There’s a tendency to make high-profile personel departures emblematic of broad seachanges. Just witness the Hegelian sweep of narratives about TV news anchors now that two are going. Sometimes this is a dicey proposition, but I don’t see how we can’t assign or at least look for greater significance by the concurrence today of two resignations.
First, Cheryl Jacques, former Massachusetts State Rep who left to take the helm of the Human Rights Campaign, has resigned. Given that she has been at the position less than a year, something clearly is up. All likelihood that something was the November election. I thought perhaps the “difference in management styles” was in fact a difference over the strategy of incrementalism versus vigorous advocacy of gay marriage. A friend with ties to the state political scene tells me that no, it’s simpler: HRC is blaming Jacques for the electoral lout Nov. 2. Mind you, I have no evidence of what’s going on.
Second, longtime NAACP president Kweisi Mfume is stepping down, citing personal reasons. Personal reasons may be in play, but I suspect more. The NAACP has had increasingly fracturous relations with the President and the GOP lately. While possibility of party change was held out, this rift was able to drift in a state of inertia. Now that Republicans have solidified their power for the short to medium term, the NAACP would have to attempt a more conciliatory approach if it weren’t to be locked out of power altogether.
I could be missing the real picture here, but my guess is that this is the first of a number of power realignments you’re going to see on the left over the next half year. At the very least, I’ll dig around a bit in the gay press and the African-American press to see if they’re treating the resignations with a different gloss. And, of course, feel free to point me to any news or analysis of note.
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