THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 21, 1995 TAG: 9509210174
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
It's hard to decide which is more puzzling: City Councilman Richard R. Harris' determination to join the Suffolk NAACP, or President Paul C. Gillis' denial of even an application.
Whatever Mr. Harris' motivation, Mr. Gillis should rethink his response. Instead of advancing anything - as the organization advocates - he's setting things back, furthering the notion that the Suffolk chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a tightly held social clique that has lost sight of the organization's overall mission.
Mr. Gillis' explanation that Mr. Harris wants to join as ``a ploy,'' and that Mr. Harris is ``not in agreement with the ideals and principles of the NAACP'' is so presumptuous that rank-and-file members should direct him to provide an application or get off his throne.
As often as I have disagreed with Mr. Harris' politics - and I'm not about to argue that his sudden interest in the NAACP is pure-hearted - I hope he will pursue it to the highest level. At least it will let those levels know they've got a problem on their hands: a leader who wants to exclude someone whose voting borough is 60 percent black, someone with whom he often does political battle.
Street talk is that Mr. Gillis plans to challenge Councilman Harris for the Nansemond Borough seat next year. You don't suppose that could have something to do with either Mr. Harris' request for an application or Mr. Gillis' denial, do you?
Mr. Harris, quoted in the Suffolk News-Herald, said, ``I could hear something there that could help me become a (better) member of City Council.'' Well, Mr. Gillis can't have that. What could he possibly gain by Mr. Harris' learning to be more responsive to what he often refers to as his minority community?
The same thing we all could gain: better representation. Mr. Harris is white by birth, not choice, and he well could learn from NAACP members the issues that concern them and remedies they visualize - issues that heritage may influence.
Mr. Gillis is still mad - justifiably - about Mr. Harris' leadership in providing sewerage to Westhaven Lakes, an upscale neighborhood, ahead of some low-income, principally black neighborhoods, that had been identified by health officials as higher-priority areas.
As much as I disliked Mr. Harris' method, I didn't see his action as racially motivated but more a matter of going head-strong into a project without proper consideration of its implications. It was, it seemed to me, a statement that city officials had taken too long already to set priorities for sewerage; none was in place, yet sewage continued to back up into people's houses because long-promised improvements weren't made.
Besides, Mr. Harris didn't made this decision alone. It took a majority vote. Are all who voted for the Westhaven project outside the ideals of the NAACP?
Not likely, and Mr. Gillis knows it. That, then, focuses this flap on personality and politics, two volatile-enough topics without the added ingredient of racism. In declaring Mr. Harris outside the ideals and principles of the NAACP, an organization formed by blacks and whites, is Mr. Gillis not inserting racism?
Mr. Gillis asks why Mr. Harris would want to join the NAACP. Mr. Harris asks why not.
Why not indeed? The Suffolk chapter is not a high-profile organization, save for the appearances of its president before televised City Council meetings and for its dressy annual dinner.
This organization, it seems to me, can use some new members, even some disagreeing with Mr. Gillis.
Instead of acting like an exclusive club, welcoming only those meeting the president's approval, it should work to include everyone who wants to advance its causes. That's what Suffolk needs. by CNB