The White House Gets Rope-A-Doped

"I don't think a single black person was consulted before Shirley

Sherrod was fired I mean, c'mon,' said Congressman Clyburn of South Carolina. ... `The president's getting hurt real bad,' Clyburn told me. `He needs some black people around him.' He said Obama's inner circle keeps `screwing up' on race: `Some people over there are not sensitive at all about race. They really feel that the extent to which he allows himself to talk about race would tend to pigeonhole him or cost him support, when a lot of people saw his election as a way to get the' idea `behind us. I don't think people elected him to disengage on race. Just the opposite.'" —Maureen Dowd, NY Times. The clamor over on the liberal side seems to be that the president should give another national speech on race, as he did during the Jeremiah Wright dog days of his campaign. Personally, I hope he does not. It’s not that I mind the president speaking out about race so much as I believe it is a colossal waste of his time. The shocking level of heinous racism (and denial thereof) now in the forefront of American discourse is, in my opinion, a good thing for this country. We were foolish to believe we’d moved passed such things, that we’d tamed this beast. The election of Barack Obama surely proved we were capable of at least pretending we were, but, in practice, Obama’s presidency, by definition, had to rip open untreated wounds. This excretion of pus and bile should not shock anybody. This nation remains a racist nation. We’ve not moved passed it. Instead, we’d settled into a benign denial of its existence. More evil than overt racism, we’ve embraced a kind of racial libertarianism where we all can intellectualize ourselves as post-racial. The saddest and yet most comical side effect of such brainwashing are the conservatives claiming outrage at racism while embracing patently racist themes. Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams, for example, releasing a satirical letter to President Lincoln from a group of freed slaves requesting the president revoke the Emancipation Proclamation in rebuttal to NAACP charges of racist elements within the Tea Party (below).

And this is the fight we want our president to keep fighting, over and over. Not once have we asked either of the President Bushes to give a national pep talk on race or to invite two guys to the Rose Garden for a beer to settle a racially-charged dispute. Not once. But we want our president to distract himself from his agenda, to get rope-a-doped time and again by an evil that is, frankly, a lot bigger than he is. An evil so entrenched in the American zeitgeist that a thousand speeches, a hundred thousand, will do absolutely nothing to enlighten or change people. The truth is, people don’t want to be enlightened. People don’t want to be changed. The truth is we, all of us, believe whatever we believe. That belief is cemented into our hearts and this is just who we are. If I were to be arrogant enough to give the president advice, I’d suggest he spend more time with children. They are, in clichéd rhetoric, our only true hope of change.

We all should admit that, politically speaking, the

president really coughed up the ball last week in his administration’s ham-fisted handling of the Shirley Sherrod matter. Obama’s people seem to run scared at the first hint of racially-charged politics, which is puzzling considering they should have known, from day one, that this president’s political enemies would relentlessly use race against him. Still, every time one of these racist eruptions pushes the president’s agenda off the front page, I’m actually happy about it. My prayer is that white folk—even white folk who believe themselves to be post-racial—will be outraged by this nonsense. Worse, that it will be like holding a mirror up to our faces, letting all of us see our own part in it. Pus excreting from open wounds is part of the healing process. Healing is ugly and painful. It takes way too long and hurts way too much. But it’s the only way to make things better.

NAACP Condemns
Tea Party Racism

Conservatives Deny Racism By Using Racist Slurs

Better late than never, the NAACP passed a resolution at its annual convention in St. Louis denouncing the "racist element" within the tea party movement. "We don't have a problem with the tea party's existence," explained President Benjamin Jealous. "We have an issue with their acceptance and welcoming of white supremacists into their organizations." Sarah Palin, the highest-profile tea party supporter, wrote on her Facebook page last week that "the charge that tea party Americans judge people by the color of their skin is false, appalling and is a regressive and diversionary tactic to change the subject at hand." WASHINGTON POST  Conservatives pushed back hard against the charges. One site featured a series of blog posts titled "I condemn the NAACP." A movement leader accused the group of "looking to make a buck off skin color." Sarah Palin, in a lengthy Facebook post, branded the resolution a "regressive and diversionary tactic to change the subject." Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele dismissed assertions of racism within the tea party and described tea party activists as ordinary citizens concerned about the role of government. "Not all of them," replied Hilary Shelton, senior vice president for policy at the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. For both, the strategies serve a dual purpose: firing up a base of reliable voters while persuading moderates that the other side has abandoned them.

Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons said the NAACP resolution affirms what many African Americans already suspect about the tea party movement, which polls show is overwhelmingly white. It also may reach those who aren't paying close attention. "There are a lot of independent and moderate voters who are not very actively engaged on a day-to-day basis and aren't happy with Washington. They may feel enchanted by these organizations who are claiming to be fighting for them," Simmons said. "But there are these very troubling strains that would cause a lot of voters to distance themselves from the tea party if they were more aware."  LA TIMES 

Dear Mr. Lincoln

A “Satirical” Letter
From The Leader Of The Tea Party Express

Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams, who has previously referred to President Obama as an, “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and racist in chief,” lashed back at the NAACP charges of racism, condemning the NAACP. “You’re dealing with people who are professional race-baiters, who make a very good living off of this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It’s time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history, where they belong…” Williams later released a “satirical” letter to President Abraham Lincoln, writing under the name “Ben Jealous,” nephew of Uncle Tom [presumably] from Uncle Tom's Cabin and “head colored person” from the NAACP. In the letter, Williams tells the President that we [coloreds] don't “cotton to that whole emancipation thing,” and asks that Lincoln repeal the 13th and 14th amendment and let us “get back to where we belong.”

Dear Mr. Lincoln

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!

In fact we held a big meeting and took a vote in Kansas City this week. We voted to condemn a political revival of that old abolitionist spirit called the ‘tea party movement'.

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.

Sincerely

Precious Ben Jealous
Tom's Nephew
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
Head Colored Person

In rebuttal, NAACP President Ben Jealous appeared on MSNBC’s Countdown With Keith Olbermann. “What we did is we said, ‘repudiate the racists in your ranks, repudiate the acts of bigotry.’ We’ve sat here and we’ve watched as you’ve carried these vile signs. We’ve sat here and we’ve watched these vile statements. We’ve sat here and we’ve watched as you’ve called civil rights icons and congressmen like John Lewis the ”N” word and Barney Frank the “F” word. And what we haven’t heard… is them come out and say it. I’ve sat down and had lunch with [Republican Part Chairman Michael] Steele multiple times, and [said] ‘Mike, please, come out and say something about this racism.’ And he never does. You know, just a little kind of nod here, a little thing there. Come out and say, ‘there is no space for bigotry in the Republican Party. There is no space for bigotry in the Tea Party’. That’s what they need to do. Just say, ‘we disavow these acts and we disavow the people who do them.’ Is it that hard?"

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