Now, the “Obamaphone” woman is the star of an ad sponsored by the Tea Party Victory Fund suggesting President Obama’s policies have “enslaved Americans“:
It’s difficult to view this ad as anything other that an appeal to the visceral reaction its very enthusiastic star is likely to inspire in a certain kind of voter. The ad will run in three Ohio counties — Lucas, Summit, and Mahoning — all of which are predominantly white.
In a startling admission from a major Tea Party champion, former Fox News host Glenn Beck said Friday that race may be a motivating factor in the Tea Party’s opposition to President Obama. In an interview with Fox Business host Andrew Napolitano, Beck said Obama and GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich are both “big government progressive[s],” so he doesn’t understand why Tea Party members are supporting Gingrich. “If you’re against [Obama] but you’re for [Gingrich], it must be about race,” Beck said:
BECK: And I issued a challenge to Tea Party members. … [Gingrich] is a progressive. … If you have a big government progressive, or a big government progressive in Obama, one in Newt Gingrich, one in Obama, ask yourself this, Tea Party: is it about Obama’s race? Because that’s what it appears to be to me. If you’re against him but you’re for this guy, it must be about race.
Watch it:
The comment is striking coming from Beck, who organized major Tea Party events and strongly defended the movement against charges of racism. “The NAACP adopted a resolution condemning the racist elements of the Tea Party. Well, I’d do that, too, if I knew where they were,” Beck said in July 2010. Now, it seems he finally knows there are. And he’s beingdisowned by conservativeblogs for expressing this. Conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart responded by calling Beck a “coward,” a liar, and a “huckster,” saying the race comments “jumped the gun, and in essence jumped the shark.”
Indeed, just this weekend, a Tea Party group in Kansas drew condemnations from the local NAACP for depicting President Obama as a skunk. “It is half black, half white, and almost everything it does, stinks,” reads the website of the Patriot Freedom Alliance, a Tea Party of Hutchinson, under a picture suggesting “the skunk has replaced the eagle as the symbol for the president.” Darrell Pope, president of the Hutchinson NAACP, called it “a blatant statement of racism.”
Every country has nationalistic pride and it does not matter how oppressive the government is, or how corrupt its leaders are, most people are fiercely proud of their country. Americans are as nationalistic as any people on the planet and one of the greatest aspects of this country is the diversity of the people who come together in times of strife to overcome any obstacle. There are a great number of people in America who believe nationalism is defined by the racial makeup of the population, and these racial supremacists harken back to the founding of the country when wealthy white landowners controlled all aspects of society, something that any decent American finds revolting. For the past two years or so, the teabaggers have been labeled as racists for the homogeneity of the group that is most certainly white. Teabaggers deny they are racists, but when 99% of the group is white and they rail against the first African American president for imagined transgressions before he set his administration’s policies, it is impossible to see them as anything but racists.
The racial bigotry against President Obama began before he was inaugurated and has continued unabated to this day. The hatred against Obama cannot be for his policies because he is a Centrist who has enraged many on the Left for not acquiescing to their demands that he pursue a Progressive agenda. Teabaggers complained from the start of the president’s term in 2009 that he was taxing them too much even though the tax rates were from George W. Bush’s term. The president cut taxes shortly after taking office and the teabags still claimed Obama was overtaxing them. The teabaggers have complained about all of President Obama’s policies regardless that they benefited from his agenda, so the only explanation for their opposition that makes any sense is his race.
David Duke made a video-taped speech for teabaggers that laid out bigoted reasons for the tea party’s desire to return America to the Founding Fathers’ days when African slaves were considered 3/5ths of a person and the predominant race was white. The racial bigot Duke told teabaggers that African Americans, Jews, and other minorities were interlopers trying to change America from a white man’s country into a diverse nation of ethnicities and that it will be the undoing of our country. No-one is surprised that David Duke is still a bigot, but his dysfunctional logic supporting ethnic cleansing gives one pause and informs why teabaggers want America to return to its original European, white roots set at the country’s founding.
Duke accused Jews in the media of promoting President Obama, and throughout his speech refers to “real Americans” as European-American people who overwhelmingly did not vote for President Obama and reject him as the country’s leader. Duke claimed the original Boston tea party was a rejection of foreign intervention in America’s government and he goes on to insinuate that the president, Jews, and non-whites are a foreign power who are robbing European Americans of their freedom to rule themselves. To further his argument for white supremacy, he referred to the Founding Fathers’ first immigration policy that limited immigrants to “free white people.” The racial rant quotes Thomas Jefferson and cites his reason for opposing slavery as a “danger to our posterity,” and that Jefferson said “unless African slaves were repatriated to their motherland, he shudders for America’s future.” Duke also said Jefferson’s writings on the slavery issue have been “completely censored in the popular media” and that it is a despicable plot to fool the American people.
There are many problems with Duke’s supremacist rant, and besides being sickening on many levels, it gives a clue to why teabaggers cite the Founders’ original intent at the nation’s beginning as being a golden age. Teabaggers and Duke have idealized the late 1700s as the model for 21st Century America as if the past two-hundred years of progress did not improve America. Duke’s racial tirade explains the Black voter suppression being supported by teabaggers as well as the attacks on women’s rights. Duke kept referring to the Founders’ and the Constitution, but never acknowledged the multitude of amendments that were necessary to keep pace with the changing landscape in this country.
Teabaggers have opposed the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause as well as the Equal Protection Clause that are part of the so-called “Reconstruction Amendments” that include the 13th and 15th Amendments that abolished slavery and granted voting rights to people of colour respectively. If America was constrained to the original 10 amendments in the Constitution, the country would be no better than a third-world country and anyone who was not white would be little more than property. America is not a third world country and regardless of the sensibilities of the Founding Fathers in 1791, this is the 21st Century and the Constitution has been amended to correct the inequities the European white-supremacists planned for America.
Racism in America permeates all levels of society and demonstrates that a large segment of society has been programmed to believe the white race is superior to Blacks, Latinos, and Asians. Much of the objection to President Obama comes from a belief that he does not belong in the White House and that he is foreign. The birther movement is still alive with accusations that the president is Kenyan, wrong, and not like the rest of us. There are still Americans who believe President Obama is a Muslim who panders to middle-eastern leaders and secretly works to destroy America. Recently, the teabagger chairwoman in Sumter, South Carolina made a jokeabout killing the Obamas; she did not see the harm in the joke.
The strange aspect to David Duke’s speech to teabaggers is that he rails against anyone who claims the tea party is racist while he touts the nearly all-white members of the group and their belief that only European-Americans have a right to exist and control this country. Duke may well be the most visible representation of racial bigotry in America, but he represents millions of Americans who hate President Obama for no other reason than his race. Although the American Civil War is a black mark on our country and should be a cause for shame, it is still celebrated in the South even though it was fought to preserve slavery. There are many Southern state residents who would revisit the Civil War if they thought they could prevail and institute slavery again.
There is no answer to white supremacy that David Duke, teabaggers, and millions of Americans advocate. Sociologists have said that education at an early age is virtually worthless if a child goes home to racial indoctrination. It is also a mistake to teach tolerance because it means children have to put up with African Americans instead of seeing them as equals. It is sad that America continues its racist tendencies, and although many Americans do not see this country as racist, Europeans consider America the most racially bigoted country in the world. Perhaps it is because the teabaggers and racists like David Duke are the loudest and most visible, but Europe felt America was racist before there was a tea party. One thing is certain, the teabaggers are racists and David Duke’s speech verifies what many Americans have claimed for the past two-and-a-half years. Don’t believe it? Watch David Duke here and compare his words with teabagger rhetoric. The teabags are racists and white supremacists who feel President Obama is not qualified to be president. It is too bad that racism is generational because the racist mentality is being passed down and there is no end in sight.
Maybe it is time to cut the racists loose and let them form their own country based around 1790s sensibilities. They may decide that 21st century America with a diverse population is not so bad after all. No, never mind; they will still be racists no matter where they live or what century it is as long they follow the lead of those white supremacist Founding Fathers.
California tea party activist and Orange County GOP central committee member Marilyn Davenport circulated an email depicting President Obama and his parents as monkeys, with the words, “Now you know why–no birth certificate!”
When asked if she thought the email was appropriate, Davenport is quoted as saying, “Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black. Besides, I only sent it to a few people–mostly people I didn’t think would be upset by it.”
Former Chairman of the California Republican Party Michael Schroder has demanded Davenport’s resignation saying it’s not her first brush with racist rhetoric.
In February 2009, Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose, another Orange County Republican, emailed the White House watermelon image and then apologized. While others demanded he step down, Davenport defended him. When a Newport City Councillman voted against installing grass turf near the beach because it would “attract Mexicans”, Schroder claims that she supported him as well.
Davenport is blaming the media for blowing the story out of proportion.
By Sahil Kapur
Tea Party activists have fumed at accusations of intolerance and racism, insisting their concerns about President Barack Obama are policy-oriented. Yet dozens of Tea Party groups have openly admitted to the Washington Post that the president's race is a factor in their activism.
In a lengthy investigation into the fledgling political movement that has made tremendous waves nationally, Amy Gardner reported that the Post identified more than 1,400 Tea Party groups across the nation and spoke extensively with 647 of them about their philosophies and ambitions.
"Eleven percent said that Obama's race, religion or ethnic background was either a 'very important' or 'somewhat important' factor in the support their group has received," the Post concluded.
As per the Post's reporting, that amounts to over 70 Tea Party organizations (eleven percent of 647) that willingly concede Obama's race is fueling their members' activism.
Gardner quoted organizers questioning the president's citizenship and birth certificate, his Christian faith and "socialist" policies, with some going so far as to describe him as un-American.
There are questions that don't get answered, like citizenship and his birth certificate," said Andy Stevens, 68, founder of the Tea Party Patriots in Anacortes, Washington. "I don't know why questions keep popping up all the time. If something is irrefutable, the questions wouldn't keep popping up."
Stevens was upset Obama doesn't invoke "the creator" when discussing inalienable rights.
The Post's investigation also found that the size and scope of the Tea Party movement has been "inflated" or misreported, concluding that some Tea Party organizations notably exaggerate the volume of groups or followers under their umbrella.
Self-identified Tea Party activists have overwhelmingly identified their main concerns as the growth of government, out-of-control spending and exploding deficits. They began organizing under the Tea Party banner just weeks after Obama's inauguration.
The movement that has upended entrenched elements within the Republican establishment and threatens to oust dozens of Democratic incumbents in November remains stubbornly against uniting behind a particular leader.
But when surveyed by the Post, their preferred public figure was former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (14 percent), followed by Fox News host Glenn Beck (7 percent) and South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (6 percent).
The Tea Party movement has links to white supremacists, anti-immigration groups, "birthers" and other "extremists," according to a report released by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The 94 page report, entitled Tea Party Nationalism (.pdf), investigates six national organizations "at the core" of the Tea Party: FreedomWorks Tea Party, 1776 Tea Party, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Patriots, ResistNet, and the Tea Party Express.
"Based on their past allegations about the Tea Parties, I expect the NAACP's newest attack will once again be riddled with stupid and baseless accusations," said Project 21's Emery McClendon. "They are continuing to be the 'squeaky wheel' that demands attention and hopes that enough screaming will make their myths into fact. I hope the NAACP's 'research' receives the scrutiny it deserves."
Although members of the Tea Party claim the movement is focused on dismantling an out of control federal government, reducing taxes, and balancing the budget, the report claims that the movement is permeated with concerns about national identity and race.
"In these ranks, an abiding obsession with Barack Obama's birth certificate is often a stand-in for the belief that the first black president of the United States is not a 'real American,'" says the report. "Rather than strict adherence to the Constitution, many Tea Partiers are challenging the provision for birthright citizenship found in the Fourteenth Amendment.
Citing one of the links between the movement and extremists, the report says Dale Robertson, the chairman of the 1776 Tea Party, invited Martin "Red" Beckman to be a guest on the Tea Party Radio hour that he co-hosts. Beckman, who was introduced as a "great guy" and "an authority on the Constitution" has been publishing anti-Semitic writings for over twenty years.
Moreover, the report claims that Robertson endorsed a pastor who believes that Jews are a "satanic force" and that "people of color" are less than fully human.
Another faction of the Tea Party is led by the executive director of the Minuteman Project, an organization that has been associated with the murder of migrant Mexican workers. The leader of the Wood County Tea Party in Texas, Karen Pack, was once listed as a supporter of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
The report also details the relationship between the white supremacist group the Council of Conservative Citizens and the Tea Party movement.
"The Council of Conservative Citizens promotes the idea that the United States is or should be a white Christian nation; and that Barack Obama and black people generally oppress white people," page 60 of the report describes. "The Council of Conservative Citizens both led and promoted Tea Party protests. In Mississippi, the organization advertised a 'Mississippi Tea Party' at Flowood City Hall on March 9, 2010... the Florida West Coast chapter distributed three boxes of tabloids as well as an unknown number of membership applications at a Sept. 12, 2009 Tea Party in Crystal River."
The report goes on to describe the involvement of Billy Joe Roper Jr., the former leader of an organization dedicated to creating an all-white country, in the ResistNet Tea Party and former Klansman David Duke's endorsement of the movement.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric and Islamophobia also permeate the ranks of the Tea Party, says the report.
"We are at a point of having to take a stand against all Muslims," the ResistNet Tea Party website claimed. "There is no good or bad Muslim. There is [sic] only Muslims and they are embedded in our government, military and other offices...What more must we wait for to take back this country of ours."
Additionally, Pamela Geller, a featured speaker at a Tea Party Patriots-sponsored convention in Tennessee and at a rally in Arizona sponsored by Tea Party Nation, has claimed that President Obama is "appeas[ing] his Islamic overlords" and that he may be the illegitimate child of Malcolm X.
The Tea Party movement has not just provided a platform for racists and others to express their views, the report also found that white supremacist groups have been using Tea Party events to recruit new members.
Although the report outlines several links between the Tea Party movement and hate groups, the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and the NAACP explicitly reject the generalization that the Tea Party is a wholly racist or hateful movement.
"It would be a mistake to claim that all Tea Partiers are nativist vigilantes or racists of one stripe or another, and this report manifestly does not make that claim."
"We know the majority of Tea Party supporters are sincere, principled people of good will," said President of the NAACP, Benjamin Todd Jealous. "I hope the leadership and members of the Tea Party movement will read this report and take additional steps to distance themselves from those Tea Party leaders who espouse racist ideas, advocate violence, or are formally affiliated with white supremacist organizations."
"The danger is not that the majority of Tea Party members share their views," Jealous added, "but that left unchecked, these extremists might indirectly influence the direction of the Tea Party and therefore the direction of our country: moving it backward and not forward."
"To attack a grassroots movement of this magnitude with sundry isolated incidents only goes to show the NAACP has abandoned the cause of civil rights for the advancement of liberal Democrat politics,” responded Sal Russo, chief strategist for the Tea Party Express. "The Tea Party Express has publicly and explicitly repudiated racism."
By Faiz Shakir
Just before Glenn Beck’s “non-political” tea party rally on the National Mall less than two weeks ago, the NAACP — in collaboration with ThinkProgress, Media Matters, and New Left Media — launched a site called TeaPartyTracker.org. Consistent with the NAACP’s stated desire to expose the intolerant elements of the tea party, the new site will aggregate and filter content produced by its partners that is related to the core mission of holding the tea parties accountable.
The tea party tracking site has spawned a conspiratorial fit from the right wing. The conservative blog Gateway Pundit sees the effort as a “smear” against the right. Glenn Beck’s new site cautions, “Tea Partiers beware — the NAACP is watching you.” This morning on Fox & Friends, contributor Andrew Napolitano said that because Glenn Beck has assembled “the largest political gathering in the past 40 years,” “suddenly, the left is worried.”
Appearing on CNBC to discuss the CAPAF-sponsored Clean Energy Summit, John Podesta was asked about the tea party tracking effort by conservative host Joe Kernen. Podesta responded, “What we’re trying to do is just really focus on the facts, talk to people, see what they’re for. … We want to have an open dialogue.” Referring to Fox News, he added, “There shouldn’t just be one source of information about the tea parties coming from one of your network rivals.” Watch a compilation:
This new TeaPartyTracker site will simply aggregate the content that ThinkProgress is already producing. As I explained to the Daily Caller and the Washington Post last week, ThinkProgress will continue to do what it has always done. We aren’t changing our focus or receiving any new resources for this specific effort. We’ll simply produce the content we always have, and the NAACP will select pieces of it that they feel deserve more attention.
Astroturf corporate front groups are already planning a response in reaction to our efforts to hold the tea parties more accountable. FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe said his organization will roll out “Diverse Tea,” a campaign that will showcase diversity in the Tea Party movement, sometime this week or early next week. “The idea is to create a platform for African-American Tea Party leaders, Hispanic Tea Party leaders and Jewish Tea Party leaders to get out there and talk about why they’re involved and why these issues matter so much to them,” Kibbe said.
Update Fox also called the Tea Party Tracker site a "sneaky new campaign" by "left-leaning media" to "paint" tea party "as racists."
By Zaid Jilani
Last week, the NAACP passed a resolution asking the tea party movement to repudiate any racism within its ranks. Since then, right-wing pundits and politicians have pounced on the civil rights organization, attacking it for pointing out that there is some racism present in the tea party movement. Now, the NAACP reveals that it has “received a number of death threats at local units and chapters around the country” following the passage of its tea party resolution. In one particularly explicit and offensive death threat that the NAACP posted on its blog, a caller references the controversy over the New Black Panthers case and asks, “You want a race war? You got one!” He repeatedly uses the N-word to refer to African Americans, and says that they are a “have-not bunch of bums.” Towards the end of the call, the man warns, “The streets will run red with your blood.” Listen to it (Warning: the language used is disturbing and offensive):
The death threat comes at a time when many conservatives have denied that the NAACP and African Americans face any racism from the far right. Conservative blog Dakota Voice wrote just today, “A whole article full of lies against the Tea Party was presented by [NAACP president] Ben Jealous in his op-ed for CNN online. Since adopting the resolution against the Tea Party, he says they’re getting all kinds of death threats. Yeah, sure.”
The conservative blog Confederate Yankee claimed, "The guy who claims 'I'm a proud racist, I white' was actually driven out of the Tea Party protest he attempted to infiltrate."
Another conservative blog, Left Coast Rebel, reported that part of the video was shot in 2006 before the Tea Party movement started.
This video is from Fox News' Fox News Room, broadcast July 15, 2010.
By Ben Armbruster
This week, the NAACP approved a resolution condemning what it called “racist elements” within the Tea Party movement. “You must expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take full responsibility for all of their actions,” NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said. Conservatives and teapartiers immediately took offense. Rush Limbaugh called the resolution “not true,” while Sarah Palin said it is “false” and “appalling.” Sean Hannity claimed he “can’t find any” racist Tea Party signs, while Tea Party Express founder Mark Williams attacked the NAACP, claiming it makes “more money off race than any slave trader ever.”
But as ThinkProgress has documented, there is racism in the Tea Party movement. Moreover, a new report from the Kansas City Star digs deeper into the racist elements of the Tea Party and citing various instances of racism linked to the movement, concludes that “it’s clear that some with racist agendas are trying to make inroads into the party,” noting that “in several instances, tea party members with racist backgrounds”:
Billy Roper is a write-in candidate for governor of Arkansas and an unapologetic white nationalist. “I don’t want non-whites in my country in any form or fashion or any status,” he says.
Roper also is a tea party member who says he has been gathering support for his cause by attending tea party rallies. “We go to these tea parties all over the country,” Roper said. “We’re looking for the younger, potentially more radical people.”
The Star also found that “white nationalist groups are encouraging members to attend tea parties”:
The Council of Conservative Citizens, a St. Louis-based group that promotes the preservation of the white race, has sponsored its own tea parties in some Southern states.
The council’s website has referred to blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity” and said non-white immigration would turn the country into a “slimy brown mass of glop.” Gordon Baum, the group’s founder, told The Star that the council encourages members to participate in tea parties. [...]
Roper, a former organizer for the neo-Nazi National Alliance and now chairman of White Revolution, said he has been attending tea party rallies to recruit members and garner support for his 2010 write-in campaign for Arkansas governor.
“Liberals think these are all poor, angry, working-class whites, but that’s not true,” said white nationalist movement scholar Leonard Zeskind. “It’s a solid middle class. The belief that these are people hit by the economic downturn is a myth. It’s people who have what they want and don’t want it taken away. They’re defending white privilege. Their slogan is ‘We want our country back.’”
Indeed, a New York Times/CBS poll found that 52 percent of Tea Party supporters said “too much has been made of the problems facing African-Americans” while 28 percent of Americans overall said the same.
Mark Williams, the former chairman and current spokesperson of Tea Party Express, went on MSNBC today to again deny that there is any racism in the tea party, and to bash the NAACP for daring to point out the obvious examples of bigotry within the movement. When host Tamron Hall asked why not “move forward” by condemning extremism in both camps, Williams instead pointed fingers, blaming all cases of racism on agent provocateurs Crash the Tea Party. Even more absurd, Williams said it is “impossible” for the tea party movement to contain racist elements:
HALL: Do we move forward by either side calling out extremism in their party? [...]
WILLIAMS: It’s impossible — it’s impossible for there to be a racist element in the tea party, you don’t get it! The tea party is about human rights, it’s about the United States constitution. The United States constitution mankind’s foremost human rights document.
HALL: What about the signs of the president as an African with a bone in his nose? What is that? Is that about the constitution?
WILLIAMS: Those signs were brought by Crash the Tea party, the coalition of anti-tea party groups, google crashed the tea party. You will find it all there. … Buy my book!
Of course, as ThinkProgress hasdocumented, Williams needs to look no farther than himself to know that it is not “impossible” for the tea party movement to contain racist elements. Moreover, William’s pathetic attempt to dismiss every single example of tea party racism as the work of Crash the Party is complete nonsense. If he took his own advice and googled Crash the Tea Party, he would see that the group didn’t even exist until April of this year — a year after racist and bigoted signs began appearing at tea party rallies. Beyond this, the counter-protesters neverreally materialized, and basic common sense should tell Williams that the group couldn’t possibly be responsible for every single racist sign.
Yesterday, NAACP president Benjamin Jealous called out tea party leaders, like Dick Armey, saying, “Dick we don’t think your racist, we’re just disappointed that you’re being silent in at the racism amongst your ranks.” A good place for Armey to break that silence would be with Williams.
After months of racist incidents and rallies filled with hateful signs disparaging President Obama’s ethnicity and other minorities, the NAACP has passed a resolution officially condemning racism in the Tea Party movement. This morning, Tea Party leader Mark Williams — who has been paid over $20,000 by the Tea Party Express political action committee — attacked the NAACP’s resolution, charging that the NAACP makes “more money off of race than any slave trader ever.” Other Tea Party leaders have criticized the resolution and claimed that there is no racism within their movement. Phillip Dennis, the leader of the Dallas area Tea Party, told Fox News that the Tea Party never focuses “on the pigment of people’s skin.” However, ThinkProgress has produced a short video demonstrating the vile racism that has been exhibited at some Tea Party events:
DENNIS: The Tea Party does not focus on the pigment of people’s skin. [...]
TEA PARTY ACTIVIST1: He’s too black to be President.
TEA PARTY ACTIVIST2: I’m a proud racist, I’m white.
TEA PARTY ACTIVIST3: Afro-Leninism! Coming to you on a silver platter, Barack Hussein Obama!
TEA PARTY ACTIVIST4: Go home wetbacks!
Watch it:
Video produced with help from CAPAF interns Nina Bhattacharya, Ariel Powell, Arielle Humphries and Tara Kutz.
