The tea party movement is disturbingly racist and reactionary, from its roots to its highest branches. On Saturday, as a small group of protesters jammed the Capitol and the streets around it, the movement’s origins in white resistance to the Civil Rights Movement was impossible to ignore. Here’s only what the mainstream media is reporting, ignoring what I’m seeing on Twitter and left wing blogs:
Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis was taunted by tea partiers who chanted “nigger” at least 15 times, according to the Associated Press (we are not cleaning up language and using “the N-word” here because it’s really important to understand what was said.) First reported on The Hill blog (no hotbed of left-wing fervor), the stories of Lewis being called “nigger” were confirmed by Lewis spokeswoman Brenda Jones and Democratic Rep. Andre Carson, who was walking with Lewis. “It was like going into the time machine with John Lewis,” said Carson, a former police officer. “He said it reminded him of another time.”
Another Congressional Black Caucus leader, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, was spat upon by protesters. The culprit was arrested, but Cleaver declined to press charges.
House Majority Whip James Clybourn told reporters: “I heard people saying things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to try to get off the back of the bus.”
There were many reports that Rep. Barney Frank was called a “faggot” by protesters, but the one I saw personally was by CNN’s Dana Bash, who seemed rattled by the tea party fury. Frank told AP: “It’s a mob mentality that doesn’t work politically…”
So I’m having a hard time tonight trying to believe almost uniformly white tea partiers are anything other than a racist, right-wing reaction to the election of an African American president who brings with him feminists and gays (even if he doesn’t do as much for them as they would ideally like). I’m having a hard time seeing the tea partiers as anything other than the spawn of George Wallace racism – the movement Pat Buchanan bragged to me that Richard Nixon made his own…
Anyone surprised?
Eideard 
“Anyone surprised?”
No.
Being surprised by what crazy people say and do would be just a little bit crazy.
Also, if you added up the IQs of all the people in the tea party movement, you’d end up with a significantly negative number.
It was scary walking between the blazing white crosses, the hangman’s noose dangling from several trees, and the pickaxe handles wielded by the senior citizens protesting. Those crazy honkie cracker rednecks may have crossed the line of civility in protest, but did not endanger anyone by their presence. The history and heritage of political discourse in our country covers a wide spectrum. Somebody got insulted, sorry. However, this is a life and death issue so the emotional stakes are little higher.
So, high emotional stakes justify bigotry?
Shouldn’t be anything scary for you. One of their comrades, after all.
Trust me, racism and attacks on homosexuals occur everyday – insane zealots and religious fanatics teach it so it will obviously remain unavoidable in American society.
And it doesn’t matter if “emotional”ly disturbed people are involved or not, it happens day in and day out.
The National Republican Party is also partly responsible for keeping such hatred alive. With their acts and their lies they not only stir the pot of bigotry, but sit back and issue disclaimers after the hatred that they have created is revealed. Such disclaimers were made on the political talk shows today. Unfortunately, American Blacks and homosexuals get to live another day, month and year of hatred directed at them whether the disclaimers are made or not. That is the reality for millions of people who suffer the acts of the Republican Party
I was not surprised to see the film clips of yesterday’s appalling image of American teabaggers. It looked like the tea party is one of Whites only. And when we look at who voted against improving the American healthcare system today, let us not miss the general age, sex, and race of those who vote against what amounts to equality.
Excuses are tiresome. It is time all citizens of the United States be treated equally.
Wish it were true equal treatment for all. Political favoritism is rampant in this New Deal administration so cronies, lobbyists, and political hacks reap the rewards. To the conqueror the spoils.
You really are a beginner at American political history, dude. 🙂
No one here has any heart-wrenching commitment to Democrats – they only are the less evil of two corrupt halves of the same institution. But, give credit where due. It was the Gingrich contract on America that ballooned the opportunity, removed oversight of corporate lobbyists.
The louts who play at Tea Parties sat on their hands for decades whilst your Republican cronies raked it in. Don’t blame the guys from down the street who just may get a little housecleaning done.
The next day (because it goes on and on, day by day):
for those of you who are not Black or homosexual please know that history proves today may be a heightened alert day for the minorities I cite. You see when bigots and racists don’t get their way (see yesterday’s healthcare bill results) what follows is often a sick revenge and uncontrolled anger which includes heightened attacks against the percieved enemy (please refer to teaching in my prior post). A lot of it is about using fear and intimidation as a tactic but those are not the only weapons in a bigot’s arsenal.
Although you may not personally realize it, gays and Blacks suffer daily and the level of attacks and suffering fluctuates much in line with the anger and hatred which results from day to day events. Hence today may well need to be a day of extreme caution for Blacks and gays. Victims only need recognize the pattern to understand the level of caution needed to survive day by day, month by month, year by year. And although it is not desirable to label oneself a victim, it is the knowledge of a victim that enhances the rate of his or her survival.
Complicated? Understanding the problem hopefully will eventually lead to the solution. And I for one appreciate those who do already understand the problem.
Will there be any disclaimers today from the Republican party who have so effectively stirred anger and hatred? Let us hope that today’s events don’t merit one (a disclaimer) tomorrow.
Have a great day everybody.
[edit: you have your own blog for ad hominem comments about other commenters. We try to limit such behavior here.]
Dude sounds kind of unused to considering other folks. Maybe he’s just a beginner, Eid?
I don’t know which editor thumped him; but, some of the regulars can be just the tiniest bit harsh, too, eh?
Harsh? I have no problem with harsh – just wannabes who think mob rule deserves praise, racist mobs, bigots in general.
Fortunately, mobs are like cattle. It takes very little to get them running away.
Anyone opposed to the healtcare legislation is automatically profiled as victimizing gays and blacks? Why ignore old women, children, and orphans to make the list complete! Wow, and those that support the bill are humanitarian, omniscient, wise, and loving people. Why do so many citizens oppose healthcare legislation? Looks like over half the populations has to be sent to politically correct remedial school tutored by the humanitarian, omniscient crew. Is there money in the budget to do this? Oh yeah, tax all the working people more, then it is all okey.
Do you ever read your way around the sites you visit, dukey? Do you ever read?
Look at the stats in yesterday’s post from the Gallup Poll. Approval of the bill as passed – crippled by the crowd truly owned by insurance companies – is still better than 7:6. That’s a greater number than the average national U.S. election.
Or are you still upset over democracy?
Most all who wander through here are concerned with working people and constitutional rights for all the nation. You may not be able to get past personal hangups about Black Americans and Gay Americans. Most folks here don’t have that problem. Most Americans don’t.
Most of all, dude – you don’t appear to read a damned thing beyond Republican talking points memos. The Congressional Budget Office contradicts any economic points you tried for. The revisions proposed to Bush’s education hustle are welcomed by most parent-teacher organizations.
Are people who support the legislation generally better educated than those in opposition? Find me a polling firm that comes up with a different answer! Post a link.
Har!
Repeating the “poor little me” whines of talk radio really isn’t sufficient around all of the Web. Preaching to the choir – maybe. But, just sitting there and repeating the straw-man phrases of Republican mouthpieces doesn’t work.
I have no idea what the national stats are; but, my own family is uniformly conservative. That’s in the tradition of American conservatism. That means they don’t favor invading countries that haven’t attacked us. They don’t favor cutting the balls out of legislation to favor corporate lobbyists. They don’t support political movements dependent upon bigotry – even when their own feelings about a topic aren’t as progressive as my own. Because they think every American should have an equal opportunity to achieve whatever they wish.
We end up agreeing a lot about the diminished Republican Party. Eid hasn’t posted the wingy-dingy poll over here about the silly-ass beliefs of today’s Republicans and Obama; but, they are a trip. They also haven’t a damned thing to do with traditional American conservatism.
It would be nice to study American history, and not television fantasy land. The USA started out by killing British to take over our country. Then we invaded Mexico on a trumped up excuse to take over Texas, etc. Even Ulysses S Grant in his biography expressed outrage on our invasion of Mexico on a pretense. Anyhow, glad your family are living the conservative credo. What do you think about occupying Iraq, Korea, Japan, Germany, Afghanistan with our troops in those countries?
Our troops should have been gone for decades from some or all of those nations. The US spends 6-figures per year per person to maintain our military presence in every one of those countries. Most of our politicians say, “Yes, boss” every time the Pentagon asks for the funds to re-up.
In some instances, I was part of the demonstrations of thousands against the invasion and occupation. In fact, you can take it all the way back to VietNam.
The teabaggers I’ve met and debated are generally all for the United States being the cops of the world for global corporations. The John Birchers who organize many teabaggers “events” want us to invade damned near everyone.
And they say they’re the only true American conservatives.
I suggest you read a better history text.
The Revolutionary crowd didn’t want independence at first. They attempted to negotiate their grievances for the first few years.
Texas was already part of the United States when Mexico invaded it in 1846 in the Thorton Affair. Thousands more Mexican Army troops were already preparing to invade Texas when the Americans left for Vera Cruz not to mention Mexico had declared war on the US as had the US on Mexico.
So yes, your version of events appears to be very wrong and selective. If you promote the lies you told here, why should anyone hold any credence in what else you write?
BTW, I am unaware of Grant suggesting outrage over the Mexico invasion. Do you have any reference to that claim?
The propaganda history school books are not my source. Ulysses S Grant autobiography is great reading. Abraham Lincoln wanted slavery ended, Ulysses S Grant by blood, murder, and destruction brought an end to it for him. His biography includes references to his regret in having to serve on the invasion of Mexico in a war we provoked Mexico into losing.
So, we presume it was your side that was defeated in the Civil War?
Or was that a revisionist conspiracy that rewrote the history books?
What side? Suggest you visit Shiloh to pray for the young boys cut down in the process of saving the union. Because the solution of Abraham Lincoln was to use guns and cannons instead of reconciliation, we have a lot of historic landmarks drenched in blood. Glad President B.O. is ignoring opposing views to force his change on our country. No lessons learned from history by the Chicago Democrat mob tactics.
You do remember it was the slave-owning side that seceded from the Union, right?
Or do you consider that incidental?
And, dukey – the point of the post in the first place was mob tactics by the teabaggers.
History records that it wasn’t just Lincoln, of course, who wanted slavery ended. The overwhelming majority of thoughtful, just humanity demanded it.
All you’re doing is tapdancing around the topic. Just because right-wingers have learned to keep their racism private doesn’t mean they can avoid the nation pointing a finger at bigotry.
No tap dancing, though it is a lost art form of American culture. My comments also illuminate the “racism” solution involved murder, mayhem, and carnage on a scale that scarred families, town, states, and the folks that supported preserving the Union bought poor people to fight for them so poor folks could die for rich folks. So when the TEA people will be propaganda fodder as enemies against the Untion, then soon will be a battle cry to kill and plunder to preserve the Union. Nothing was civil about the civil war.
So far, all you sound like is the “Good Germans” I knew in Europe in the decades after WW2.
Yeah, war is hell. Slavery, racism, homophobic bigotry – all of those are hell on Earth, too, for the human beings targeted by supremacists of one or another flavor.
Those who rationalize away the Civil War as “evil was done by both sides” are trying to hide the absence of a conscience for the crimes that preceded that war. Please, don’t try to sound like there is a peacenik hiding underneath the apologies for teabaggers.
All I hear is the same self-delusion I heard from Klan members I worked alongside in the Deep South.
You worked with the Klan? Deep south sounds ominous. Know people from Corinth Mississippi, Muscle Shoals Alabama, Augusta Georgia and Memphis Tennessee that are the backbone of our country. I never had to warn people that I had to travel to the “deep South”! Anyway, self appointed superior intelligentsia by nature are patronizing of the lower class common folk.
Guess you never knew any working class intellectuals. Worked in shipyards, offshore oil on the Gulf. Started working fulltime in factories at 17, dukey.
You surely have lots of misconceptions about folks with booklearning. Maybe you should try it.
Working alongside Klan members was a given in Louisiana and Mississippi. They also knew I spent time opposing Uncle Sugar’s War in VietNam, that I could be found standing alongside Black folks – and that like the Deacons in Monroe, Louisiana, I supported armed self-defense. Klan members I knew were mostly ignorant, bigoted, superstitious cowards and bullies – unfit for much except cannon fodder.
Just because I condemn cowards who try to intimidate folks who believe in democracy, civil rights, civil liberties – doesn’t mean I can’t deal with them.