Conservatives got out hustled by a well orchestrated LIE. The MSM were all too willing to repeat the false accusations.
Ignore it. It's not worth hustling to win a race with liars. Of course they're going to call white folks names. It's what race-hustlers do. It's the price of admission.
What isn't clear is whether being called that actually hurts the appeal of the Tea Party movement or not. Possibly not. Possibly, so many average folks are sick of race-hustlers that they have begun to use denunciation by a race-hustler as an indication that the target is telling the truth. You no doubt saw the Rasmussen numbers that showed that 52 percent of Americans consider Tea Partiers more knowledgeable about the Constitution than Congressmen.
There were many in the British Parliament who described the rebelling colonists as unintelligent and cowardly. The colonists kept coming for seven long years and thoroughly kicked their tails.