I am no longer interested in partisan politics. I’m off cable news and opinion media. If you want to learn how to rid yourself of this negative influence go to CableNewsMustDie.com. The site will teach you how to walk away from the partisan BS. Trust me life will be so much happier.
“We know the majority of Tea Party supporters are sincere, principled people of good will. That is why the NAACP—an organization that has worked to expose and combat racism in all its forms for more than 100 years—is thankful Devin Burghart, Leonard Zeskind and the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights prepared this report that exposes the links between certain Tea Party factions and acknowledged racist hate groups in the United States. These links should give all patriotic Americans pause.”
“I hope the leadership and members of the Tea Party movement will read this report and take additional steps to distance themselves from those Tea Party leaders who espouse racist ideas, advocate violence, or are formally affiliated with white supremacist organizations. In our effort to strengthen our democracy and ensure rights for all, it is important that we have a reasoned political debate without the use of epithets, the threat of violence, or the resurrection of long discredited racial hierarchies.”
Benjamin Todd Jealous
President and CEO of the NAACP
I’m really impressed with the amount of work and research that went into this report. Why the media is ignoring this I will never know. Liberal media indeed. If you want to jump to the guts of the report read the section; Tea Parties – Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Militia Impulse.
Al Reynolds, Tea Party Candidate For Illinois Senate, Says Black Men Prefer Drug Dealing To Education.
I was sent a link to this story by Dan from Iowa. Reading the story didn’t come off as that racist. I almost passed but then I watched the video. This man in my opinion is undeniably racist. To say what he did in response to a question asked by an African American woman… All I can say is wow!
Last Monday afternoon I watched a video on FoxNews.com of Shirley Sherrod giving a speech to the NAACP. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. My immediate reaction was, this woman is a bigot. I, along with most everyone who watched the video, was fooled by the false narrative created by Andrew Breitbart, and legitimized by Fox News via their two web sites (Foxnews.com and FoxNation.com *).
The next day after Shirley lost her job at the USDA and the NAACP called her a racist, the NAACP found and released the full video. After watching the complete speech I understand where Shirley was coming from and have the utmost respect for this amazing woman. She begins her speech by bringing her Georgian NAACP audience back to a time when she was seventeen and living on her families farm in Baker County Georgia. It was then that her father was murdered by a white farmer. There were three witnesses to his murder and still the bastard walked free. Shirley goes on to explain the overwhelming racism that gripped her small town. The hatred and racism was so bad that the murder of blacks was common in Baker County. Even the Sherif was guilty of it. He lynched another relative of Shirley’s and like her father’s killer, was also not convicted. Growing up amidst all the racism and senseless murder it would be understandable if Shirley had bigotry in her heart for certain white people.
Fast forward to 1986 and the period Shirley’s story in the deceptively edited clip revolves around. During this time in her life Shirley was back in Georgia working in a nonprofit that was setup to help farmers. In her speech she discribes the first time she had to help a white farmer. According to Shirley, the man she was there to help, was talking in a way to show he was superior to her. Hearing about the racism she experienced in her childhood I would say she is an expert in recognizing this attitude. Because of his demeanor Shirley decided to do just enough and took him to one of his own (A white lawyer). The NAACP audience listening to the speech did not applaud Shirley’s tale of bigotry as Andrew Breitbart claims. There was not one applause. What they did was agree with where she was coming from. From the back story, and their own experiences with racism in rural Georgia, they understood the racism of the white farmers back in the day. They weren’t saying what she did was right they just understood where she was coming from.
If the story ended there like it did in the Breibert clip Shirley could be looked upon as a bigot. But if you watch the full video you can see how Shirley overcame her bigotry. When she found out the white lawyer that she sent the farmer to was not helping she went above and beyond to help save the farm. In the past week the farmer and his wife have stated repeatedly that without Shirley’s help they would have lost their farm. Both sides overcame a portion of their bigotry and they became good friends. Through this experience Shirley learned that the farming situation was not a matter of black and white but of being poor. She tells this story to show how she overcame her bigotry and uses it as a lesson to help others become better people.
After hearing the full story I offer Shirley my utmost apology for my initial reaction. I like many people was manipulated by deceptive editing. I was wrong in my initial judgement and I am truly sorry. If I could be half the person she is I would be blessed. Shirley is a true American – someone for the history books. I am so sorry for everything she went through last week and for the racist attacks she is still receiving from certain conservative pundits and their followers. Shirley grew up in a world of racism and in a cruel twist of fate will now be considered a racist for the rest of her life by people who are to stupid or lazy to learn the truth. What Andrew Breitbart has done to this amazing woman makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.
I hope Shirley sues Andrew for all he’s worth. A lawsuit would expose the purposeful attack of a citizen of the United States, not a public servant, but a citizen. A woman who was wronged. All for what? Steering the conversation away from the racism that has infiltrated the Tea Party? I hope Shirley also sues Fox News for legitimizing the story by placing it on their web site without checking the context. I don’t believe that charge would stick but it would put the spotlight on Fox News and the roll they played in the release of the video. And with that people wouldn’t be so quick to trust their sometimes flawed reporting.
To those that have not watched the full video I strongly urge you to watch the first twenty-one minutes. You will see what a strong, wonderful and loving woman Shirley has become. She did not deserve the hell she went through in her childhood and to put her through it again as an adult is inexcusable.
The following is the full video of Shirley’s speech to a small chapter of the Georgia NAACP. I highly recommend watching the first twenty-one minutes. Below this is the deceptively edited video that Andrew Brietbart released.
Full video released by the NAACP:
Here is Andrew Breitbart’s deceptively edited video. I recommend watching the beginning of this to see how the narrative that Andrew gave sets up the ruling before the video even starts. Please be aware that the disclaimer that is now added was not there when the video was released. The title “NAACP Bigotry in their ranks” also causes you to make your mind up before you even watch the video.
Andrews Breitbart’s deceptively edited video:
* Both of the FoxNews.com and Foxnation.com stories have had their titles changed but you can see when they were first published by looking at the oldest comment in each. The first comment in the Foxnation.com story was on Monday the 19th at 1:41 PM. FoxNews.com tries to cover the fact that they were the first news organization to legitimize the story by stating under the title that the story was published on the 20th. That is a total lie. The story was released on Foxnews.com around 3:22 PM Monday the 19th, hours before Shirley was forced to resign. The oldest comment proves this.
Conservative media has been pushing the notion that the Liberal’s are racist and are the ones that are race bating. I find this notion odd since Liberals have a long history or being champions for civil rights. One of the biggest complaints from the Right is that Liberals want to help too many people. Which is it, are the Liberals racist, or do they want to help too many people? The vast majority of America’s racist history stems from southern conservatives. I’m not saying that all conservatives are racist because most are not. Or that no Liberals are racist because some are. But racism is a way bigger problem on the right than the left. And because of the flagrant racism and race baiting from the right during Obama’s Presidency conservatives have have lost the latino, black, and gay vote. The racism from the Right has pretty much ensured that Obama will be elected again.
I went on MediaMatters.org and did a search on “racist”. Just this one word. 41 pages of stories came up. 34 of the 41 pages were from the time of Obama’s Presidential campaign and beyond. This to me is a pretty strong case that the media on the right has been trying to paint the left and Obama as being racist ever since he decided to run. Here are the links that I feel are racist and race bating from the Right:
Crash The Tea Party has been the scapegoat for all the racist signs. The truth is the group wasn’t created until April 2010. All the pictures of signs on this site were posted from January 2010 or older. So yeah, nice try.
Also the site crashtheteaparty.org is no longer active. It was a stupid idea that offered an excuse for the right. I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual creator was a conservative and they just pinned it on a liberal.
Mark Williams, spokesman for the Tea Party Express published on his blog a mock letter from NAACP president Benjamin Jealous to President Abraham Lincoln. I wanted to get this up here quickly because it will get pulled. Mark has already edited the letter to remove two instances of “Massa.” A screen shot of the original letter can be found here.
The following is the original unedited letter. It falls flat on satire but is big on racism.
____________________________________________________________________________
NAACP Resolution: Colored People change minds about emancipation
Astonishing.
In every one of the dozens of interviews that I have done regarding the anti-Tea Party resolution passed by the NAACP I have brought up the absurdity of a group that calls blacks “Colored People” hurling charges of racism. Whats more, each interviewer has defended that phrase and expressed surprise that I would consider that phrase to be racist!
Apparently Colored People are an entirely new race of people and one to which the title applies. Here NAACP President Precious Ben Jealous explains to President Abraham Lincoln the reasons for the resolution in this newly discovered letter :
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!
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’.
The tea party position to “end the bailouts” for example is just silly. Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn’t that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us coloreds! Of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only responsible party that should be granted the right to disperse the funds.
And the ridiculous idea of “reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government.” What kind of massa would ever not want to control my life? As Coloreds we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions!
The racist tea parties also demand that the government “stop the out of control spending.” Again, they directly target coloreds. That means we Coloreds would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right.
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 coloreds 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 NAACP Head Colored Person
____________________________________________________________________________
I wanted to get a couple of his followers comments up also. In case the whole page gets pulled:
Christopher Renner: …As it reads now, you’re just giving the Tea Party’s opponents ammunition to use against us. It would be unbelievably easy for someone to draw a conclusion that you’re a racist from this post, given the crude stereotypes and repeated use of the term “colored people”.
Tommy V: I get your point here, highlighting the absurdity of the NAACP’s position. But it would be very easy, even likely, that someone would read this and infer that you’re mocking the black community as a whole, rather than the absurd positions of a small minority of self-annointed blacks to limit the success of other blacks for their own gain.
Jim: You’re being too cute by one-half. If your intent was to ‘preach to the choir’, you probably succeeded. Unfortunately, due to your status within the Tea Party movement, you probably just set back the entire movement by giving several sticks of wood, a match and a can of gasoline to those on the Left.
Update 7/16: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall had Mark Williams on his show. Mark offered this little gem, ”It’s impossible — it’s impossible for there to be a racist element in the tea party, you don’t get it! The tea party is about human rights, it’s about the United States constitution. The United States constitution mankind’s foremost human rights document.” Why they hell Tamron did go into Mark’s racist letter I’ll never know. What the hell is wrong with reporters?
Update 7/17: Mark Williams had the common sense to take the letter down. What is in its place is what I imagine he thinks is an apology letter. I found the following to be interesting, “I am also very happy to learn that we all agree that the term “Colored People” is offensive, so now would perhaps be a good time to let the NationalAssociation of Colored People know so that they may chose a more appropriate moniker.” He admits here that he knew that calling African American’s colored was racist yet he still did it fifteen times in his mock letter. I offer you this thought Mark. Maybe the NAACP has kept “Colored” in their name as a constant reminder of the horrible way they were treated in the past.
Update 7/18: (CNN) “The National Tea Party Federation, an organization that represents the Tea Party political movement around the country, has expelled conservative commentator Mark Williams and his Tea Party Express because of an inflammatory blog post he wrote, federation spokesman David Webb said Sunday.” This is incredible news. It sounds like the Tea Party is actually taking the NAACP’s advice seriously.
The following is a sampling of racist comments from the Fox Nation article, Why Won’t NAACP Release the Text of the Tea Party Resolution. Fox Nation is basically a Fox News sponsored Tea Party site. Keep in mind that in each comment there is a [Report] button. Yet none of these racist comments were removed:
The Outlaw Josey Whales: You blacks had the chance to show us you were equal, and for 40 years you’ve shown us that you’re not. Now, you whine and cry about it, and take what you want, while destroying the economy that created what you want. You are incapable of building an economy, and you are incapable of sustaining the one you’re stealing. Your ancestors have been wallowing in their own filth for thousands of years, and by my objective observations, it seems that it will never change.
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 02:48 PM
Michael: The only racism here is BLACK!
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 03:58 PM
Cheryl Ohio: Martin is looking down shaking his head, seeing the hijacking of ” His Dream”.
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 03:41 PM
I know. I’m disgusted with Glenn Beck rewriting history also. Oh wait you were talking about the NAAP.
Bill1776: I want to start the “National Association for the Advancement of White People” the “NAAWP”. Anybody have a problem with that?
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 04:27 PM
gtript: WHY SHOULD ANYBODY GIVE A FLYING F…K WHAT THE RACIST NAACP ORGANIZATION THINKS ABOUT THE TEA PARTY? IF THE TEA PARTY WERE RACISTS, THEY WOULD’T WASTE THEIR TIME CARRYING SIGNS AND PLACARDS, THEY’D JUST WEAR WHITE HOODS.
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 04:24 PM
witsend49–say no to PC: I believe these black terrorists have threatened America & it’s people-the people that believe in life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 07:23 PM
Mad Fin: YOU HAVE YOUR BLACK PRESIDENT??? AND YOUR STILL NOT HAPPY UNLESS YOUR STARTING A RACE WAR.
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 07:21 PM
DP: Looks to me like the Blacks are pickin’ for a fight!
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 10:36 PM
ChainsofFreedom: This must be why….I had a grandfather, who every time he saw a black man, would use the n- word. He didn’t just say it some times, but every time. My Mother would try to scold him about saying it in front of us kids, but he would reply, wait and see you’ll understand. I’m 55 now, my grandfather was born in 1901, my Mother was born in 1937, never had I heard her use the n- word until recently, I asked her why she was saying it now?, she replied, I understand. I asked her what she meant by her saying “understand”? She said, just look at the news, the n……..s are all saying the white folk are all racist, she said they want us to be racist, they want to hate us, so I’ll just start hating them. I now wonder, since this progressive action started about a hundred years ago, if this is the same thing that happened back then? Is this the reason my grandfather used the n- word all the time? Maybe…I am starting to…… understand…………….
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 08:08 AM
Statesman/Patriot: The KKK was founded by DEMOCRATS after the Civil War in Pulaski, TN.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 10:17 AM
Nice try. Back then the Southern Democratic party consisted mostly of conservatives. In 1968 the members of the two parties switched sides. Liberals have always been on the side of cilil rights. Southern conservatives formed the KKK.
judgement: People who are evil and commit crimes, shall be punish, either directly by God, or through his use of others. It has been this way from the begining. The facts are that the majority of Blacks have a trend toward evilness.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 11:18 AM
slipknot: NAACP= National Assoc. for the Advancement of Criminal People.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 01:27 PM
rebel: NAACP = National Association of A-holes, Crybabies, and Parasites
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 01:31 PM
Mark Fette: NAACP is a collection of race-baiting poverty pimps. They hate America, Christianity, capitalism, property rights, free enterprise, productivity and liberty. They support an agenda that keeps black people enslaved to a system of entitlement. They pander to a base addicted to victimhood.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 06:01 PM
raucus: Let’s just be racists. I mean hard-core real racists. Let’s be who we are accused of being.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 07:15 PM
doc liberty: THE NEW KKK HAS ARISEN IN THE GUISE OF THE NAACP.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 08:55 PM
I hope he’s not a real doctor because he is retarded.
kasperle: Some of you really are dumb. There is no censorship being done by a human here – it is all automated. The program scans every post for words that have been deemed inflammatory and then the post is canned. This means you have to couch your tirades in a language format that the program thinks is OK – Learn and behold limpid fools!! EG K – I L L O .. bama !!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 03:53 AM
judgement: The NAACP is an Organization controlled by Satan. They should be fed a meal of 12 Gauge 00 Buckshot.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 10:10 AM
richard: The race war is coming. Lock and Load
Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 02:31 PM
My Favorite liberal comment:
proudnow: Just look at the number of posts on this issue (2200+). Try and convince yourselves of a lack of hidden bigotry and racism….because the world has pulled your pants down for all to see. Why are you all so frightened of people different than yourselves?
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 09:26 AM
Conservative pundits, especially Glenn Beck, have been working relentlessly to rewrite history to make their followers believe that all liberals are racist. This is a Rovarian tactic used to attack President Obama’s strengths – civil rights. The truth is neither side has a rosy past:
When you hear historians refer to southern Democrats or Dixicrats between 1877 and 1965 they are talking about the white south. It can be very confusing. But think about it, would the whites in the Civil War south really associate with the Republican party? The Republican party of Lincoln? The Republican party that went to war against the south? The Republican party that the south hated so much they secede from the nation? The answer is no. The white south aligned with the southern Democratic party making it a stronghold for almost 100 years.
If you don’t trust me maybe you will accept a conservative source. The following is from conservapedia.com/Republican_Party. From a section called Realignment: The South becomes Republican:
“When reconstruction ended in 1877, the white South identified as Democrats. They saw their party as the defender of the southern way of life, which included a respect for states’ rights and an appreciation for traditional southern values. They repeatedly warned against the aggressive designs of Northern liberals and Republicans, as well as the civil rights activists they denounced as “outside agitators.” Thus there was a serious barrier to becoming a Republican.“
“After passage of the Civil Rights Act most Southerners accepted the integration of most institutions (except public schools). With the old barrier to becoming a Republican removed, traditional Southerners joined the new middle class and the Northern transplants in moving toward the Republican party. Integration thus liberated Southern politics, just as Martin Luther King had promised. Meanwhile the newly enfranchised black voters supported Democratic candidates at the 85-90% level.”
The following is from conservapedia.com/KKK:
“The first KKK was an unorganized movement of white Southerners who opposed Reconstruction in the late 1860s by inflicting violence against black leaders and white Republicans. Local Klans were entirely separate; there was no organization or coordination above the county level, and no county or state officers.”
The following is from conservapedia.com/Martin_Luther_King
“Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Ph.D. (1929-1968) was by far the most important black leader of the 1960s. Since his assassination in 1968, he has been the single most important exemplar of civil rights and of liberalism generally in recent world history.”