Tea Party’s racist antics are anything but ‘isolated’
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver was spat on by Tea Party protesters. Photo courtesy of Congress Bio Directory
As if the last-minute push to get the health care bill passed wasn’t fraught enough with ugliness, Tea Party protesters took things to another level when they hurled hateful epithets – and spit – at one openly gay legislator, Barney Frank, and another, Emanuel Cleaver, who is black.
Even more appalling: Though certain Republican Party leaders rightly condemned the acts, others brushed them aside – Rep. Devin Nunes even not-so-subtly suggested that those who were attacked got what was coming to them because Democrats are trying to push-through health care legislation: “When you use a totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy.” Makes sense. Except, oh wait, if by totalitarian you mean completely legitimate congressional procedure.
John Boehner was just as clueless, calling the use of slurs “reprehensible” but “isolated” – which, if you have a pulse, you’d know they are not.
Let’s take the Tea Party’s first-ever convention just a month back. There, Tom Tancredo declared that Barack Obama was elected by “people who could not even spell the word vote or say it in English.” He also trotted out the standard racist offering of literacy tests for voting, measures that were outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in cases like Guinn v. United States and Smith v. Allwright and by the Civil Rights Act. In using such inflammatory rhetoric in its public coming-out party, the Tea Party established itself as a movement intertwined with racist sentiments. These latest acts are only follow-ups to the foundation that was laid back when the movement originated; they are certainly not uncharacteristic or isolated.
Princeton professor Melissa Harris Lacewell smartly predicted on Twitter over the weekend that Tea Party apologists would quickly find some faulty logic to stand on: “I’m waiting for this logic: teabaggers can’t be racist. Clarence Thomas’ wife is one.And she is *married* to a black man.” It’s the same line of thinking that got Michael Steele symbolically elected to head the RNC, and sure enough, Steele himself minimized the incidents, preferring to think of them as the result of “a handful of people who just got stupid and said some ignorant things” and not characteristic of the entire Tea Party.
When I attended a meeting of the Coffee Party in Los Angeles, the overwhelming sentiment in the room was people wanting to find a place to condemn the overtly racist mantle the Tea Party had taken up. It’s frustrating that ordinary citizens recognize this easily, but lawmakers whose condemnation would actually mean something cannot.
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The Dems are using anything they can to win this argument about their bill
They don’t even say it is a good bill (it is a bad bill , fix it later is what they say)
Todays NYTimes says
racists oppose the bill
nuns like it
priests don’t like it
All of this is distraction
They use histeria and guilt because they refuse to write a decent bill
[...] Tea Party's racist antics are anything but 'isolated' – Sara Libby … [...]
[...] tattered tapestry of political conflict in our country’s endless wars between left and right. Sara Libby’s blog post highlights the Republican Congressman who argued that the racial and anti-gay slurs hurled against [...]
RE:Tea Party protesters took things to another level when they hurled hateful epithets – and spit – at one openly gay legislator, Barney Frank,
Openly stupid Barney frank isn’t a very nice person
You’re right, I forgot that was the socially acceptable determining factor for whether or not you should hurl bodily fluids at someone.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Tea Party's racist antics are anything but 'isolated' – Sara Libby … [...]
I can only pray with the passage of the health care bill, violence doesn’t follow. Many of these folks are just emotionally charged “political activists” which is fine, and with whom I strongly disagree, but there is a fringe element that is very scary, and they are being goaded on by some very vicious hate-mongering “political commentators”. Unfortunately, I honestly expect the passage will make these folks act out even crazier.
Too bad this was an unsubstantiated claim.. no audio, video, or photos to back it up. NOTHING, NADA. But then again, leftists don’t care if they lie…
They know this vote was the end of the road for them come November… Sad.
Because when REAL racism exists, no one is going to care anymore if they don’t stop crying wolf to try to control minds.
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[...] Tea Party's racist antics are anything but 'isolated' – Sara Libby … [...]
[...] Tea Party's racist antics are anything but 'isolated' – Sara Libby … [...]
[...] Tea Party's racist antics are anything but 'isolated' – Sara Libby … [...]
[...] Tea Party's racist antics are anything but 'isolated' – Sara Libby … [...]
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