Racism and the Teabaggers

Even though we tend to post on teabagger insanity as comic relief around, I hadn't written anything about NAACP resolution because... well it's such a fucking no-brainer that I didn't think it would make that much noise.

I guess I should have known the media would have pushed this into a story/controversy/Sunday talk show topic, so here are a few fairly obvious points:

The teabaggers care more about being called racists than they do the actual racism prevalent in their ranks, and this should be pointed out. The NAACP resolution only calls on the teabaggers to condemn racism that exists in their own group! This isn't hard, and shouldn't be something you fight against, unless you think that a lot of your members are racists, and well, that leads to the next problem...

... Racism is pretty prevalent at these gatherings, and is why their leaders are so hesitant to make it look like they might not hate black people. Ours was only one example, but I walked through every corner of Beck's 9/12 rally with a sign that said "Gee, a whole lot of white people here today..." and was approached dozens of times WITH COMPLIMENTS. "Yeah, isn't it great none of them showed" up was the average comment. Three people saw my sign and called me out. All of them were reporters. Again, this is one example, but if I went to a rally for my cause and someone had a racist sign, I'd tell them to get the fuck out. People who aren't racists don't feel comfortable associating with racists, it's just that simple.

One more thing: If you are trying to show everyone you're not a racist, don't have the spokesman for one of the biggest teabagging organizations in the country do shit like this:

In the post, Williams calls NAACP President Ben Jealous "Tom's Nephew" and ties tea party calls for smaller government to "emancipation" (which, of course, is just steps away from the standard tea party line that Democratic policies amount to "tyranny.")

But the central theme centers around, as Williams writes, the "absurdity of a group that calls blacks 'Colored People' hurling charges of racism."

Here's a sample (the post is written in the form of a mock letter to President Abraham Lincoln from Jealous):

We Colored People have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

That's just the introduction. Here's the good stuff:

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government "stop raising our taxes." That is outrageous! How will we Colored People ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society? Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.

Again, for the record: this how an official at the Tea Party Express explains how not racist the Tea Party is.

It's no wonder this guy won't denounce racists within his group, huh?

Score one for the NAACP's tactics, because thanks to the news generated from his letter, he was forced out of the professional teabagging circut for... wait for it ... "racism". It does exist!

It doesn't take much effort to figure this stuff out:

Are the leaders of these groups doing/saying racist things on a regular basis? They are? Ok.

Are their members often seen carrying racist signs and saying racist things? They are? Ok.

Did the leadership of every teabagger group just go ape-shit at an organization that ASKED THEM TO CONDEMN RACISM? They did? Noted.

Hey teabaggers? Tired of being called racists?

Then stop saying racist shit!

It really is that fucking simple.