Tea Party Denies Racism

At their recent convention in Kansas City, the NAACP denounced the Tea Party leadership for not rejecting racial rhetoric, signs and actions at their rallies. Tea Party leaders were quick to attack the NAACP. Local Tea Party organizers rejected claims of racism and called on the NAACP to withdraw their resolution.


Just as this was hitting the press, organizers of the North Iowa Tea Party found themselves in hot water over a billboard they erected in Mason City Iowa comparing President Obama to Hitler and Lenin. They were requested to remove the billboard by other leaders of the Tea Party movement. John White, an Iowa coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, said "I fear they may end up in some kind of trouble over it because it's basically slanderous. I don't know that it's the message we want to send. I'd much rather see billboards that say, 'Remember in November. Get Out and Vote.' At our last rally we saw some people with those kinds of signs and asked people to put them down, It's borderline hate crime" (source: www.politicsdaily.com)

Fear, anger and frustration at the path America seems to be taking is understandable. Our country is facing massive debt. Our economy is struggling back from the brink of collapse. The ecology and economy along the Gulf of Mexico may be damaged permanently because of unregulated corporate greed and a national addiction to oil. We need to fix healthcare, social security, education and the nation’s infrastructure. We are spending billions, trillions on two wars on the other side of the world. Things need to get done and partisanship has ultimately superseded problem solving. Scapegoating, name calling, political and racial slurs have become all too common on the American political scene. Politics has become a battle over ideologies, winners and losers and who has the power. What is getting lost is…us. America is becoming fragmented. Each group being more and more angry and suspicious of the other.

Still, I am at a loss to understand the level of absolute hate and disgust toward President Obama by the conservative right, especially by the Tea Party movement. We have the first black president in our nation’s history. He was elected on the platform of CHANGE and yet when he took on the challenges of those things that need changing (created over many decades by Republicans and Democrats alike)…he has been thwarted and vilified every step of the way. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. His birthplace, his religion and his race have been questioned by those who seek his downfall. Even those of us who still support his efforts to deal with our many problems have become disheartened by the tenor of the opposition. I have to fight the tendency to wonder if the same vitriolics would be directed toward a white man from a more privileged background. I wonder if there would be more respect for the office, more cooperation… or have we passed the point of no return?

Food for THOUGHT.