If you're a civil rights organization, what's the best way to raise money?  Frighten the crap out of the people you supposedly represent.

The NAACP has hit upon a scheme to scare blacks all over the country during the age of Trump by issuing a "travel warning" for the state of Missouri.  It's the first time they've ever taken such action, although other special interest groups have also issued warnings for gay people and for Hispanics traveling in the Southwest.

Why does Missouri deserve this special treatment?

Kansas City Star:

Missouri became the first because of recent legislation making discrimination lawsuits harder to win, and in response to longtime racial disparities in traffic enforcement and a spate of incidents cited as examples of harm coming to minority residents and visitors, say state NAACP leaders.

Those incidents included racial slurs against black students at the University of Missouri and the death earlier this year of 28-year-old Tory Sanders, a black man from Tennessee who took a wrong turn while traveling and died in a southeast Missouri jail even though he hadn't been accused of a crime.

"How do you come to Missouri, run out of gas and find yourself dead in a jail cell when you haven't broken any laws?" asked Rod Chapel, the president of the Missouri NAACP.

"You have violations of civil rights that are happening to people. They're being pulled over because of their skin color, they're being beaten up or killed," Chapel said. "We are hearing complaints at a rate we haven't heard before."

At the same time, Chapel said, the state government is throwing up barriers to people seeking justice in the courts for discrimination. The travel advisory cites legislation signed by Gov. Eric Greitens that will make it more difficult to sue for housing or employment discrimination.

Last time I looked, there were two sides to every discrimination suit.  And, of course, it would be unheard of for any minority to sue a company with deep pockets because he wanted a big payday. 

We must believe every minority who says he's been discriminated against and, at the same time, make it harder for a defendant to defend himself. 

But that's only part of this nonsense.  Warning people to stay away from Missouri because some blacks were called names?  Really?  Maybe we should issue a travel warning to whites for certain sections of Chicago, where the racial epithets hurled at white people walking down the street would make almost anyone blush.  Where are the statistics that show that blacks are being pulled over "because of their skin color" or that there is an epidemic of people being beaten and killed because they're black?  Perhaps Missouri blacks should be exempt from traffic laws. 

The NAACP would trash the reputation of an entire state based on anecdotal evidence that is accurate according to their word alone?

This fundraising gambit is an outgrowth of anti-Trump hysteria.  Scaring black people with lurid tales of racist Missourians is easier to do when you're already demonizing the president as Hitler.