The NAACP's Shameful Descent to Partisan Hackery

Deroy Murdock unloads on the NAACP's decision to condemn supposed Tea Party racism. I'm sure there are a handful of cranks and racists at Tea Party events, just as there are similar people at Kiwanis clubs, union halls, insurance conventions, and NAACP meetings. But as Deroy explains, there is nothing racist in the actions or agenda of the Tea Party movement. My two cents, for what it is worth, is that the NAACP is acting like an interest group of the Democratic Party rather than an organization genuinely focused on promoting the interest of black Americans (if they actually did care about the African-American community, school choice would be their top issue).

The NAACP is like a talking G.I. Joe doll with a cord coiled in his back. Pull it, and G.I. Joe says something manly and combative. Pull the NAACP’s string. “Racism!” squawks the shopworn voice. Pull it again. “Bigotry!” it squeals, as it has so many times before. The NAACP was totally justified when it decried the racism and bigotry that the Jim Crow South’s Democrat-led governments mandated by law. In 2010, however, screaming “racism” sounds increasingly delusional, given that America is governed by a black man whom voters comfortably elected in November 2008 and wished well, largely across the political spectrum, on Inauguration Day 2009. ...If the tea-party movement really is fueled by bias, why did they invite a black man like me to address one of the first tea parties in Washington, D.C., on February 26, 2009? Why would these alleged racists invite me to rally an even bigger tea party in Manhattan on July 1, 2009? Did prejudice inspire them to let David Webb, a black man, organize that Times Square event, and also run the New York Tea Party? Did racial insensitivity lead the tea party to showcase Congress of Racial Equality national spokesman Niger Innis, Project 21's Deneen Borelli, and other black conservatives and free-marketeers? ...Some have accused the tea-party movement of being racist just because its huge crowds are mainly white. By that measure, the NAACP should organize a boycott of the New York Philharmonic. I attended its delightful concert in Central Park on Tuesday evening. Gershwin’s beautiful “Rhapsody in Blue” might as well have been a rhapsody in white. Scanning the thousands of faces on the Great Lawn, I spotted only a handful of black ones. What a racist orchestra! Yes, the tea party’s events feature few black faces. This is true at most center-right gatherings. The unfortunate fact is that black Americans tend to be liberal Democrats. President Obama won some 95 percent of the black vote. It should shock no one that those who reject most of Obama’s agenda would attract few of his most ardent supporters. Thus, the tea-party movement is no more racist than an Easter dinner is anti-Semitic because so few Jews show up to eat ham and venerate Jesus of Nazareth.

Considering the NAACP's shameful behavior, here's a card that should be distributed to everyone who voted to condemn the Tea Party movement. It was sent to me, by the way, by a black friend (not Deroy).