations gimmick was an academic audit by the Council of Great City Schools.

The "audit" was done by an entity with close ties to the Minneapolis Board of Education. The Board of Directors of the Council of Great City Schools is chaired by Judy Farmer, currently a member of the Minneapolis Board of Education.

And all expenses were paid by the Broad (pronounced "Brode") Foundation, which targets school districts with high proportions of minority students for investment and "No Child Left Behind" reforms, such as the promotion of charter schools.

In 2004 Thandiwe Peebles was 1 of 3 finalists for the superintendent job. All 3 finalists were referred to the Minneapolis School Board by the placement office of the Broad Foundation superintendent school. Over 100 qualified candidates applied for the job. See: The Phony superintendent hunt http://educationright.com/id331.htm

Thandiwe Peebles, an African-American women was hired to calm the waters in the African-American community. About 42% of the Minneapolis district's students are classified as African-American.

The audit was just another public relations gimmick. It did not address the issue of equity, such as the extremely unequal allocation of resources between "racially identifiable" schools and other schools.

The MN desegregation Rule designates a school as racially identifiable if the proportion of students of color is more than 20% above the district average for grade levels served by the school. Twenty-one of 23 racially identifiable schools in the Minneapolis School District are on the state's list of schools in dire need of improvement.

The Minneapolis School District and the Minnesota Department of Education are currently out of compliance with Minnesota's Desegregation Rule. The district's desegregation plan does not include information that the "Commissioner (Dept of Ed) shall request...[and] the district shall provide," including data about teacher qualifications and experience.

The racially identifiable schools have not developed strong educational programs due to extremely high teacher turnover rates. Probationary teachers (employed with the district for less than 3 years) have been heavily concentrated in racially identifiable schools. In the spring of 2004 about 1/4 of the district's teachers in regular education programs were on probationary status.

-Doug Mann