Eugene Robinson: Purging the Tea Party’s Racist Poison

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/purging_the_tea_partys_racist_poison_20100719/


Purging the Tea Party’s Racist Poison

Posted on Jul 19, 2010
By Eugene Robinson


That was quick. We now have proof the NAACP was right.

When the nation’s leading civil rights organization passed a resolution condemning displays of racism by tea party activists, leaders of the movement reacted with umbrage so thick you could cut it with a knife—then demonstrated that the NAACP’s allegation was entirely justified.

On Sunday, the National Tea Party Federation announced it had expelled one of the movement’s most prominent figures—a California blowhard named Mark Williams—because of the outrageously racist things he had said about the NAACP. Ejected along with Williams was his whole organization, Tea Party Express, which had been a particularly active, high-profile group.

snip//

If Williams is now a pariah in tea party circles, that’s progress. But this episode should prompt the leaders to look inward and acknowledge—not just to the rest of us, but also to themselves—that ugly, racially charged rhetoric has been part of the movement’s stock and trade all along. If the tea party groundswell is to mature into something important and lasting, it needs to purge itself of this poison.

And if the Republican Party is going to try to harness the tea party’s passion on behalf of GOP candidates, responsible leaders need to make clear that racism will not be tolerated. Yet Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to talk about the NAACP flap when asked about it Sunday, and Sen. John Cornyn volunteered that accusing the tea party of racism is “slanderous.”

It’s not slander if it’s the truth, senator. No one can deny that some fraction of the tea party’s considerable energy is generated by racism. Excommunicating Mark Williams was a start to disowning and discarding this element—but just a start.

And by the way, remember when Attorney General Eric Holder urged us to have a national conversation about race? Well, this is how we do it—awkwardly and episodically, almost always in reaction to a specific event. We don’t talk, we shout and grumble. It ain’t pretty, but it’s the American way.

[niceypoo]

1. They didnt expel Mark WIlliams because they disagree with his racist diatribe

He has been spewing the same, 'It's impossible for teahadists to be racist,' lie for months. They approve of the racism shown at the tea parties, it brings them votes. They ejected him because he became a political liability. Republicans eat their own and shoot their wounded.

[uponit7771]

2. I'm blessed that people are becoming less tolerable of their assholeness