NAACP Needs a New Title By Laurence Simon

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I was tinkering with anIFOC Newsstorywhen it hit me. NAACP stands for "The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People."

Yeah, I know, that's not a new thing. But not only is "colored" considered a politically incorrect and racist term in some circles, it's also incorrect. As George Carlin once pointed out, everybody has a color. And based on the various meetings and rallies I've seen (and one or two I've attended), the focus tends to be on a single range of heritage and culture we sometimes conveniently label as a "race."

So it's time to dump the "Colored" part of that acronym. Kiss it goodbye.

Furthermore, the name of the organization is too long. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. That's three junk words in the title that don't appear in the acronym. Kinda sloppy, don't you think?

However, everybody has their bookmarks and email addresses set for naacp.org. Don't want to mess that up. It's on a lot of letterhead and bumper stickers and probably a tattoo or three.

Ever have a tattoo changed? I've heard it's painful, and I don't want this process to be painful. I want to make it liberating, bold, and fresh.

Hmm.

So the challenge today is to come up with a respectful change of the acronym's meaning that also tightens it down to five words, one for each letter in the acronym.

Mine is:
National African-American Civic Partnership

Some variants I came up with:
National African-American Creators of Potential
National African-American Council of Partners