Va NAACP slams Webb for affirmative action comment

The head of the Virginia Conference of the NAACP lashed out at Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) Monday, three days after Webb stirred debate with a controversial op-ed piece...

From The Washington Post:

The head of the Virginia Conference of the NAACP lashed out at Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) Monday, three days after Webb stirred controversy with an op-ed piece suggesting most government diversity programs should be abolished because they “marginalized” white Americans.

In a Wall Street Journal column published Friday, titled “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege,” Webb complained that “the supposed monolith of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant dominance served as the whipping post for almost every debate about power and status in America.” As he has repeatedly in the past, including during his 2006 campaign, Webb said that affirmative action programs made sense for African Americans who suffered from the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow laws but not for other ethnic groups and recent immigrants.

Webb’s column drew attention but did not spark much vocal criticism Friday, other than from former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder. But now King Salim Khalfani, the executive director of the NAACP’s Virginia State Conference, has unloaded on Virginia’s senior senator.

Click here for the entire article.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE