The NAACP Does a Disservice to Puerto Rico
The 109th annual convention of the NAACP recently approved a resolution supporting statehood for Puerto Rico. The text refers to a similar statement adopted by its previous annual convention a year ago and ratified by its National Board of Directors in October 2017.
This resolution is a disservice to the struggle for decolonization in Puerto Rico and for equality for everyone in the United States. It should be critically examined by all groups committed to social justice in the United States to better understand Puerto Rico’s situation and what a truly just and democratic response to it could and should be.
The resolution is based on the results of a plebiscite sponsored by the administration of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló in June 2017, in which statehood received 97 percent of the votes cast. But it fails to consider that only 23 percent of eligible voters participated in this plebiscite. The ballyhooed 97 percent vote for statehood corresponds to around 22 percent of eligible voters. Supporters of other status options (independence, free association, a modification of the present status) denounced this plebiscite. Their call for voters to boycott this plebiscite was evidently successful.
The 2017 plebiscite was the fifth held by the government of Puerto Rico. Previous plebiscites were held in 1967, 1993, 1998 and 2012. The statehood option received 39 percent of the votes in 1967; 46.3 percent in 1993; and 46.5 percent in 1998. In 2012, under pro-statehood Gov. Luis Fortuño, it received 61.3 percent, but if the nearly 500,000 blank and defaced protest votes cast are counted as rejecting the options included on the ballot, the percentage of votes for statehood drops to 44 percent, close to the 46 percent received in 1993 and 1998. No overwhelming mandate for statehood exists, contrary to what the NAACP’s resolution suggests. Why did the NAACP ignore so many in Puerto Rico that prefer options other than statehood?
Read more: https://socialistworker.org/2018/07/24/the-naacp-does-a-disservice-to-puerto-rico