NAACP passes resolution blasting Tea Party 'racism'

[BostonPirate]

I designated this one as an Ontopic thread to keep the flame levels down.

heres the story and the statement....

“We take no issue with the Tea Party. We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy,” NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous said in a statement.

“We take issue with the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements. The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no space for racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in their movement,” Jealous added.

Leaders of the conservative movement reacted to the NAACP action with swift and angry derision.

“I am disinclined to take lectures on racial sensitivity from a group that insists on calling black people, ‘Colored,’” Mark Williams, national spokesman of the Tea Party Express, told CNN. “The Tea Party [movement] is about the constitution of this country…[and] ensuring equality for each and every individual human being.”

based on my prior comments in threads here it is clear that I tend to agree with the naacp. I want to clearly state that the picture in my avatar is me, a white man, and my family has a murky history in regards to slavery. This may overshadow my opinions in that I have a strog desire to right what I think was a wrong my forefathers engaged in... so I have disclosed my personal impetus for having interest in this topic.

that being said....

I have been an activist and I know that if someone brings a sign to the rally that is not kosher, the organizers ask them to get rid of it.... sometimes just the people in the crowd castigate the people carrying the signs enough to get them to realize they are out of sync with the rest of the group.

I don;t see that happening here with these teabagger protesters... If anything, the pictures of the crown around the signs show an agreeing atmosphere.

It also can't be lost that there is a certain lingo... take our country back...

well take it back from whom? Bacchman calls it a gangster regime and the crowd roars.... all this language packed with inuendo, and a membership virtually devoid of anyone not white makes it clear to me that the people who said they would never vote for a black man based solely on his race have found their political home.

it is not that they are being overtaxed. the american tax burden is lower than it has been in sixty years, so that is a trumped up lie. If they could decide whther they thought he was either a fascist or a socialist, it would help me think they had a real political agenda... but all i see is alot of angry white people yelling about that black president, calling him anything that comes to mind.

please guys....

be respectfull here and speak to the article not each other. This is a hot potato and we don't need to hack each other apart to say how we feel about it.

thanks in advance!

B. Pirate

 

[palemale]

The subtext of the whole "Tea Party" movement is ultimately based on racial prejudice. it's the logical off-shoot of Nixon's 'Southern Strategy" and typical fear of the other by a large segment of the American Right.

In the early 19th Century, anti-Irish mobs rioted and burned down Catholic churches and Irish neighborhoods. After the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan, aided and abetted by elected officials and others in power, instituted a reign of terror against blacks in the South. Later Italian, Jewish, Chinese and other immigrants were targets of bigotry. It was common discourse to demonize these immigrants as not sharing the culture and values of Protestant America.

The Tea Partiers, at least the one's with half a brain, realize overt racism is unacceptable. Nevertheless, whether they will admit it or not, calls to "take our country back" imply one thing. Take it back for white people.

 

[MystikWizard]

I am not sure who can deny that there are racist elements that exist in the Tea Party. I am not saying the whole movement is motivated by race, but I would suggest that it actually plays a VERY significant part in the movement. We are seeing adults who grew up in times of greater racial prejudice, conduct themselves like little children. And their indoctrinated children are following through with them.

Obviously, everyone is going to say "Oh no, we're motivated by the Constitution" and "We're against Socialism" and all that stuff, but I guarantee that if a Black man wasn't the President, you would see no where near the vitriol coming from the Tea Party. No doubt in my mind.

Plus, Obama has really governed to the center as many of us has discussed, so these charges of him being a radical Socialist, Communist, etc. is really unfounded. If it were John Edwards or Hillary Clinton as President, we would see nowhere near the amount of vitriol coming from this group.

So the NAACP is correct to condemn.

Now, the Tea Partiers have stated that the NAACP is using this as an fundraising opportunity to rally it's own base of supporters. I can't necessarily disagree with that charge, to be honest, as I feel that is exactly what they are doing.

However, the Tea Party deserves to be condemned and if there was any ounce of leadership, we would hear Tea Party leaders in each of the States condemning the racism coming from these public protests. But instead, they look the other way and *nod nod *wink wink.

 

[Jack Springer]

It's funny how an exclusive one-race only organization gets the gall to call another organization racist.

I've heard people from the Tea Party many times say that their organization is not racist and they condemn racists. What else does the NAACP want.

I personally pass a resolution asking this out-dated organization to get a new life or disband.

 

[palemale]

I've heard people from the Tea Party many times say that their organization is not racist and they condemn racists. What else does the NAACP want.

I heard Claude Rains say he was "shocked, shocked" to learn that there was gambling going on in Cafe Americain.

 

[BostonPirate]

It's funny how an exclusive one-race only organization gets the gall to call another organization racist.

I've heard people from the Tea Party many times say that their organization is not racist and they condemn racists. What else does the NAACP want.

I personally pass a resolution asking this out-dated organization to get a new life or disband.

post a few of those disclaimers for us please. what they should do is control their rallies or not hold them. as for the exclusively one race organisation.....

HMMM.....

Naacp includes hispanics, asians, native americans, Indian americans, Arabic peoples.... anyone with skin of color... not just black... hense the name colored people... in reference to white, having no color... it is odd but it was the reasoning.

they represent the racial minority of all nonwhite peoples, or so they state their mission. I am sure not all of them want to be represented by anyone.

is this a deffence of the tea party? it is not as diverse as the NAACP and you know it. It is vastly white.

 

[Jack Springer]

post a few of those disclaimers for us please. what they should do is control their rallies or not hold them. as for the exclusively one race organisation.....

HMMM.....

Naacp includes hispanics, asians, native americans, Indian americans, Arabic peoples.... anyone with skin of color... not just black... hense the name colored people... in reference to white, having no color... it is odd but it was the reasoning.

they represent the racial minority of all nonwhite peoples, or so they state their mission. I am sure not all of them want to be represented by anyone.

is this a deffence of the tea party? it is not as diverse as the NAACP and you know it. It is vastly white.

Dude, dude, dude -- they may have some token members of other races -- but they are all black. I've seen it on the local news all week -- no asians, no native Americans, no semitic people.

 

[BostonPirate]

Dude, dude, dude -- they may have some token members of other races -- but they are all black. I've seen it on the local news all week -- no asians, no native Americans, no semitic people.

so you are saying that the naacp is racist. based on what you saw on the telyvision thingie.

you are aware that Michael steele, the head of the republican party, is a member of the naacp, right?

have you heard him make any response today?

is he a racist as well?

 

[HenryReardon]

Nevertheless, whether they will admit it or not, calls to "take our country back" imply one thing. Take it back for white people.

Surely, you jest. Jesse Jackson might think that or perhaps Al Sharpton would, but that's a perfectly unwarranted assumption.

The tea party people see a president and his party doing their utmost to turn our constitutional republic into a socialist state where all of the misery will be spread equally. They want nothing more than to take it back from those who are bent on destroying it.

Racism has become a totally overused and overworked word, and it is tossed about so blindly that it has lost all meaning.

 

[BostonPirate]

and socialism hasn't been?

what a blast!!!

 

[BostonPirate]

for reference to what the NAACP is refering to, lets have a video presentation....

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI[/ame]

the NAACP hasn't called the entire movement racist. they have said that the leadership has tolerated racism within its ranks and calls on it to be responsible and get rid of this stuff.

 

[opinterph]

Dude, dude, dude -- they may have some token members of other races -- but they are all black. I've seen it on the local news all week -- no asians, no native Americans, no semitic people.

Like Barack Obama, the current NAACP President and CEO is the child of a white parent and a black parent.

 

[laikaNYC]

Does Mr. Jealous [NAACP President]think there's no racism in his own organization? I haven't heard a word from the NAACP about the fringe racist New Black Panther Party.

 

[BostonPirate]

Does Mr. Jealous [NAACP President]think there's no racism in his own organization? I haven't heard a word from the NAACP about the fringe racist New Black Panther Party.

I haven't seen them at the NAACP conventions either. Do you have evidence that the new black panthers are welcome at the NAACP?

this isn't a them or us idea... it is documented and real. Video and the internet make some things hard to deny.

they aren't saying the organisations are racist. they are saying the leadership doesn't challenge the racists that they have.

I think the repubs here are trying to say the resolution means more than it was intended to mean.

 

[SuperPsyze]

My impression of the Tea Party has always been that they've been too disorganize to stand for anything. Rather than sending out their message in one collective voice, it's just a bunch of incoherent mumblings. The only ones who get noticed are the crazy ones, and no one else in the party wants to say "Dude, that's not cool".

I don't think the Tea Party movement is about intolerance, but there are many intolerant people within their ranks, and without some assertive leadership to clarify what the Tea Party is about, it's easy to label the entire party as bigots. Ignoring bigotry is the same as condoning it, in this case.

 

[opinterph]

Does Mr. Jealous [NAACP President]think there's no racism in his own organization? I haven't heard a word from the NAACP about the fringe racist New Black Panther Party.

I have no basis of knowledge about what Mr. Jealous thinks, but perhaps the NAACP doesn’t bother addressing so-called “fringe” individuals or organizations because doing so would provide them a greater measure of credibility than they may deserve.

(You can probably find more information about the fringe group you mentioned on the Southern Poverty Law Center website.)

 

[Jack Springer]

Like Barack Obama, the current NAACP President and CEO is the child of a white parent and a black parent.

Does Jealous consider himself black like our President does or of mixed race?

 

[opinterph]

Does Jealous consider himself black like our President does or of mixed race?

I dunno the answer to your question; however, I imagine he’s versed quite well~ either way.

 

[evanrick]

I thought the Tea Party express was slavery revival tour 10'.

 

[NickCole]

Did something new happen, or did the NAACP just now notice the Tea Party?

Or is it election season and right on cue ObamaDems pull out the race card?

I sure do miss the old Democratic Party that raised issues and ideas.