Racism Rampant in Tea Party Ranks

A few months ago a poll came out that showed those in the Tea Party were disproportionately white, older, more affluent and held more radical views regarding race in America than the public at large. Now another of their leaders has fallen, after it became clear that his racism went a little over a line they often feel comfortable crossing. Mark Williams, a conservative radio talk show host and spokesman for the Tea Party Express, who earlier this week called the NAACP a racist organization, has been expelled from the group after a "satirical" letter included calling slavery a "great gig." The letter started as follows:

"Dear Mr. Lincoln, We Coloreds 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!" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38299783/ns/politics)

Williams has also reportedly called President Obama an "Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug." Beyond the obvious question of what exactly a "welfare thug" is, is the increasing ugliness of the American right today. In their bid to keep America white and Christian, they have mercilously attacked the President, Pelosi, "illegal immigrants," gays and have now moved on to relatively overt attacks on Blacks we hoped had gone the way of the Jim Crow laws almost 50 years ago. It is becoming increasingly clear that the party of no is willing to employ these racist extremists in their bid to regain power, with the assumption that they can then reign in the "out of control government" that they really built over the past 40 years in power (with the help of their economic surrogate Bill Clinton). Corporations and banks are laughing all the way to the, well, polls I guess. Hate has always been one of the great motivators, and together with fear again defines essentially all the party stands for today. I have never been a fan of the Netroots and their "win at any cost using the strategies of conservatives against them" but I think if Dems are to rescue themselves in the mid-term election, they might have to get a little muddy. Let's hope their not afraid of a little dirt.

P.S. In a rather fitting postscript, I looked down at my counter just now and saw that this post comes as my counter hits 666.