Racing To The Bottom

Well, the NAACP passed its anti-Tea-Party resolution last week. We won’t know what it actually says, because they’re sitting on the precise text until October (conveniently just before the elections), but the president and CEO wrote a piece for CNN discussing the double-secret resolution, and how it came to be.

And it screams out for a full-blown Fisking.

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This week at the NAACP annual convention, we passed over 75 resolutions. They addressed critical issues from education equity, to fixing our broken criminal justice and immigration systems, to our top priority: jobs, jobs, jobs.

One resolution, which was highlighted in my convention speech, created media frenzy: The unanimously passed resolution demanded that the leadership of the Tea Party repudiate its racist elements and make it clear that there is no space in the organization for bigotry.

“We did a lot of things at the convention! What’s the big deal about one out of 75, especially since no one knows just what it says?”

It is unfortunate that at a time when our nation is reeling in the midst of one of the most devastating downturns in our economy since the Great Depression, the NAACP is compelled to deal with a disturbing, corrosive attack from the Tea Party.

Hey, dipshit, the Tea Party had pretty much NOTHING to say about the NAACP — good, bad, or indifferent. Their concerns are NOT race-based — honesty in government, deficits, excessive spending, and the continuing move by government officials to ignore the will of the people at any opportunity. Those issues don’t have anything to do with “race.”

And the “disturbing, corrosive attack?” You mean, they didn’t just roll over and capitulate when you attacked them? “It all started when he hit me back!”

And let’s look at that demand: “that the leadership of the Tea Party repudiate its racist elements and make it clear that there is no space in the organization for bigotry.” That makes it abundantly clear, Mr. Jealous, that you utterly fail at grasping the fundamental nature of the Tea Party. What you demand is simply not possible.

By design, there is no officially recognized “leadership” of the Tea Party movement. There is no one who has the authority to say “you can be a member, but you can’t.” There is also no “organization” as you know it that can enforce such dictates.

Now, when the assholes you give so much attention to do show up at Tea Party events, they are usually identified, isolated, and mocked and derided until they leave. But there are no “bouncers” who can go up to them and say “GTFO.” (Perhaps we could borrow some of your supporters in the New Black Panther Party, or the SEIU?) For example, “Think Progress” (a candidate for my new favorite oxymoron) selectively edited this video to show a “Crash The Tea Party” dipshit showing up with a Swastika and proclaiming to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Other Tea Partiers come to rallies with “WE’RE NOT WITH STUPID” signs for this guy’s ilk.

Instead of joining us to repudiate racism, Tea Party leaders have attempted a tit for tat and demanded that we condemn the New Black Panther Party for reported hate speech. It is a false argument. Of course we condemn hate speech from anyone and any organization, including the New Black Panther Party. But that party is a mere flea compared to the influence and size of the Tea Party. And the New Black Panther Party is not a member of the NAACP. What we are asking the Tea Party to eschew is not the racism of some outside organization, but the bigotry within.

The Tea Party simply pointed out that you have your own issues with racist hate speech, sir. And that is a remarkably mealy-mouthed response — you condemn the “hate speech” of the NBBP, but not the organization itself. Nor are you repudiating the group — just its words.

And let’s run with that “mere flea” idea. Yes, the NBBP is a “mere flea” compared to the Tea Party movement — or the NAACP. And the racist elements within the Tea Party movement are also “mere fleas.” But the Tea Party opponents likes to shine a spotlight on them, because it lets them redefine the issue on terms that they are more comfortable dealing with. And, if in the course of that you have to gloss over — or, as in the case of Think Progress, outright like about — the Tea Party’s own attempts to police its events, so be it.

After my speech, I was approached by a man named Chris, who asked that his last name not be used. He’s a member of both the Tea Party and the NAACP. He thanked me for denouncing the racist elements of a party to which he is loyal. He explained that he felt increasingly uncomfortable within the Tea Party. We want Chris to live in a world where he can feel comfortable in both organizations.

Gee, isn’t that convenient. Some anonymous guy parrots just what Mr. Jealous wants him to say. Well, my close personal friend Alonzo (who is black, but doesn’t want his last name used either) says that the NAACP is completely and utterly wrong about the Tea Party, and that he feels a hell of a lot more respected, appreciated, and welcomed in the Tea Party than he would in the NAACP.

Over 2000 delegates voted. The resolution was proposed by our Missouri State Conference, from the home state of the Council of Conservative Citizens, widely recognized as the linear descendant of the White Citizens Council. Their fealty to racism is not obscured.

And what is the connection between the CofCC and the Tea Party Movement?

Like Stormfront.org, a website founded by former KKK leader Don Black, the Council celebrates its allegiance to and influence in the Tea Party. The avowed racist David Duke notes that thousands of Tea Party activists have urged him to run for president. When the Tea Party marches by, Duke thinks it’s his fiesta.

Oh, bullshit. I poked through the CofCC’s web site (I’d never heard of them before), and came up with two conclusions: 1) they’re really assholes, and B) they agree with some of the Tea Party’s principles. Big deal. I’m sure if you went through the Communist Party USA’s web site (no linky for them!), you’d find a few places where they agree with the NAACP.

And David Duke? That dipshit’s run for office as a Democrat and a Republican. He doesn’t have any real ties to either party; he’s an opportunist.

Our members know too well the pain and the potential danger of white supremacist groups. Since our resolution was publicized, a number of our branches and our corporate offices are reporting violent threats.

Gee, more anonymous, unsubstantiated charges.

We have all seen the blatantly racist signs portraying President Obama as a monkey. We have seen the press conference with the civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis describing how he was spit on and called the N-word, or Rep. Barney Frank being called a vicious slur for gay men.

And I saw eight years of President Bush portrayed as a monkey. And I saw Rep. Lewis’ press conference, where he admitted that he wasn’t deliberately spat upon, but struck by some spittle by accident. As far as the “nigger” and “fag” charges (yes, I’ll say them — I won’t have Eric Holder calling me a coward) — there were a zillion video cameras at that incident. Andrew Breitbart has offered $100,000 for proof that it happened, and no one has claimed it. So, in the utter lack of evidence when there should have been plenty, I’m calling bullshit on that. I give it as much substance as I do your friend “Chris” and these threats.

Dick Armey and other Tea Party leaders have not only refused to disavow the racism — they have denied it.

Dick Armey is a self-styled “leader” of the movement. I don’t know anyone who considers him a “leader.” Personally, I see him as an opportunist who’s trying to jump on the bandwagon.

And they have denied that it is anything but a tiny, insignificant fringe of the movement. And that it has nothing to do with the commonly-accepted principles and goals of the Tea Party movement.

With increased influence comes increased responsibility. It is long past time for Dick Armey and the Tea Party leadership to take a stance. Instead, they remain silent while many of the group’s leaders are attacking the NAACP, calling a historically multiracial, anti-racist organization “racist.” We are receiving death threats and other threats of violence for asking them to rout the violent, racist factions in their midst.

These non-leaders aren’t “remaining silent,” they are — to use a phrase you might recognize — keep their eye on the prize. The whole racial element is a diversion from the real goals of the Tea Party movement, and the majority of the Tea Party members — who are the real “leadership” of the movement, not the figureheads you wish to prop up so you can tear them down — accept and embrace and live by the long-standing ideals of the NAACP and the civil rights movement — something you, as the representative of their leadership — could stand to revisit.

The NAACP is working hard to move our nation forward. We have joined with almost 200 other organizations representing people of all races, creeds and faiths to form a movement to pull America back together and put America back to work. “One Nation Working Together” is the antithesis to the bitter polarization being bred by the Tea Party and its ilk. It represents a clarion call to unity, to come together as a country.

“One Nation Working Together?” Oh, yeah, as Ed Morrissey so eloquently put it, the list of groups being that “reads like a Who’s Who of special interests within the Democratic Party.”

The groups involved represent the core of the first-time voters who backed Obama, including the National Council of La Raza, the Service Employees International Union, the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, and the United States Student Association. (The effort is separate from the Democratic Party’s plan to spend $50 million trying to reach those same voters.)

“One Nation” is the latest incarnation of the left’s attempt to Astroturf an effective counter to the Tea Party movement. And it’s a near-perfect mirror image: where the Tea Party movement is a genuine grass-roots effort with no clearly defined national leadership, “One Nation” is the product of the big moneyed interests that bought Obama the presidency.

On October 2 we will gather in Washington in a march for jobs, to demand a fair economy that works for all. We will embrace hope and possibility — not hate.

If that’s your real agenda, then you’d be welcomed by the Tea Party. Of course, the catch there is your own interpetation of a “fair economy that works for all.” I suspect that, to you, that means an economy ruthlessly controlled by the federal government to enforce “fairness.” No, thanks.

As Americans seeking peace, harmony, and goodwill, we have too much at stake to be derailed by the rancor of racism. It’s been said that “Evil flourishes with the silence of good men.”

Which is why the Tea Party answered you so quickly, and why I’m speaking now.

It is time for all people of goodwill — and especially the leadership of the Tea Party — to break the silence and make it clear that this type of vile bigotry is antithetical to the moral ethos of our nation.

Way ahead of you, boss. See the video. And then contrast it with the NAACP’s bold denunciation and rejection of the New Black Panther Party’s gross attempt at oppressing voters in Philadelphia.

Given the history of the NAACP, especially their efforts at fighting such things in the South in the 1960s, one would think that they’d be exceptionally sensitive to such things.

But I guess that it’s OK when it’s done by black men, on behalf of the Democratic Party.

Go back to your masters at the Democratic Party, Mr. Jealous, and tell them that you tried to do their bidding in attacking the Tea Party, but you failed. Maybe they won’t kick you off the plantation.

As long as you keep delivering them money and votes, though, you ought to be safe.

Whose blogs will be next?

Chronicling the media bias