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Black Tea - If Tea Party supporters are racist, why is Herman Cain generating such excitement?
The American ^ | June 2, 2011 | Lazar Berman

Posted on 06/02/2011 12:12:45 PM PDT by neverdem

The liberal line of attack on the Tea Party movement that has gained the most traction is that it opposes President Obama because of his skin color, not his policies. The movement is, in the mind of many in the Democratic Party and liberal organizations, rooted in a fundamentally racist view of America and of the president.

This charge is conventional wisdom for many in the media. Former NPR fund-raising executive Ron Schiller denounced the Tea Party movement to undercover conservative activists posing as Muslim financiers: “I mean, basically they ... believe in sort of white, middle-America, gun-toting. I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people.”

The NAACP passed a resolution, later walked back, denouncing "racist elements" within the Tea Party movement. The resolution accused Tea Party supporters of holding signs “intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically" and called "the racist elements" within the movement "a threat to progress."

The NAACP passed a resolution denouncing ‘racist elements’ within the Tea Party movement.

David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank that explores issues of concern to minority communities, contends that Tea Party supporters “know they can't use any overtly racist language. So they use coded language,” calling the president socialist or attacking his perceived tendency to apologize for American actions overseas.

A new book by veteran White House reporter Kenneth Walsh recounts an episode in which President Obama himself insinuated there was an underlying racism in the movement. At a private White House dinner last May, Obama suggested there was a racially motivated “subterranean agenda” behind Tea Party opposition to his policies.

The Left loves to hurl the racist label at those who stand in the way of their policies and candidates.

Then why is Herman Cain, a conservative black businessman and radio host from Georgia, generating such excitement among the very people maligned as angry white racists? In a recent national Gallup poll of Republican and Republican-leaning Independents, Cain beat out Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, and Tim Pawlenty. Cain did even better among respondents further on the right, tying Newt Gingrich among self-identified conservatives with 10 percent.

The buzz around Cain, even if he is still not being treated by most as a serious candidate, is rather resounding evidence that the grassroots anti-Obama movement is about ideas and the future of the country, not race; and that the Left loves to hurl the racist label at those who stand in the way of their policies and candidates (see the commentators who bent over backwards to call John McCain racist for his “celebrity” campaign ad and the charges that Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst at the State of the Union address played on stereotypes about blacks).

The idea one must be racist to oppose Obama’s policies is cheap and intellectually feeble.

Cain himself is challenging these perceptions head on. His new campaign video features black supporters prominently, and Cain paints his conservatism and campaign as true racial progress in the United States. "I left that Democrat plantation a long time ago,” he declares, “and I ain't going back!” Later in the video, Cain says proudly, “My great-great grandparents were slaves, and now I'm running for president ... Is this a great country or what?"

Racism is by no means dead in America, and elements of it exist across the political spectrum. While one could reasonably argue that Tea Party activists are too angry, too focused on the budget, or too concerned with ideological purity, the idea one must be racist to oppose Obama’s policies is cheap and intellectually feeble.

Most importantly, using charges of racism as a shield with which to protect President Obama makes it harder to combat real prejudice, and slanders millions of Americans whose crime is being passionately vocal about their vision for America’s future.

Lazar Berman is the American Enterprise Institute’s program manager for foreign and defense policy studies.

FURTHER READING: Berman’s recent contributions to AEI’s Enterprise blog include “SecDef at Notre Dame: ‘The Ultimate Guarantee against the Success of Aggressors, Dictators, and Terrorists…Is Hard Power’,” “Did Obama Side with the Palestinians or Israel?,” and “A Tale of Two Flotillas.”



TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: hermancain; teaparty; teapartyexpress; teapartyrebellion
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1 posted on 06/02/2011 12:12:53 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Cuz Herman Cain aint nuthin but an Oreo. “Sarcasm off”


2 posted on 06/02/2011 12:15:07 PM PDT by BobinIL
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To: neverdem

The only possible conclusion, of course, is that Herman Cain is also a racist/sarc


3 posted on 06/02/2011 12:16:04 PM PDT by SoldierDad (Proud dad of an Army Soldier currently deployed in the Valley of Death, Afghanistan)
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To: neverdem

Libs only like blacks that don’t stray from the plantation.

We - on the other hand - love blacks that actually can run businesses.

Which - of course - is why libs love the Obamaloon and we love Herman Cain.


4 posted on 06/02/2011 12:16:04 PM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: neverdem

Liberals would have an existential crisis if they couldn’t hurl the race card at their enemies.


5 posted on 06/02/2011 12:17:09 PM PDT by radpolis (Liberals: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy)
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To: BobinIL

“Oreo,” “Uncle Tom,” etc. The Left will not tolerate those who leave the Plantation.


6 posted on 06/02/2011 12:20:53 PM PDT by TaxMe
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To: radpolis

I don’t mind them calling me a racist. It makes a change from them calling me a Nazi. Hee he he...

This name calling is the moron’s method of ending arguments he is not capable of winning either intellectually or logically.


7 posted on 06/02/2011 12:23:45 PM PDT by SMARTY (Conforming to non-conformity is conforming just the same.)
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To: neverdem
Allen West is very much at home and welcomed in the Tea Party Movement too.

Libs depend on the race card, they can't win on facts.

8 posted on 06/02/2011 12:24:13 PM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER (The Second Amendment, a matter of fact, not a matter of opinion)
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To: neverdem

Don’t you know Cain’s an Uncle Tom? Get with the program!

</sarc>


9 posted on 06/02/2011 12:25:42 PM PDT by Emperor Palpatine (One of these days, Alice....one of these days.....POW!! Right in the kisser!!!!)
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To: radpolis

I don’t think they’d be deterred from calling us racists even with a black candidate.


10 posted on 06/02/2011 12:25:42 PM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)
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To: neverdem
While one could reasonably argue that Tea Party activists are too angry, too focused on the budget, or too concerned with ideological purity, the idea one must be racist to oppose Obama’s policies is cheap and intellectually feeble.

No, one could not reasonably argue that, there's simply no evidence.

Liberals will unleash unprecedented racism against Herman Cain, just as they have used it in the past against numerous black conservatives, Did Clarence Thomas get a "pass"? Michael Steel?

11 posted on 06/02/2011 12:26:51 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Eccl 10:19 A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.)
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To: SWAMPSNIPER

And they’ve gone so long without having to actually formulate a defense for their ideology that they probably couldn’t even if we won’t shut up when they play the race card.


12 posted on 06/02/2011 12:27:16 PM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)
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To: neverdem

It’s called ‘cognitive dissonance’ a disease of The Left, of which there are many..................


13 posted on 06/02/2011 12:30:22 PM PDT by Red Badger (Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven. That's why they call it Heaven............)
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To: neverdem

It’s an article of faith on the left that conservatives are racist. Therefore anyone supported by conservatives isn’t really black.


14 posted on 06/02/2011 12:31:13 PM PDT by Hugin ("A man'll usually tell you his bad intentions if you listen and let yourself hear it"--- Open Range)
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To: SWAMPSNIPER

Keyes and Manning, too.


15 posted on 06/02/2011 12:35:14 PM PDT by bgill (Kenyan Parliament - how could a man born in Kenya who is not even a native American become the POTUS)
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To: neverdem
At this point.. IMO Sarah Palin and Herman Cain are the only two candidates with the intestinal fortitude ( guts ) and INTEGRITY to LEAD America.

Someone on FR made the comment a few weeks back that a BLACK Man and a WHITE Woman candidacy team up would probably be UNSTOPPABLE.

There may be more truth to that than anyone imagines.

16 posted on 06/02/2011 12:39:11 PM PDT by VideoDoctor
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To: neverdem

In the mind of liberals, conservative blacks aren’t really blacks, they’re Uncle Toms or “Oreos,” so for a white person to support them is still racist. But I think it’s racist to deny a person’s race because they don’t agree with your politics. It is ugly and evil. I don’t like Obama or Jesse Jackson, but that doesn’t mean I’d be justified in saying they’re not REAL blacks.


17 posted on 06/02/2011 12:50:31 PM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: neverdem
Yeah, this is indeed one of those great mysteries.

Maybe, just maybe, it's because the Tea Party really isn't racist at all, and all those 'racism' accusations from politicians and their pressitute lackeys were just a pack of lies?

Hey, who knows?

< /sarcasm>

Click the Gadsden flag for pro-gun resources!

18 posted on 06/02/2011 12:53:50 PM PDT by Joe Brower (Sheep have three speeds: "graze", "stampede" and "cower".)
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To: neverdem
Because anyone with brainpower strong enough to run a solar powered calculator can tell that the TEA Party is not racist. It’s just another in the endless string of feckless babbling of the Left. It’s the mung covered race-card that’s been sitting in Jesse Jackson’s sewer for 40 years and is so worn that it’s become unrecognizable. One thing the IS still visible on the race card, the red hammer and sickle on the back.
19 posted on 06/02/2011 1:41:13 PM PDT by PATRIOT1876 (The only crimes that are 100% preventable are crimes committed by illegal aliens)
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To: neverdem

I’m racist because I like a former Pizza exec and a retired Colonel biker who are both black? Hey I’d vote for them on the same ticket. Cain/West or visa versa. Now that would be a first, the first real black President and VP. I say go for it!


20 posted on 06/02/2011 1:42:08 PM PDT by Bringbackthedraft (The storm clouds of war are on the horizon, 1939 is again approaching us.)
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