Addressing the increasingly desperate and shrill attacks against the Tea Party Patriots by the liberals & the NAACP who are now playing the race card, the below Op-Ed by Jenny Beth Martin & Mark Meckler, co-founders of the Tea Party Patriots, was printed in Politico.
From Politico --
A clear pattern of behavior has emerged over the last 16 months. According to liberals, if you disagree with their thinking, and if you disagree with the Obama administration, you are not only wrong, you are a “racist.”
The latest strike by the left comes from the NAACP, which has resolved that the tea party movement is inherently “racist.” At its most simple, this is a direct attack on the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.
The NAACP has long history of liberalism and racism.
If you are a conservative — including a conservative African-American — there is no room for you at the NAACP. If you have opinions that differ from the NAACP and the liberal establishment, and if you are African-American, you are an “Uncle Tom,” a “negro,” “not black enough” and “against our people.”
In other words, the NAACP fancies itself the thought police for millions of black Americans. Disagree with them and you will be ostracized and attacked. You will be subjected to public humiliation and racist commentary from NAACP leadership. The message is clear: Tow the line or pay the price.
But the NAACP does not stand alone in this regard. The left has a long history of using the race card. It has been pulled on people across the political spectrum.
President Bill Clinton was smeared as a racist by the Obama campaign when Hillary Clinton was running for president. It seems that anyone who disagrees with the far left, socialist policies of Barack Obama and the current administration is subject to the heavy hand of the race card.
This card is generally played when all else has failed. It was inevitable that it would eventually be used aggressively against the tea party movement.
First, members of the tea party movement were called disgruntled voters, then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said our movement was nothing more than "astroturf" and laughed us off as a flash in the pan that would disappear overnight.
Next the Democratic National Committee relased an ad calling us an “angry mob.” Now, we’re being called racist.
All these attacks have failed because they are untrue and the American people know it.
According to recent polling, more than 49 million people are active members of the tea party movement (Winston Group, April 1, 2010). More than 145 million people say that the tea party movement is a good thing for America (Rasmussen, June 2, 2010).
The Obama White House and liberal interest groups are hitting the panic button as they read weekly polls showing diminishing support for their radical big government issue agenda, and a weariness for the politics of division.
Like all movements, the tea party has its fringe. President Barack Obama’s domestic terrorist friends from the 1960’s anti-war past never represented the Americans of good conscience who opposed the Vietnam War. In a similar vein, the racist posters of a few at a Tea Party rally do not represent the feelings or behavior of Americans who believe in this movement.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be proud of this movement. He dreamed of a colorblind society. The tea party is a truly post-racial movement. Based strictly around the three simple principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market capitalism, the movement is uninterested and uninvolved in the politics of race.
We are freedom loving Americans who have come together to express outrage against a government no longer of, for and by the people. Standing together as brothers and sisters in the fight to return America to its founding principles, skin color, religion, social status and even political party affiliation are irrelevant to the people involved in this movement.
These are the facts. And these facts have already withstood 16 months of liberal media scrutiny and bombardment.
Wednesday, the NAACP is again bringing up the completely falsified charges of racial epithets hurled at members of Congress during the debate leading up to the passage of Obamacare. Widely reported as fact by the liberal media, even an offered reward of $100,000 to anyone who could provide documentary evidence proving the charges could not coax videotape, audiotape or a single witness out of a crowd of thousands present on Capitol Hill that day.
The race card played again; and once again discarded by the American people.
When Kenneth Gladney, a black conservative activist was brutally beaten by SEIU thugs at a protest outside of Rep. Russ Carnahan’s (D-Mo.) office, the NAACP and the liberal left refused to intervene. To the contrary, at an NAACP press conference in St. Louis in May, Gladney was referred to as a “Negro,” an “Uncle Tom,” and someone not worthy of the protection of the NAACP, because he’s working for the “other side.”
The NAACP has defended the thugs who beat Gladney. At the press conference, money was raised for the defense of the “brothers.”
At Tea Party Patriots we will continue to condemn the fringe elements of the movement and any expression of racism or bigotry. We sincerely hope that the Obama While House, the NAACP, and the liberal left will follow our lead and do the same in their own ranks.
Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin are co-founders of Tea Party Patriots.
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