Pot to kettle: 'You're a racist'

By Joseph Farah

Posted: July 18, 2010
11:33 pm Eastern

© 2010
I often suggest we are living in a world where up is down, black is white, right is wrong and left is … well, no, left is still never right.

That would be "bizarro world," that parallel universe, where everything is backward. That's what I think with regard to the groundless, baseless, irresponsible, false, unjustifiable and unsubstantiated accusations of racism against the tea-party movement by a group seeking the advancement of nonwhites – the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

About the meanest, most hurtful, most ruthless smear you can make about someone in America in 2010 is to label that person a racist – and rightfully so. If anyone hates other people and wishes them ill because of the color of their skin, that person deserves to be vilified and berated.

However, when that accusation is unfairly, inappropriately and cavalierly hurled at people, those doing the smearing are the ones who should be vilified and berated. In fact, they are actually in service to the cause of hate and racism when they cheapen the label and simply use the accusation to attack those with whom they simply have a political disagreement.

And that's really what's going on here with the NAACP. I suspect even the leaders of the organization have some regrets about promoting the resolution condemning the tea-party movement for racism without the slightest trace of evidence. It's backfiring on the group. No sooner was the ink dry on the resolution than the backtracking began.

Ben Jealous, the chairman of the NAACP, suggested the resolution did not actually indict the tea party for racism (which it did). It was more of a warning, he said. Now he demands the tea-party movement repudiate racism.

It's like the old interrogation line, "When did you stop beating your wife?"

Exactly who at the tea-party movement is supposed to do that? There are no prominent national leaders of this decentralized movement. This is a spontaneous, grass-roots effort – barely 18 months old. Are the tens of millions of Americans who identify with this movement supposed to denounce racism in unison?

For what it's worth, I'm going to do something historic right now. As the author of "The Tea Party Manifesto," a book that seeks to give the movement a mission statement upon which to build a consensus, I'm going to take the liberty to speak right here and now for the tea-party movement – just this once.

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