After a week or so we could never have imagined, we at N.C. ACORN want to share our perspective on the recently released videotapes of ACORN employees from other states, and on the fallout from their release.
In the secretly taped videos, a young couple posing as a "pimp and prostitute" ask for advice about how to promote and conceal their work through tax schemes and mortgage loans. The staff on the videos offer advice, and the advice they give is disturbing and wrong.
Though still waiting to view the complete tapes for the full story of what happened in those offices, we do not defend in any way what is shown, or shift blame elsewhere. ACORN condemns the actions of these employees, who now have been appropriately fired for their conduct.
Significantly, no tax, loan or other forms were completed on this couple's behalf. In addition, ACORN has taken immediate steps to review our service programs to ensure appropriate service in the future. These steps include suspending intake of all new clients pending review of our intake, training and supervision systems. We will also retain an independent auditor to lead this review and make recommendations for improvement.
There will likely be external inquiries into our work, as well. We support all steps that will restore full confidence in our ability to go forward with the effectiveness and integrity that has characterized 99.5 percent of ACORN's work for almost 40 years.
Here in North Carolina this year, that work has included helping families facing foreclosure, promoting health-care reform, organizing tenants for fair treatment and greater legal rights, and working with immigrants to better their circumstances. For N.C. ACORN, it is particularly disturbing that the character of our excellent staff is impugned by these tapes. We can say with complete confidence that nothing like what is shown on them could have happened here. (ACORN has offices in Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro and Charlotte.)
For years, ACORN has been a favorite target of the political right. Nothing we can ever say or do will silence many of these critics. Their agenda is not only to destroy our organization, but also to undermine the work we do on behalf of poor and working families. Numerous outlandish allegations about us have persisted long after being disproven or discredited, and separating fact from fiction within much of this rhetoric is wishful thinking.
Take Sen. John McCain's assertion during his presidential campaign that our voter registration work posed a threat to "the fabric of democracy." In fact, the number of illegal votes ever attributed to ACORN, out of millions of voter registration cards submitted, remains at zero. Similarly, ACORN has not received billions from the stimulus package, nor did we ask for any. We didn't bring down the global economy by forcing banks to make subprime loans either.
These are familiar tactics from the right. The truth is that they are not as concerned about our shortcomings as they are about our success. They know that people who list cartoon characters' names will never vote, and that the law requires us to turn in all voter registration cards collected. They also know that programs that register hundreds of thousands of voters from communities where Election Day participation traditionally is low, coupled with effective get-out-the-vote work, can tip close elections.
Their hope is that making noise about our work will cripple efforts to organize potential voters from communities of color. James O'Keefe, the "pimp" in the videos, has said himself that he went after ACORN because of our registration drives that turn out African-American and Latino voters.
There has been a torrent of press coverage about these tapes, some of which has been predictably biased and inaccurate given prior coverage of our work by these sources. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others have gladly rushed through the door opened by the young couple's scam.
However newsworthy this story might be in our hyper-partisan climate, it has overshadowed coverage of issues far more important -- such as health-care reform and regulating the financial services industry.
This is not to say that we shouldn't be held to account for the contents of these videotapes, but it is to say that the volume of the outcry against us is also about a political agenda, and a perceived opportunity to promote it, which goes far beyond our organization.
We know that ACORN has work to do to regain public trust. We are determined to get back on track so that we can continue organizing for the social and economic justice that working families deserve.
Pat McCoy is head organizer for N.C. ACORN. The Rev. Melvin Whitley is chair of the N.C. ACORN board.
