Black “Tea Party” Activist Invites Morgan Freeman To Rally
The meme that the “Tea Party” (and by implication all who oppose or criticize President Obama) are racists has become an unfortunately common fixture in the current American political mileau. The racism accusation has become a standard, predictable response from the left wing the same way that “socialist” has become a standard, predictable response from the right wing any time someone proposes health care reform.
Beloved actor and activist Morgan Freeman lent the racism slander an megaphone when he insisted that the “Tea Party” was racist to its core. But now an African-American “Tea Party” activist has issued a personal invitation to Freeman to come experience the real “Tea Party” before judging it based on mere media memes.
I’ve attended dozens of tea party events. I’ve helped organize them, and I’ve even spoken at a few. The tea party is not what is often depicted in the news. It is people of all colors who are terribly concerned about the direction that America is heading. We don’t trust big government to make decisions for us. And we fear that the present administration’s spending is going to lead our country down a path to insolvency, much like what Greece is currently facing.
Your comments about the tea party have caused me physical pain. You’ve rekindled the old painful paradigm of Uncle Tom – that any black man who votes Republican is some kind of sellout. It’s not true. I work hard, pay my taxes, love Jesus, and I’m good to my family and community. In effect, your comments have stereotyped an entire group of people. And I know in my soul that you must regret that on some level.
The invitation carries broader implications as well. As seen in the growing vitriol in the blogosphere, many politically active Americans are increasingly prone to react to any political disagreement with direct personal abuse. The process of political discussion and debate has often become a degrading experience where those who express unpopular opinions have to be prepared for accusations, name-calling, vulgarity, and even threats.
The invitation to Freeman, coming as it does from a position of respect for disagreement and understanding of how different people with different life paths come to legitimately different conclusions, represents a model that we should all seek to imitate more. Political disagreement doesn’t need to be personal, vulgar, or hateful. And respect doesn’t require compromising deeply-held beliefs. As I have seen in law school, it is possible for people of good conscience to express and debate strongly opposing beliefs without assaulting each other’s character, intelligence, and motives.
But the broader trends are not good.
Share This
Let’s see, so the Tea Party is not the Republican Party? Or is it that the Republican Party is not the Tea Party?
Each and every member of the Tea Party are in fact members of the Republican Party. The same party that brought us this economic mess in the first place. Of this we have no doubt and we also have no doubt that the people whom are suffering most from this economic mess are people of color, most specifically black people.
So if a very rich man like Morgan Freeman believes, for his own reasons, that the Tea Party is racist then maybe Mr. Ali Akbar should have a talk with Mr. Freeman, because Mr. Akbar is just about the only black in it!
…note to world….90% of Black Americans support the President. There will be no division of Black votes.
Each and every member of the Tea Party are in fact members of the Republican Party.
What’s your source for that ‘fact’, Allen? Just curious, because it completely contradicts all of the polling data I’ve seen.
I still remember the first time I heard the news that the Tea Party were a bunch of racists. I was shocked. I didn’t think that anyone would have the balls to collect a bunch of racists into a group, and campaign in this country in modern times.
I was drawn to look at the Tea Party the same way people are drawn to see a train wreck.
I found out 3 things:
1) I found out about the Tea Party. I had never heard of them.
2) I found out the allegations of racism were exaggerations on a grand scale.
3) I found out that I agree with alot of what they are saying.
I am a Centrist, not a Republican, not a Democrat. I believe in many things from each side, and oppose many things from each side.
The allegations that the Tea Party are racists is an old tired failed attempt to quiet voices of those who are alarmed at the out of control spending of the Federal Government. I am equally alarmed.
Engaging in reckless accusations of the Tea Party is throwing their cause into a limelight. It doesn’t take long to see that the accusations are ridiculous, and the Tea Party has a valid political point.
Not everyone that agrees with them are Republican.
In the polls I’ve seen, only 90% of Tea Party members are GOP, not all.
The accusations of racism against conservative Republicans really stems from a steady stream of stuff like this. Every couple of months some conservative Republican politician, campaign staff member, local party chair, etc makes the news for blatently racist remarks, emails, or fliers. It happens like clockwork.
Then their are the racist signs at Tea Party rallies that have been broadcast pretty widely. Then there is stuff like this from Tea Party leaders. Of course not all Tea Partiers or Republicans are racist, but you’d have to be pretty thick to think that liberal charges of racism don’t have a data to back them.
According to your logic, Zzzzz, the fact that some Democrats have also said some pretty blatantly racist stuff, means that all Democrats are racist. Heck, if we keep it up, we can probably prove everyone is racist, and solve the problem right there.
First hit on the Google listing….
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2010/01/left-wing-knockouts-when-democrats-get-racist
I love the Clinton one.
Stanley
You don’t have to “poll” congress to find out if they are Tea Party or not. Just ask them.
…note to world….90% of Black Americans support the President. There will be no division of Black votes.
So when I said “Of course not all Tea Partiers or Republicans are racist…”, this translates to if some say racist stuff then ALL are racist? Read much?
What it ACTUALLY translates to, is that if SOME (particularly those that are official representatives of the GOP and Tea Party) say blatently racist stuff (particularly about Obama) then it is reasonable to conclude the SOME of the opposition to Obama is motivated by racism. Hell, if you talk to some of these folks one on one, they are more than happy to explicitly TELL you so.
Even before Obama, most black people voted 90% Democratic. If you actually ask them why, you’d discover that these mostly religious people aren’t voting FOR Democrats (or FOR social programs, as some people like to imply). They are voting AGAINST the GOP.
Everyone knows there are racist Democrats (many of which are vocally anti-Obama). There are gay friendly Republicans, too. But when you meet a racist, they usually vote Republican. That wasn’t true 50 years ago. It is true today. That, again, isn’t to say that all Republicans are racist. Far from it. It is to say that there ARE a larger percentage of racists in the GOP.
The Republican Party and Teabaggers are open to all that shaRE THEIR VALUES. a PERFECT EXAMPLE from Florida:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/26/125344/muslim-denied-spot-with-florida.html#ixzz1ZGHKgGB6
To paraphrase John Stewart Mills, “Although it is not true that all Republicans are racists, it is true that most racists are Republican.”
CO’s link to racist Democrats was quite telling as:
They’re not bigotted towards black people. A worrying number of them turn to animals when it comes to Mexican iimmigrants, and their views of democrats and Obama are as uninformed and bestial as George Wallace’s views were of black people, but they’re good, sincere eggs nevertheless.
I don’t hate them because they are racist, I hate them because they hate me. It’s always slander when democrats respond in kind.
I don’t brand teepers as racist, even though they are more racist overall (not by much). I brand them as teepers, natch.
Your post was useless by the way, Logan. can’t you delete it?
It just seems to me that you’re either operating off of facts or assumptions. Unless someone has percentages available, I’d say it’s assumptions. Of course, to have statistics, you’d also have to precisely define what racism is.
Oh, and the 90% approval of Obama is soooo 2010.
“African Americans appear to be cooling their support for President Obama, with “strongly favorable” views of the president dropping dramatically from 83 percent five months ago to 58 percent today, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.”
They’ll regret their cowardice if the republicans start destroying their lives to preserve tax levels for the “any day now!” job creators. That they will.
with the millions of black people in the US, you are bound to find some Reps and TP people. Just because one black dude calls himself TP, it doesn’t in anyway take away from the racist behavior of the TP.
Not all TPers are racist, but I believe most are, or at least are but are extremely unaware of it.
my question to any person is always this…
think of you daughter marrying a black guy… did you pause to debate your emotions??? if so, there is racism in you.
August 25, 2011
Pew Research Center – Obama Leadership Image Takes a Hit, GOP Ratings Decline
According to Pew Research 82% of the Black vote still “approve” President Obama’s Job Performance
And a 37% plurality (up from 27% in April) now contends that Obama should challenge the Republicans in Congress more often…
Oh the old “you’re racist even if you don’t know it” meme. Followed by the “you’re racist even if you don’t act like it”. Then the “you’re racist if you don’t do what I think you should”. or “you racist if you don’t think as you’re told to”.
Anyone, on either side of the aisle, that spends their time arguing the definition of “racist” instead of calling out and trying to tone down those on their side who are obviously racist are, at the very least, complicit in the racist actions or deeds.
BS! First it makes other people the decider of what is racist. Sometimes it’s just a situation of understanding how certain things make others feel. Lack of that understanding, due to a number of possible reasons, doesn’t make one or their deeds racist. Also it ignores the blatant and often political false cries of racism used just to hamstring groups. I’ll go one better than you. Anyone that spends their time arguing the definition of “racist” instead of calling out those who misuse the accusation of racism to further political goals damage the fight against real racism worse than anything else.
As one of the few TMV regulars who has actually bothered to attend a Tea Party event, I believe that the “Tea Party is racist” meme is both unfortunate and unfair. I attended a Tea Party event in April 2010 in New Jersey (see my article about it here and here) as well as an even in September 2010 in San Diego, and while I saw plenty examples of partisanship and logical inconsistencies, I didn’t see any examples of racism.
My experience at the latter event convinced me that the Tea Party had become too unfocused in its ideology and too beholden to the Republican Party to be of much use to me.
Still, I think it takes more courage to debate Tea Party activists face-to-face than to unleash ad hominem attacks upon the entire group from the comfort of one’s keyboard.
Steve K said:
Think about the ramifications of your argument, Steve K. According to that line of thinking, any Muslim-American who fails to call out other Muslim-Americans for openly expressing terrorist sympathies is “complicit” in harboring such terrorist sympathies himself/herself.
Whatever happened to holding individuals responsible for their own actions rather than using the transgressions of a few as an excuse to blame the group as a whole?
There are NO Democrat Tea Party Members.
You must be a Republican to vote in the Republican Primary.
Besides, no Tea Partier would ever vote for a Democrat.
The Tea Party is the massive weighted anchor pulling down the Republican Party into the abyss of irrelevance, but they cannot let go because it is, after all, their true belief.
Drown GOP….drown and die the death of insignificance.
When you make assumptions about an entire group based on the actions of a few, you are guilty of the same crime you are accusing them of.
@Allen:”Besides, no Tea Partier would ever vote for a Democrat.”
And *poof*, I cease to exist. (I’ll be campaigning for a Democrat tonight, and I’m a core member).
Good for you Prof., I’m sure you’re basing you support on his/her merits rather than their party.
Nick, surely this “racist”, whatever atmosphere, is mostly regionally determined. Going to a TPer rally down south, I wouldn’t wear a Spike Lee button. NJ is different.
That’s exactly what I’m saying, the individual IS responsible for their own actions BUT what happened to groups holding individual group members responsible for their actions? And, why do you think that would be wrong?
Your example of “Muslim-Americans” is quite telling. Would you feel the same way if the group in question was “Pro-Life Christians?”
Let’s give it a try:
Any “Pro-Life Christian” who fails to call out and try to tone down the rhetoric of another “Pro-Life Christian” in their group for openly espousing violence against Planned Parenthood would be “complicit” if that person follows through with their threat and kills a PP Doctor.
In addition, if any of the “Pro-Life Christians” vocally agreed with and egged the person on they could, and should, be found to be “accessories” to the crime as well.
SteveK you are the one espousing that illogic, Nick was just restating it to see if you would follow it out of your narrow context. Turns out you will, but based on partisan issues only.