Why Does the NAACP Hate the Tea Party Movement? By Bradley Blakeman Published July 15, 2010
The NAACP has embarked on an orchestrated campaign to discredit the Tea Party movement.
On Tuesday the national leadership of the NAACP unanimously adopted the following resolution, according to NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous who issued a written statement:
"We take no issue with the Tea Party movement. We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy. What we take issue with is the Tea Party's continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements. The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no place for racism and anti-Semitism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry in their movement."
The NAACP delegates presented this resolution for debate and passage after what they claim has been a year of vitriolic Tea Party demonstrations during which participants used racial slurs and images.
In March, they charge, members of the Congressional Black Caucus were accosted by Tea Party demonstrators and called racial epithets.
They say that civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis was spit on, while Congressman Emanuel Cleaver was called the "N" word and openly gay Congressman Barney Frank was called an ugly anti-gay slur.
Let's look at their statements line by line to expose their contempt for a right-of-center grassroots movement that has awakened America to the irresponsibility of one party rule, fiscal irresponsibility, untenable national debt and government expansion.
The NAACP claims they have no issue with the Tea Party movement? You can read the totality of their claims, and then I'll let you decide.
On one hand the NAACP claims to believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy. But in their newly adopted resolution, in the next sentence they blast the vast majority of Tea Party members who do just that.
The NAACP cannot provide one scintilla of evidence to prove that there is an orchestrated organized effort by the 'leadership' of Tea Party chapters to advance "racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry".
They can produce no written documentation or speeches that condone or advance their unfounded claims.
The Tea Party is not an organized movement. It is not an organization like the NAACP is.
Tea Parties are dozens of groups that call themselves party of the "Tea Party" movement.
Which group is the real Tea Party? There is not one single Tea Party group that speaks for all.
There are many "leaders" of the Tea Party movement.
Like in all loosely formed grassroots organizations there will be committed "members" and those who merely attend an event, who do not speak for the whole and say and do things that cannot fairly be attributed to the whole movement.
The NAACP resolution goes on to state -- without evidence to back up its baseless claims -- that in March of this year at a Tea Party Rally in Washington, D.C. members of the Congressional Black Caucus were "accosted" by Tea Party demonstrators and were subjected to "racial epithets."
The fact is that no one was ever charged or convicted for an assault on a member of Congress or for any violation of their civil rights.
In fact, it appeared to me that some members of the Congressional Black Caucus were looking for an incident to occur that day. They purposefully appeared in the crowd and defiantly walked through the demonstration hoping for the incidents, which I believe they later manufactured.
With all of the personal camera phones and the sheer number of members of the press that swarmed that event not one person appeared to with evidence to corroborate the charges of what they say occurred.
Neither the NAACP nor those allegedly attacked were able to identify or name the "perpetrators" of the acts they allege.
In fact, the demonstration site that day was teaming with Capitol Police and other law enforcement officials who accompanied these Congressmen as they made their way through the crowd.
Surely they would have taken action had they witnessed the actions that were alleged or were made aware of these incidents at the time they allegedly occurred.
I attended the Tea Party rally in March on Capitol Hill and did not personally witness anyone acting unlawfully or disrespectfully. The vast majority of attendees were orderly and exercising the very rights the NAACP claims they stand up for and fight for.
It is very curious that the NAACP waited this long to act out against the Tea Party movement. What possibly could be their motivation?
I offer to you that the reason the NAACP is acting out against the Tea Party is to deflect attention away from the controversy brewing around the U.S. Justice Department's failure to bring to justice members of the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation at a Philadelphia polling place in the 2008 presidential election.
Video of an incident at a polling station in Pennsylvania clearly showed a member of the New Black Panther Party brandishing a nightstick in paramilitary dress.
Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, witnessed the aforementioned event. Mr. Bull described what he saw as "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen."
Mr. Bull went on to say that he personally he heard one member of the New Black Party yell out in front of a polling place the following, "You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!"
Where is the outrage by the NAACP with regard to this incident?
The NAACP is in the business of dividing people, not uniting people. If everyone gets along they are out of business.
This attempt by the NAACP to shift attention away from the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation to that of painting a grassroots organization as racist is like crying fire in a crowded theater when none exists.
Bradley A. Blakeman served as deputy assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001-04. He is currently a professor of Politics and Public Policy at Georgetown University and a frequent contributor to the Fox Forum.
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