Just moments ago, the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR) released a report documenting specific examples of Tea Party leaders and Tea Party-associated organizations providing platforms for anti-Semites, racists and other bigots.
The report serves as a reminder: There is a very active presence of racists in America's public political discourse, and there is a very real threat of moving backward if we do not stand up and speak out.
Please take a moment to read more from the report:
http://action.naacp.org/
To be clear: Whether we agree with their policy positions or not, we at the NAACP believe the majority of Tea Party supporters are sincere, principled people of basic good will. We have no problem with their expression of political views in our great democracy.
We do, however, have a problem when prominent Tea Party members have direct ties to organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, and are allowed to use Tea Party events to spread their hateful messages. Moreover, we have a problem when Tea Party members call civil rights heroes vicious slurs or repeatedly and publicly deny the President's place of birth and his status as an American citizen.
Most importantly, we have a problem when regular Tea Party members stand silent as those who share the Tea Party name push a racist agenda. A great man once warned, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
We in the NAACP refuse to tolerate silence.
Last summer, after months of waiting for accountability, we publicly called on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those who would use the Tea Party platform to espouse racism or call for violence against any group in our society.
We are pleased that in response, Tea Party leaders took a few steps in the right direction. They expelled a leader who repeatedly made racist comments. They fired another who suggested gay people should be killed. Still, as this report shows, much remains to be done.
For more than one hundred years, the NAACP has stood sentinel against racism and hate violence in the United States. We know that we have a moral obligation, summarized succinctly in our nation's pledge of allegiance, to oppose those who would seek to tear the United States apart by espousing hatred or calling for violence against any group in our country.
We are One Nation. That is why we came together on October 2nd for a truly diverse March on Washington that spoke to this nation's greatest values. That is why we will continue to fight for hope, not hate.
I commend the research done by the IREHR. Their report proves why our work is more important than ever. I encourage you to read this comprehensive effort. It delves deeper into the specific evidence that prompted the NAACP's call on the Tea Party to act responsibly than any prior study:
http://action.naacp.org/
Today, America stands at a choice point in its historic march towards making our nation's pledge real. In one direction, there is the possibility of a real debate between people of good will about the options for moving our nation forward. In the other, there is a place filled with vicious hate, threats, and lies that can only take us backward.
Thank you for standing up for civil rights for all. Thank you for calling for the most basic civility in America's great town square. Thank you for insisting that America moves ever forward, never backward.
Yours in the struggle,
Ben Jealous
President and CEO
NAACP
4 comments:
Dear Sandy:
I notice that you provided no ANALYSIS of the findings pushed forward by the NAACP.
Let me ask you man - IF you were to make a list of the top 5 ORGANIC threats to the Permanent Interests of the Black Community where would the "threat" from the Tea Party register?
(Organic = DIRECT. As opposed to transitory - ie: since the Tea Party is opposed to Progressivism and Obama and since the policies of these two entities are "good for Black America" therefore the Tea Party's opposition to them is AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF BLACK PEOPLE).
Do you believe that the people who are running failed school systems that are not graduating the balance of Black males are working against our interests in kind?
In this case, I felt the letter spoke for itself. I may go back and add some commentary, but I did want to get it posted in its naked state to let the message soak in a bit.
I don't necessarily consider the Tea Party a threat to just the black community. That is too narrowly defined. I think Tea Party people are extremists who are a threat to people of a lot of different races. The hateful, bigoted and oftentimes racist talk coming from Tea Party people is quite dangerous and disturbing.
Your last paragraph is one of your classic oversimplifications of complex issues. Failing school systems are symptoms of greater problems in many large cities (problems that have been developing over decades and generations).
I applaud people (men and women you seem to condemn) for coming into inner cities to educate when others are running out of cities.
My Friend Sandy:
Do you have any records from over the past 30 years where YOU, in response to hearing "Progressive Activists" selling the Black community on the notion that (and I quote from my youth in Philly): "Once we get people into power over the schools and the city who LOVE BLACK CHILDREN and CARE ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY..........the schools will make a turn around"?
The thing that frustrates me about you all Progressive-Fundamentalists is that if you listened to Mariam Wright Edleman making her indictments in DC on Oct 2 HAD we had video tape of her words from 20 years ago the targets of her indictment are SEATS NOW HELD BY "FAVORABLE PEOPLE".
Now she has scaled her indictment to the NATIONAL level.
This is why I say that "Progressivism is IN-ORGANIC". Its only goal is power.
Regarding your "Tea Party Threat" - as much as I want to challenge you on your CONjured point I have no choice but to respect this as the content of your own value system. YOU are free to appraise your threats.
I am free to look at your "threat assessment list" apply it to what I see in the Black community and simply remember to never allow YOU to be a credible guide for me or anyone that I care about because the destination that you seek IS NOT in line with the value goals that I have.
In effect you are free to believe as you choose.
I would imagine progressive and conservative activists, both black and white, come into public offices with high hopes of what they're going to do. Many succeed and some fail. I don't think that success or failure is necessarily a race issue. I imagine some whites have failed to in some of these situations they've entered through politics.
The thing that frustrates me about you right-wing conservatives is that you want to simply target so-called black leaders as solely responsible for everything that has gone wrong while simultaneously ignoring significant factors that have played a role.
This: "This is why I say that "Progressivism is IN-ORGANIC". Its only goal is power," is a statement so puzzling and off base it is almost staggering. What you term as progressives are people who are interested in justice and fairness. While Jesse Lee Peterson conservatives like you and Uncle Ruckus from the Boondocks want to simply look at black people and say: "You have screwed up because you're lazy, immoral, dirty and incompetent ... if you acted more like white folks you'd be in better shape."
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