That question arises because leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the largest civil rights group in the US, on Tuesday approved a resolution condemning racism within the tea party movement. Some tea party groups tolerate bigotry, said the NAACP officials.
The NAACP’s leaders approved the resolution during their annual convention in Kansas City. Final wording won’t be released until the NAACP board of directors approves the move at a meeting in October.
But the resolution approved Tuesday “calls on the tea party and all people of good will to repudiate the racist element and activities within the tea party,” said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau.
Tea party leaders around the nation reacted with anger to the NAACP’s actions.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, a tea party favorite, issued a statement saying that NAACP claims that tea party members judge people by the color of their skin are “false and appalling.”
Palin said she was “saddened by the NAACP’s claim that patriotic Americans ... are somehow racists.”
Tea party activists say their loosely organized movement’s guiding principles center around the need for a smaller federal government and lower taxes.
Charges of racism have surfaced in the past, largely in response to individuals at tea party meetings making comments or displaying signs that minority groups find offensive. Some African-American lawmakers, including Rep. John Lewis (D) of Georgia, a hero of the civil rights movement, have said that tea party activists yelled racial epithets or spat at them as they arrived at the Capitol for the final vote on health-care reform legislation in March.
It is true that the demographics of tea party groups are overwhelmingly white, according to polls. A recent Gallup survey found that 79 percent of tea party supporters are non-Hispanic whites. Only six percent are non-Hispanic blacks.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0714/Nasty-tea-party-NAACP-racism-feud-Who-s-right
