Inge Marler, Arkansas Tea Party Leader, Makes Racist Joke At Event

[Galraedia]

Source: Huffington Post

Tea Party leaders in Arkansas are on the defensive after a board member of a Tea Party group in the Ozarks made a racist joke at a rally over the weekend drawing laughs from the audience.

The Baxter Bulletin in north-central Arkansas reported that Inge Marler made the comments at the annual rally of the Ozark Tea Party. The remarks, which suggested that African-Americans are on welfare, were condemned by Tea Party leaders in the state. The Bulletin reported that the condemnation came after they contacted the Tea Party for comment.

The Bulletin reports that Marler, who told the newspaper she would stop using the joke, said the following as an ice-breaker in her speech:

“A black kid asks his mom, ‘Mama, what’s a democracy?’

“‘Well, son, that be when white folks work every day so us po’ folks can get all our benefits.’

“‘But mama, don’t the white folk get mad about that?’

“‘They sho do, son. They sho do. And that’s called racism.’”

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/inge-marler-tea-party-arkansas-leader-racist-joke_n_1597334.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

[Angry Dragon]

1. Another teabagger shows her true colors

[66 dmhlt]

50. Not surprising. After all, she does belong to the "T" Party ...

[goclark]

56. Question ~ Why don't we see crowds of Tee Tee Party Members

clapping at rallies?
They still don't show photos of the crowds. I think they are " In Name Only."


Never met one that self identified.

Never saw more than a crowd on tv of more than 30 people.

Where are the massive crowds?

[geardaddy]

2. She needs to look up "racism" in the dictionary.

[nxylas]

32. Dictionaries is the work of Satan

As is all books, 'cept the Bible.

[marmar]

3. Behind all the Tea Party talk about taxes and government spending......

...... is a whole bunch of old-fashioned racism.

[The Magistrate]

22. Exactly, Sir: 'Too Much Government' Means 'Don't Give A White Man's Dime To A Lazy Negro'

And that is all it ever has meant.

[Hoyt]

45. You nailed it.

[bluestateguy]

4. Does Mitt Romney REJECT and DENOUNCE and cut off all association with

Remember how Obama in 2008, and for that matter Hillary too, were expected to turn cartwheels almost to the point of an excorcism every time one of their supporters said something stupid.

[demwing]

48. Of course he won't

His excuse will be "I don't agree with everything said by everyone of my supporters...and they don't agree with everything I say."

That's Romney - never met a fence he couldn't straddle. Even the barbed wire variety

[The Wielding Truth]

5. Isn't it true that there are more white people on welfare than black?This makes no sense.

[libinnyandia]

16. That was my reaction.

[wordpix]

39. hey, when have facts & reality ever impacted the T-baggers' delusions?

They are

[Enrique]

6. were any of the black people in the audience offended?

kidding!!!

[coalition_unwilling]

10. DUzy! - n/t

[alcibiades_mystery]

17. ROFL

[JAbuchan08]

31. At first I read that as:

Where there any black people in the audience to be offended?

[denverbill]

7. Jebus that's just about as blatantly racist as you can get.

It's pretty bad when the Tea Party actually has to come down on you.

And she won't stop using the joke. She'll just stop telling it in public.

[KamaAina]

8. In the Ozarks? Srsly?

The Ozarks that are virtually lily-white AND have some of the highest poverty and welfare rates in the country?!

[Art_from_Ark]

21. It's Baxter County,

where most of the Republican Party membership is made up of rich retirees, mostly from out-of-state.

[Alcibiades]

37. I used to live in Springfield

In southwest Missouri, which is sort of the "gateway to the Ozarks."

It's a historical fact that this part of Missouri and Arkansas is lily-white not in spite of racism, but because of it:

http://ksmu.org/article/1906-lynching-square

"Almost overnight the African-American population of Springfield dropped from about 20 percent to 2 percent."

Folks don't talk about it much, but the 1906 lynchings are an important part of the history of race relations in the area.

Poverty and racism are also not mutually exclusive. I'm a native of the Carolinas, and I find the Ozarks to be one of the most racist places I've ever been, which is saying something.

[sinkingfeeling]

41. Baxter is 96.9% white, but isn't among the poorest counties in the country.

Only 15.5% below poverty.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/05/05005.html

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Didn't they through Clinton, "end welfare as we know it"?

like almost 20 years ago?

[KeepItReal]

14. Shhh!! Welfare reform never happened!

Remember?

[drm604]

11. Is she still a board member?

If so, why? Maybe they agree with her?

Here's another article about the incident.
http://www.baxterbulletin.com/article/20120613/NEWS01/306130021/Tea-Party-founder-Racially-charged-joke-bad-taste?odyssey=mod

The “joke” was greeted with applause and laughter. There were no objections to the “joke” from the floor and no one spoke with disapproval or objection to Marler’s comment except those pursued for comment by The Baxter Bulletin.

Sounds like she wasn't the only racist at that meeting.

[harmonicon]

33. Not the only racist at a meeting for a racist organization?

What a surprise.

[Dash87]

12. Why are their leaders on the defensive? This is what they really believe in.

Not owning these words at this point is an act of cowardice.

[BlueJazz]

13. 2 crimes: One is the joke. Two..it's a lousy joke.

[citysyde]

15. Some of the commenters over at the HuffPo article sound just like

this woman.

Evidently, Tea Party members saw this article on their AOL news, and they are really quite mad in more ways than one.

[marble falls]

18. What a dope.

[Dawson Leery]

19. The Tea Party Anthem:

[Smilo]

20. Sometimes - I am left totally aghast

by the small minds and intolerance of teabaggers.

[AndyTiedye]

23. She Was Supposed to Save That One for the Evening Rally

[zeemike]

24. I have head that same joke back in the 60s in the south.

The only difference is that they were not afraid to use the word nigger.,,,and used it always.
No doubt that this person heard it from the previous generation and they just changed a word and used it.

[Zoeisright]

25. Inge Marler is a piece of fucking shit.

She is a cruel, ignorant, asshole of a pig.

Apologies to pigs.

[abelenkpe]

26. I have lots of tea party relatives

Happily they are on the other side of the country.

They will all get offended if I call them a racist, but they all make racist jokes, forward racist emails and use bigoted terms to identify others. Does that make them a racist?

Anyway, this is an ugly joke but it pales compared to the loony stuff my relatives have been posting on FB recently. They are all concerned that the DHS is gearing up for a civil war. That the government is creating camps for prisoners and tea party protesters. That drones will be used to monitor their every move. That the government is going around confiscating peoples guns, cash and soon gold and silver too. O, and of course that the president if from Kenya. The civil war thing is very big lately.

Tea partiers are lunatics. And they vote....

[tabasco]

27. Well, there's a shocker.

[sakabatou]

28. Why am I not surprised?

[bayareaboy]

29. what is wrong with those Tea-Baggers and

RePUGs too.

I mean this year has been lots of these misfits telling bad jokes that are always racist. Before it was Starbuck's latte liberal arts jokes that usually didn't make too much sense.

To me the problem is I feel that must respond, because they are real numb-nuts, and I find the enemy to be beneath contempt.

[Jamaal510]

30. ..

GOP: "Blacks, check. Latinos, check. Asians, check. Poor people, check. Women, check. Unions, check. Gays, check. Atheists, check. Muslims, check. Liberals, check. Moderates, check. Young people, check. Jews, check. Are there any other voting blocks left for us to alienate?"

[Alcibiades]

40. Soccer moms & dads

There are a great many middle class folks who are what I call "aspirational Republicans." These are folks who are personally tolerant, and in some cases socially liberal, but who identify with the ruling class and therefore vote GOP as a kind of aspirational token.

And yet these folks value respectibility and responsibility as some of their highest values: it is my hope that, with all this talk, and everything else crazy the GOP has done, this substantial part of their voting bloc will decide it's simply not respectible or responsible to be a Republican any more.

[ScottLand]

34. The teabaggers are really going out of their way to show how "not racist" they are.

Thanks for the clarity!

[Javaman]

35. nothing more than a kkk rally disguised as a tea party event. nt

[Blue_Tires]

36. I'm just glad that all the posters who once pretended

we needed to "reach out" to the Tea Party because they were real people with valid concerns are long, long gone...

[Alcibiades]

42. +1

I am not sure if they were trolls, or if some folks really felt that way. I think most people recognized these folks for who they were immediately: they are the George Wallace people.

The really asinine thing about the way this was handled in the media was that these people, who had voted GOP ever since the inception of the southern strategy, were treated as something "new" within the GOP by the media. Here's a photo I cannot post enough: it's Lester Maddox in 1965. Very little of the text of his sign would have to be changed for him to be a tea party supporter in 2012.

http://atlantatimemachine.com/misc/maddox.htm

The only real difference is that his sign is professionally lettered, the spelling is correct, and Maddox was, if anything, less hateful and irrational than tea party people today, which is saying quite a bit.

[wordpix]

38. she needs to wake up as a poor kid in Amerika - what an ass

[sinkingfeeling]

43. Made the 'Washington Post' as well. Again, I wonder why I live

in Arkansas. A truly beautiful state with hateful people.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/arkansas-racism-tea-party-style/2012/06/15/gJQAHQIfeV_blog.html

[olegramps]

51. The reality of it is that they were allowed to make their racist point and stir the pot of racism.

Their apologies ring hollow as the smirk and wink knowingly at their racist friends. Sorry, I spent far to long in the South not to be stupid enough to know their deep seated convictions. what I found rather curious was that those who move into the South from the North and West often become just or even more racist than those who have been surrounded by it from infancy.

[JoePhilly]

44. I bet her Uncle-Brother-Husband told her that joke.

[heaven05]

46. nothing new

Nothing new here, it's what I expect from this pack of "patriots".

[KevTucky]

47. Not all Teabaggers are racist.

All racists are Teabaggers!

[olegramps]

52. But, are all racists Teabaggers?

[hughee99]

55. I think you have that backwards.

All Teabaggers are racist, but not all racists are Teabaggers. I'm sure there are many racists that don't pay too much attention to politics at all.

[demwing]

49. The Confederacy Lives On

in the heart of every racist in Romney's Amercia.

I wonder if we can avoid having to fight that battle again. Sometimes it seems destined to repeat itself.

[progressivebydesign]

53. does she know that the majority of welfare recipients are white? And in Red States? n/t

[Indi Guy]

54. Too bad that the historical fact that the US was built on the back of slave labor...

...isn't taught in school.

[sarcasmo]

57. The real meaning of the tea party.

[The Wizard]

58. No wonder bin Laden hit us.

These butt plugs have cornered the market on stupid.