As has been now widely reported by mainstream media, more than 600 people gathered for the first ever Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee on February of 2010. The 'teabaggers' reveled as they sat there listening to hateful speech after hateful speech by the likes of their champions Tom Tancredo and Sarah Palin among others. The rhetoric, the signs and the vitriol sounded familiar:
To the chants of "Take Our Nation Back," the "teabaggers" turned political speech into a display of incoherent intolerance and racism.
The convention represented the launching point for what has become a full-fledged attack and repudiation of one community in particular: Latinos.
Deep-rooted within the Tea Party ideals is not only the belief that immigrants - along with Latinos in general - are what is inherently wrong with the state of the nation but also a thinly veiled attempt to disguise behind an economic argument a very latent and dangerous prejudice. It is also a calculated political ploy to undermine what is likely to become a powerful block in the upcoming electoral cycle.
Seemingly, Tea Partiers as a group believe they have found their perfect scapegoats. They see in Latinos a fast and easy attack. Thinking, hoping and expecting that the battle will be one way, that the response will be null and that Latinos will not be ready or organized enough to fight back.
Think again.
A new series by the project Cuéntame is precisely channeling this Latino anger and frustration through video segments aimed at exposing "teabaggers'" true colors. It features all the racist speeches, the violent words, and actions, letting their predominantly Latino audience judge for themselves whether the Tea Party truly represents a legitimate movement or is yet another example of the intolerance and discrimination Latinos face in today's society. The "teabaggers Series" as it is being called, also prompts the community to organize and to unite in an effort to fight back against the misconceptions and lies.
Ultimately the message Cuéntame is sending is that if "Tea Partiers" want to target and attack the Latino community through the use of prejudice and flat out racism as a way to advance their political agenda they will not face a silent and dormant opposition.
Follow Axel W. Caballero on Twitter: www.twitter.com/axelwoolfolk
Charles W. Dunn: The Tea Party's Enemies
If history is the best predictor of the future, and it usually is, the "Tea Party" will have a short shelf life. Beginning well before the Civil War, such movements have come and gone.
David Sirota: Glenn Beck's Message: It Is Happening Here
Let's pause and give thanks to Glenn Beck. No, seriously -- that's what he's due.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Blowing off Tea Baggers as Racist Misses the Point
Tea partiers rail at Obama, the Democrats, big government, the elites, and Wall Street. Yet, they also grouse about abortion, family values, gay rights, and tax cuts -- not race.
Stephen Herrington: Red State Anxiety and The Constitution
Red States, apparently, do not understand that the further out onto the ice of constitutional education they skate, the thinner the ice becomes for the ideology of conservatism.
March 04, 2010
Ratigan & Media Attempt to Brand Tea Parties Racist
By Lloyd Marcus
As a black proud Tea Party patriot, I am extremely offended by MSNBC TV show host Dylan Ratigan's baseless accusation that the Tea Party Movement (my white brother and sister fellow patriots) embraces Nazis and racists.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/ratigan_media_attempt_to_brand.html
We focus so much on the racist angle of this group (I refuse to call them a "movement". Tea Parties are the pet project of Dick Armey and Glenn Beck. Aided by the GOP and its propaganda arm Fox, who have always used racism as a wedge and a lure for their base since the Dixiecrats joined up during the Civil Rights struggle - which was a real movement. The Tea Baggers that think it's actually a movement are the same white bigot rubes the GOP has played for over 3 decades.) But while we focus on the obvious targeting of African-Americans primarily because of their primary target - our black President - we must also consider that Latino smearing.
The Tea Bagger Queen was on a path to becoming the VP of the United States of America. That's unforgiveable. So....show 'em. Show the GOP that they've finally gone too far. Take them down at the polls.
They think the term "racist" will wound, and there was a time when it would have, but...
They don't rail against President Bush who looks like them for shoving $700 TARP down congresses throat in Oct of 2008 but they can dress up like idiots and throw teabags around in early 2009 after President Obama, who doesn't look like them, passed a $787 Stimulus bill to help try to fix the mess Bush and the Republicans left us and apparently it's saved/created 1.5 million jobs.
Obama, who does not look like them, has raised the deficit by a little over a $1 tillion, yet suddenly Republicans, conservatives, and Tea Baggers care about fiscal conservatism. They didn't seem to care nearly so much when so many people in power who looked like them, were driving fiscal conservatism into the toilet and this economy into a toilet.
Sorry but "racist" fits a large segment of the Tea Party mentality. Sometimes a spade needs to be called a spade. And maybe many of these people have actually fooled themselves into believing that their actions now and in the past have nothing to do with race. But I'll tell you, they aren't fooling anyone else.
Just the same "Well if we kicked out the illegal Latinos, and the Blacks and Latinos got their act together and got jobs and stopped comiting crimes, if the poor and unemployed just weren't so lazy, and if the sick, unemployed, and lazy weren't always leeching from MY HARD EARNED CASH everything would be okay. PRAISE JESUS!" A lot of these people are disgusting, selfish, misinformed, and clueless.
I'm not saying everybody in the Tea Party is racist. And I think most people know so. However the fact that a pretty much all white movement, which has many documented and recorded instances of racist displays and behavior within it's movement, NEVER reaches out to non-white citizens, and is so narrow minded and selective when it comes to something as simple as facts (especially facts they don't agree with), and yet can't seem to see any of the racism they project I find extremely disturbing.
Funny how some object to making English our "official" language but have no problem with other countries having an official language. Having an official language will not deny anyone the right to speak another one in this country. Those who object to us claiming part of our heritage as official do so because they have an ulterior motive and that is to either make Spanish our official language instead or to make it equal to English.
Their agenda is quite clear.
Spanish first. Texas was part of Mexico before the Alamo. Mexico ceded Arizona to US following the Mexican War. Us forces conquered California during Mexican War.
You may not want to admit that we were the aggressors, but we were.
Bait and Switch. Offering up a Pretext. Hmm, where have we seen this before?
Oh yeah ... invading and destroying Iraq because we were attacked by thugs hiding in Afghanistan, who became even more powerful because we diverted essential resources from Afghanistan, to effectuate regime change and nation-building in Iraq, which resources were seriously needed in Afghanistan and which they did not get, on account of our so-called duty to uncover Weapons of Mass Desruction in Iraq that actually did not exist in Iraq.
Looks like the Teabaggers learned their ignoble practices from the very best!
What is wrong? And why are they calling American patriots RACIST?
Answer:
BECAUSE THEY CAN'T STAND THE SMELL OF THEIR OWN COUNTRY!
"I hear more and more Mexicans talking about la raza—to build up their pride, you know," Chavez told me. "Some people don't look at it as racism, but when you say 'la raza,' you are saying an anti-gringo thing, and it won't stop there. Today it's anti-gringo, tomorrow it will be anti-Negro, and the day after it will be anti-Filipino, anti-Puerto Rican. And then it will be anti-poor-Mexican, and anti-darker-skinned Mexican. ... La raza is a very dangerous concept. I speak very strongly against it among the chicanos."
"That's one of the reasons he is so upset about la raza. The same Mexicans that ten years ago were talking about themselves as Spaniards are coming on real strong these days as Mexicans. Everyone should be proud of what they are, of course, but race is only skin-deep. It's phony and it comes out of frustration; the la raza people are not secure. They look upon Cesar as their 'dumb Mexican' leader; he's become their saint. But he doesn't want any part of it. He said to me just the other day, 'Can't they understand that that's just the way Hitler started?' A few months ago the Ford Foundation funded a la raza group and Cesar really told them off. The foundation liked the outfit's sense of pride or something, and Cesar tried to explain to them what the origin of the word was, that it's related to Hitler's concept."