Today, the NAACP, passed a resolution that condemns racism within the Tea Party movement. Convention delegates approved the resolution Tuesday during their annual convention in Kansas City.
NAACP President Ben Jealous has admonished Tea Party leaders saying they should “be responsible members of this democracy and make sure they don’t tolerate bigots or bigotry among their members.”
“We’re deeply concerned about elements that are trying to move the country back, trying to reverse progress that we’ve made,” NAACP spokeswoman Leila McDowell told ABC News. “We are asking that the law-abiding members of the Tea Party repudiate those racist elements, that they recognize the historic and present racist elements that are within the Tea Party movement. “We see it (the Tea Party) as a threat to democracy. We see it as a threat to human rights. We certainly see it as a threat to civil rights,” McDowell said.
While the mainstream media reports claims of racism in the Tea Party, they have yet to provide any substantive proof. For example, during the final hours of the healthcare reform debate, three congressmen claimed Tea Party protesters yelled a racial epithet as they walked to the Capitol. While this has been widely reported in the media, nobody can provide any proof. Publisher/Journalist Andrew Breitbart even offered a $100,000 reward for anyone that could provide audio or video proof. So far nobody has come forward with any evidence.
Meanwhile, Tea Party leaders say the accusations and the resolution are political theater designed to fire up the left for the sole purpose of gaining political ground.
Rev. C.L. Bryant, the former president of NAACP’s Garland, Texas chapter is now a leading Tea Party activist. He says the idea that the Tea Party is racist or is trying to instigate a racist climate is “simply a lie.” Bryant claims the NAACP wants to “create a climate where they can say that those on the right are in fact racist and those on the left are their saviors”.
So why is it that the NAACP can find the racism in the Tea Party but not in black organizations and condemn them as strongly. After all their mission statement says:
“The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination”. And their vision statement says this:
“The vision of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure a society in which all individuals have equal rights and there is no racial hatred or racial discrimination”.
Notice both statements refer to all people not just people of color and no racial hatred. That would seem to suggest that they are defenders of all people and against any racism.
So when the New Black Panther Party representatives say things like this, “I hate white people, all of them. Every last iota of a cracker, I hate him. We didn’t come out here to play this game. There’s too much serious business going on in the black community to go out here sliding through South Street with white dirty cracker whore [ BLEEP ] on our arms and we call ourselves black men with African garb on. What the hell is wrong with you, black man? You had a (inaudible) with a white girl on your damn arm. You want freedom? You are going to have to kill some crackers. You are going to have to kill some of their babies”. – King Shamir … Where’s the outrage?
In another incident there was the beating of black Tea Party supporter Kenneth Gladney by SEIU members last year. Despite the assault and berating with racial slurs that Gladney endured, the St. Louis Chapter of the NAACP pushed the local prosecutors to drop the charges against the SEIU thugs and referred to Gladney as an “Uncle Tom” for his conservative ideologies.
“We call him a negro in the fact that he works not for our people but against our people. In the old days, they would call him an ‘Uncle Tom.’ ”
It appears the NAACP has lost touch with the values outlined in its’ mission and vision statements. They are behaving more like a political movement instead of a civil rights movement. Since they are not vocally condemning the bad behavior of SEIU and the New Black Panther Party it appears as they are silently condoning it. Even if they don’t condone it, their resolution against the Tea Party based on unfounded charges of racism seems both self serving and hypocritical.
So far the Obama era of post racial politics seems like a failure. We seem more racially divided now then we have for many years. The media, the administration and the progressives running Congress seem anxious to play the race card at every opportunity. We have became politically divided over ideologies but we are in danger of having those lines blurred with race. Healthcare reform, immigration reform and economic reform should be debates over the philosophy of legislating not race.
Restore the Republic!
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”- Thomas Jefferson
Uncommon Sense 