Anderson@Large

Have You Voted Yet?

I have been nominated for the Women’s Media Center’s 2011 Social Media Award. WMC reports the votes “are rolling in.”

Please cast your vote and help determine the winner. If you have already voted, please share the link with your friends and ask them to vote for me. The poll closes TODAY at 5 p.m.

Thanks for your support! I also want to thank you letting me be myself (again).

Have You Voted Yet?

I’m part of the 99 percent.

Now that I have your attention :-), I hope you will “just take five” and vote for me for the 2011 Women’s Media Center Social Media Award.

Thank you.

It’s My Birthday

Yes, it’s my special day. Fortunately it only happens every five to 10 years ;-).

It’s also the day before voting begins for the 2011 Women’s Media Center Social Media Award. I’m one of the nominees.

As a voting rights advocate, I LOL that I’m the first one listed. Studies show that ballot order matters.

So I thank you in advance for your vote. Check back tomorrow for the link to the site.

Now back to my irregularly scheduled program.

It's My Anniversary

Six years ago today, I published my first blog post. I published it on the fly at Harvard, where I was attending a conference, Blogging, Journalism & Credibility: Battleground and Common Ground.

I did not own a laptop in 2005 so I had to practically beg a staffer to let me use her computer. I'm audacious but I was not going to show up at an invitation-only event without having published a single blog post.

Three laptops and nearly 1,500 posts later, I'm still passionate about blogging.

But passion doesn't pay the bills. And you know “ain't nothing going on but the rent.”

If you value this independent source of news and information and fact-based commentary, show me some love on my anniversary and make a donation.

To paraphrase Gwen Guthrie, a fly girl like me needs an iPad. Thank you for your support!

Criticism Raining Down on NAACP

When it rains, it pours.

And as blogger Gina McCaul noted, “It’s a monsoon over at NAACP headquarters these days.”

In the wake of the Shirley Sherrod debacle, criticism has rained down on the NAACP.

NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous has been in hot water ever since he pushed through a resolution condemning “the bigoted elements within the Tea Party.”

Jealous’ stewardship of the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization is being questioned by old media columnists, including Bob Herbert and Maureen Dowd.

TheRoot.com’s Lynette Holloway asked, “Does the NAACP Have a Leadership Problem?”

A number of bloggers, including Gina and Amy Alexander, have put Jealous on blast.

Gina wrote:

On Wednesday, I called for the resignation of NAACP President Benjamin Jealous. I did so not because he was “snookered.” I did so because I believe at this juncture in his personal development and the current political and technological environment he is unfit to lead as demonstrated by his inability to accept complete and total responsibility for his organization’s bad acts. Nobody made the NAACP condemn Shirley Sherrod before speaking to ITS OWN MEMBERS who were present at her speech. No one made the NAACP condemn Shirley Sherrod before getting its hands on a tape of her speech shot by ITS OWN MEMBERS. Nobody forced them to pick a fight with a foe they are CLEARLY too inept to respond to in a strategically sound and competent way. The NAACP took the path of LEAST RESISTANCE and when they were called on it they tried to deflect responsibility for their own BAD ACTS. Leaders take responsibility. LOSERS make excuses.

And it’s not just New York Times columnists and bloggers piling on. When a mathematician starts talking, you know you’ve got a problem.

Dr. Jonathan David Farley graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University. He earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Oxford University.

Jonathan, a lifetime member of the NAACP, recounted his own “Shirley Sherrod moment” in a recent blog post.

In the age of social media, don’t start folks talking because they have a platform to tell everything they know.

Transparency for Thee, but Not for NAACP

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about Wells Fargo’s sponsorship of the NAACP’s 101st annual convention that ignited a controversy. The heat from bloggers smoked out NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous.

Ben defended the NAACP’s partnership with Wells Fargo on the grounds the agreement “improves their practices and increases their transparency in ways that go far beyond what we could win in court.”

But there’s nothing groundbreaking about an agreement that commits Wells Fargo to doing what it says it is already doing.

Don’t take my word for it. Click here for “Wells Fargo & Co. Responsible Lending Principles for Consumer Credit.” The page was last updated Oct. 1, 2009.

Also, Wells Fargo has had an African American Business Services program since 1998.

As previously noted, I know Ben. I should also note that Ben has called me, but I have not returned his call. The reason: I don’t want to hear that I should trust him and not my lying eyes.

Instead, Ben should just answer the questions:

How do the “fair mortgage lending principles” differ from Wells Fargo’s Responsible Lending Principles for Consumer Credit?

Was a formal partnership agreement signed? If so, how will it be enforced?

Does the NAACP have the resources to examine the lending practices of the fourth-largest U.S. bank with more than 27,000 employees?

How will the NAACP be able to succeed when the Treasury Department, after a $25 billion $36.9 billion bailout, has not been able to get Wells Fargo to change its behavior towards struggling homeowners or increase access to capital for small businesses?

The Service Employees International Union’s profile of Wells Fargo states:

• Wells Fargo put taxpayers on the hook for up to $36.9 billion in bailout funds and programs plus an unknown amount from the Federal Reserve's $8 trillion in emergency programs. This money was supposed to help the banks get the economy going again. But little of this money has gone to relieve struggling homeowners and increase the flow of credit to small businesses.
• Despite its large portfolio of at risk mortgages, Wells Fargo has started trial mortgage modifications for only 11% of its 292,515 borrowers who are eligible for the Obama Administration’s Making Home Affordable Program (and are at least 60 days past due). At Wachovia, which Wells Fargo acquired in 2008, the number is even lower, 2% of 74,231 eligible borrowers.

SEIU should demand that the NAACP answer the questions. After all, SEIU is mobilizing support for the “Showdown on K Street.”

SEIU and allies will call out lobbyists for Big Bank -- Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo -- who are using campaign contributions to weaken financial regulatory reform.

The New York Times reports the NAACP and SEIU are organizing a rally in October to “create momentum for President Obama and Congress to enact more progressive-minded legislation on jobs, a financial overhaul and other matters.”

In his blog post, Ben wrote the NAACP paid a price for filing the lawsuit against Wells Fargo:

It was not without a price. Just before I did so, I informed our board that we would need to revise down our corporate revenue projections because we would be bringing lawsuits against corporate supporters . . . .

[...]

Wells Fargo stopped supporting our national events shortly after we announced the suit.

Ben asserted the agreement “does not interfere with but complements lawsuits brought by cities which are largely for remunerative damages.”

We now know dropping the lawsuit has been remunerative for the NAACP. But the civil rights organization has not disclosed how much remuneration it has received from Wells Fargo.

In addition to sponsoring the annual convention, Wells Fargo is a co-sponsor of the upcoming Leadership 500 Summit.

There is no such thing as free money. The question remains: What is Wells Fargo getting in exchange for its corporate support?

Free Press Summit: Ideas to Action

I am on my way to DC for the Free Press Summit. Hundreds of policy makers and media justice activists attend this annual event.

The summit will kick off with a session on “Media and Democracy in the Digital Age,” which will feature keynote remarks from Commissioner Mignon Clyburn on the Federal Communications Commission’s role in the media.

I am looking forward to the panel discussion on “Social Media, Social Justice and the Future of the Internet” with Jose Antonio Vargas, James Rucker, Deanna Zandt and Andrew Noyes.

The discussion should be lively. It comes on the heels of President Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Hampton University, during which he bemoaned the ubiquity of social media:

And meanwhile, you’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter. And with iPods and iPads; and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it’s putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.

Sure, it’s a distraction, but information is power. So, I’ll be tweeting away. You can follow my Twitter updates.

The event will be live streamed from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST here.