Here’s the Tea Party USA’s response to a NAACP resolution calling them racists:
“This is indeed the kettle calling the pot black,” Mark Williams, national spokesman of the conservative grassroots group, told CNN.
“We’re fighting the government programs that have emasculated the black family,” Williams said.
He added: “It’s the Obama administration that rolled back civil rights to a pre-civil rights era with ‘Obamacare’ in which they removed the concept of individual rights…it’s the Obama administration that put a tax on white people with a tanning salon tax. I mean, this is the kind of stuff the Tea Party movement is fighting. We are fighting for the Constitution of this country, which, by definition, makes this a human rights movement – a civil rights movement.”
(via)
On the same subject, BuffaloPundit has the story of a local tea party leader who’s sending around links to a Little Rascals re-mix that “depicts Farina as Obama, makes jokes about Joe Lieberman and the Holocaust, and likens Nancy Pelosi to a whore”.
ItAintEazy
This is the one time I hesitate to write something because I think it’s fitting to leave that “No Comment” message under this post.
TomG
Sources have not yet confirmed that Williams also said “Hey guys, when reporting our rally numbers to the press, make sure to count every 5 black people as just 3…after all, it’s in the Constitution”.
dmsilev
This is a parody, right? I mean, nobody could seriously write this, right? Please?
dms
kommrade reproductive vigor
No Fucking Clue What So FUCKING EVER.
Holy Mother of God. I need to frame this shit.
Chyron HR
Isn’t that a tax on people who don’t want to be white?
El Cid
Iran has been claiming the US abducted one of its nuclear scientists from Saudi Arabia in 2009 and brought him to the US. The US denied the claims, and media reports said he had defected to the US to assist US intelligence.
Guy shows up in the Pakistani Embassy in DC (which represents Iranian interests since there are no formal diplomatic relations) and, reportedly, demands to be taken back to Iran.
bkny
it’s the Obama administration that put a tax on white people with a tanning salon tax.
totally, utterly, completely without a fucking clue. that this is a real issue to them is staggering.
Jay in Oregon
@TomG:
So… they have 3 attendees then?
homerhk
I wonder whether the same people who think that the tanning tax is racist also think that mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine are also racist?
It’s confusing to me, the tea party is mad and the republicans simply have not done anything for the past two years and Obama’s approval is at all time low – what’s that about?
kommrade reproductive vigor
@bkny: It’s as bad as slavery! Or worse! Slavery by Nazis!
Oh well. Let’s sit back and watch the organization that fell out of Dick Armey’s ass last year go toe-to-toe with the one that’s been around for 100 years through some heavy-duty, real life or death shit.
Popcorn?
TR
@dmsilev:
Nope, they are completely serious about it. The WaPo had a story on it.
cleek
objectively pro-melanoma
El Cid
The catfood commission ropes in the IMF to help sell its plan for Budget! Austerity! Now! in the US (the US is the largest force for control of the IMF board with a vote about double the weight of any other nation) to cut all those greedy bastards off the teat of Soshul Security.
Dean Baker:
When you hear that “the IMF” says something, remember whose investor and policy block has the most weight. This is largely advice the US’ preferred investors and economic advisers are sending back to US pundits and poliycmakers via the vehicle of the IMF.
Hopefully we can soon follow more of the awesome advice the IMF was giving Latin America in the 1980s and early 1990s*, because who wouldn’t want to be like an austerity government of South America back then? I mean, though, without all the constant riots and whatnot.
US and Western investors used the IMF as a tool back then to impose policies that its own governments at the time wouldn’t have dreamed of imposing upon their own societies, budgets, and economies. That was one of the most vehement complaints of the third worlders receiving their magical ‘advice’ in those days. I guess dreams can come true after all!
*Argentina and its new lender Venezuela broke the back of the IMF debt stranglehold in South America after the Argentinian default, so the IMF doesn’t get to dictate lunatic Western investor promoting, national industry undermining, population weakening free market fundamentalist national economic policies in those nations any more.
demo woman
Did CNN have an online poll on whether or not the tanning tax is racist? This could be the important story of the day.
MattF
It’s a version of the old ‘Mad Libs’ game– the response to “You’re a blank” is “No, you’re a blank.” Typical “blank” fill is ‘fascist’, ‘racist’, whatever. Citing the Tanning Tax as racist oppression by the Obama/Ayres/Islamofascistsoshalistdijonmustard administration, though, is a new one, I must admit.
Zach
These folks are pretty principled if they oppose even those taxes paid by race traitors.
4tehlulz
I’m glad to see the teapartiers embrace the parody; it makes them seem good-humored and …
Oh they’re just being racists. Never mind.
4tehlulz
When can we look forward to the Tea Party adopting “WAKE UP WHITE PEOPLE” as their official slogan?
Zach
@TR:
WaPo editors need to be more careful. That article makes it sound like there’s no room for claims of disparate impact within the law. That’s the case for things of this nature, but not in general.
jon
When did the Obama Administration become part of Congress, anyway?
Constitutionalists? These people are an insult to stupid people.
TR
As Tea Party leader Dale Robertson makes clear with this eloquent sign, their movement is truly the one fighting the real racists.
El Cid
John Boehner is tired of being the subject of anti-Orange racism. ORANGE LIBERATION NOW!
kay
Translation: stupid minorities keep voting for and running as Democrats, and they need members of the Republican base to set them straight.
This “black family” stuff is a mainstream conservative talking point, not a Tea Party talking point, and (I think) it proves how disconnected they are from poor rural WHITE areas of this country. They focus exclusively on urban poverty, urban families and urban problems.
But anyone who lives and works in a poor rural white conservative area knows the truth: poverty is the common denominator, not race.
Do you ever hear conservatives talking about failing public schools in poor rural white conservative areas? Schools run and staffed by conservatives?
No. Why is that? They know it’s true.
I would think the overwhelmingly white Tea Party and the GOP would concentrate on rural poverty, and “white families”, because the problems are identical. Weirdly, they never mention that.
When is FOX News going to do an expose on meth addiction and family breakdown in poor white rural areas? Gun violence, domestic violence, rampant teenage pregnancy?
Scott
Why do y’all think he’s clueless? He knows exactly what he said. The “pot calling the kettle black” was on purpose. The “tax on white people tanning” was on purpose.
These were so dog-whistley, he should’ve just yelled “DOG! WHISTLE!”
Joe Bauers
I’m surprised at how many white people lust for victimhood.
I’m in Indianapolis, which is hosting the annual Black Expo at the moment. The local rag’s comment section is full of “Where’s the White Expo? How come there’s not a day devoted to white business? How come there’s no Miss White America? Where’s the United White College Fund? They’re the real racists.”, all with no sense of historical context, irony, or in most cases, the English language.
So stupid. So achingly, exhaustingly stupid.
El Cid
@kay: It’s also dishonest. For all the blather (since Daniel Moynihan especially) on how urban blight and poverty were caused by weak black families, who presumably could have with a better culture generated jobs telekinetically, when Clinton carried out several example initiatives to bring manufacturing jobs to the inner cities, suddenly unemployment rates among young black men (the most vicious and failed and dangerous group, right?) plummeted, as did young male violence.
But jobs aren’t the issue, right? It’s them negroes not knowin’ how to raise their kids properly.
JAHILL10
Sounds like the Teabagger Buffalopundit cited was trying for the racist, antisemitic, sexist trifecta.
Thomas
I am so damn tired of hearing about these tea party asshats. It seems like every story is either: 1) The tea party did X,; 2) Sarah Palin said X,: or 3) Something’s jacked up in America and its Obama’s fault even if it was originally instituted by the prior administration.
Luckily, number 3 is the real reason for Obama’s lower polling but the tea party and the rest of the GOP think its because of their half baked ideas. Meaning they’ll run hard to the right in the 2012 election. Even if things are still shitty it’ll give Obama a great chance to get re-elected if these people are out ranting about tanning taxes.
John PM
Actually, the tanning tax will primarily affect the pasty whites in the North. Whites in Florida, Arizona and Texas have more opportunities to tan outside during the winter. This of course leads to the obvious question: Why does Obama love the Confederacy?
sparky
@kay:
good observation but i think you are off with your conclusion. it’s evidence of astroturfing and perhaps laziness, not a disconnect. i’m not aware of any political movement that points out its own failures.
@El Cid: interesting story line, thanks. unfortunately i rather doubt any of us peasants will ever be told what is actually going on.
cleek
@John PM:
and strippers everywhere !
who wants to see strippers who aren’t evenly toasted to a nice Thanksgiving Turkey Brown? that’s not right.
arguingwithsignposts
@kay:
Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are their heroes, and proof of what you’re talking about.
Mary
@TR: I made the mistake of reading the comments in the WaPo article. I don’t know why I do this to myself. I always know that it will hurt, but I still hope that maybe, just maybe, this time will be different.
Sigh.
Peter
Every time I hear someone trot out the ‘tanning tax is racist against whites’, I have to wonder if they’re serious for realizing that yeah, they actually are.
Tyro
You have to think that the NAACP was purposely baiting the TPers into saying something outrageously crazy, and it seems to have worked.
Punchy
A guy in our neighborhood has a “Tea Party Patriot” placard in his front yard. Needless to say, I encourage our dogs to poop there.
Kryptik
No sense of shame, history, or anything approaching intelligence. Not surprising, of course. Victim blame and persecution complexes seem to be part and parcel of the whole overarching philosophy of the Republicans.
jon
@John PM: Arizona, then part of the New Mexico Territory, was part of the Union in the time of the Confederacy. It is interesting to note that Tucson was later rejected as the Arizona Territory’s capital because it was seen as a hotbed of Confederate sympathizers.
As for the opportunities to tan in Arizona, they’re are plenty. I think the advantage of salons is that people can tan and be comfortably naked at the same time, though I haven’t asked the one person I know who does go to salons. Still, it’s weird that the tanning salons aren’t open at night. I would think that there’s plenty of money to be made after eight or nine at night, but maybe there’s some archaic law such as the inability of licensed massage therapists to work past ten p.m. in this state. Just another way shift workers lose out, I guess.
Kryptik
@Tyro:
They need to be baited into saying something outrageously stupid? That’s news to me, I thought it was a reflex action.
Bulworth
I suppose he’s talking about the individual mandate portion of the health care law; but was this what the teabaggers were really against?
Also, too, can we go back to calling them teabaggers? Just because the teabaggers don’t like being called teabaggers doesn’t mean we have to stop calling them teabaggers.
b-psycho
They need to just go ahead and scream “NIGGER!”. Get it over with.
Face
Where oh where was the obvious follow up question, “Sir, which ones, specifically?”. Because I guarentee that broadcast would have gone silent before the crickets took over.
A talking point without substance is a lie, and this guy would have been dead in the water if they’d only called his bluff. Sigh.
cat48
The tax is at most $1 a session at most salons & more like $.50 to $.70. a session. Just like cigarettes that cause cancer, they should have taxed them more as there is a direct connection between tanning beds & melanoma, one of the deadliest cancers. I had melanoma & it was frightening. You couldn’t get me to go near a tanning bed again. I was always tanning inside or outside. Really, really dumb!
/lecture over
I truly wish the NAACP had not done this just like I wish the Teabaggers would die. It’s obvious that the country is not mature enough to have a black president yet in some areas of the country (Repug middleaged crackerville) especially in such a bad economy.
I’m going to have to turn off cable, stop reading the news, or political blogs. My ulcer can’t take it everyday.
/very sad : (
kay
@arguingwithsignposts:
My white rural county beat Cleveland for per capita teen pregnancy. Completely governed by conservatives, with the exception of a single engineer who managed to make it onto the school board because the better-off parents were (secretly) worried the fundies were bringing down ACT scores. They forgave him his liberalism because he “believes” in math. We ran a campaign based on algebra.
We have two “crisis pregnancy centers” that are designed to look like store-front clinics, but don’t actually provide any medical care or medical information.
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin’s daughter has launched a lucrative celebrity career based on the fact that she got pregnant. Not a single other accomplishment. She lives with her parents, who are wealthy.
Really. The mind boggles. Why don’t conservatives get off the “black family” and start looking at their own families?
The Obama education department includes poor white rural schools in any analysis of failing districts. That’s because there are a LOT of them. Weirdly, to listen to conservatives, this is an “urban” problem, and we all know what “urban” means.
elmo
Do people really use tanning salons? I mean, seriously?
I’m half kidding, because I know they must, or tanning salons wouldn’t exist — but is there a real constituency of tanning salon patrons? Are there as many as smokers?
Because this is another of the many things that I really don’t understand. Not because of the melanoma thing or the wrinkly thing, because I actually do like having a tan myself — but the sun is out there, people. It will tan your skin for free! Promise!
b-psycho
@Bulworth:
No. The same type of mandate had been a backburnered staple of alternative Republican plans for years. Then Obama embraced it & it became soshulist tyranny — as described by the angry mobs of Medicare recipients.
cleek
i thought the teabaggers didn’t have the kind of structure that would allow for a “national spokesman”. i thought it was a loose conglomeration of small teabag parties.
John PM
@cleek: #32
That right! Won’t somebody think of the strippers!
@jon: #39
I knew that Arizona was not part of the Confederacy at the time of the Civil War, but I was taking into account Arizona’s current actions as well.
GregB
Just wait until Glenn Beck returns the civil rights mantle back to the real champions of civil rights movement. White, conservatives from the South.
Rick Massimo
@kay:
Simpler translation: F^&*ing n#@@ers are too stupid and lazy to see that the Democrats are racists.
Mike in NC
Ideally, they’d like to do away with public schools altogether, as they run the risk of bringing you into contact with people of the wrong ideas/color/religion. Private academies and home schooling are their solution. I never even heard of home schooling until I lived in Virginia and met some nutjobs who didn’t want their kids getting contaminated by unlcean “others”.
cat48
@elmo:
I don’t do it anymore, but yes people do use tanning beds in some areas. Even here in SC which surprised me when I moved here. If I want a tan now, I just get sprayed w/bronzer which looks about the same.
cat48
I don’t mind them getting attention. I wish they would just call them what they are: REPUBLICANS!, just like everyone originally said.
Stefan
“it’s the Obama administration that put a tax on white people with a tanning salon tax.”
Reality or The Onion? You decide!
Hal
So I can’t sit at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s anymore?
Stefan
I’m surprised at how many white people lust for victimhood. I’m in Indianapolis, which is hosting the annual Black Expo at the moment. The local rag’s comment section is full of “Where’s the White Expo? How come there’s not a day devoted to white business? How come there’s no Miss White America? Where’s the United White College Fund? They’re the real racists.”, all with no sense of historical context, irony, or in most cases, the English language.
The explanation is actually quite simple. If you can make yourself believe that you’re a victim, then nothing that happens to you is really your fault. You’re not poor because you’re stupid, or because your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were poor, or because you never paid attention in schoool, or because you got hooked on meth — no, you’re poor because the system is keeping you down. But white people look around and they are the system in this country, they’ve historically been the ones in control. So the white people who aren’t in control, who are at the bottom of the heap, really start to feel bad because they don’t even have the consolation of knowing that larger societal forces work against them (of course, we know that larger societal economic forces work against them, but that’s not a valid explanation in this country).
kommrade reproductive vigor
FifY.
Also, if tanning beds are the domain of white people, and tanning beds seriously raise the risk of skin cancer, doesn’t that make the tanning beds racist?
No wait. I guess we’re the racist for flashing more melanin than our melanin-suppressed bretheren.
Cris
Incoherence, perhaps, but not silence. He certainly would have reflexively said “welfare.”
SixStringFanatic
@Joe Bauers: I live in Indy. They crank that shit up every year during Black Expo and every year the correct response is “The White Expo takes place in August; it’s called the State Fair.”
They just bitch to hear themselves pass wind orally. Wanna really wind ’em up? Tell them you’re so happy that Indiana now follows Daylight Savings Time.
Epic Lunacy.
Nicole
@cleek:
Talk about a pole tax.
gocart mozart
@Chyron HR:
White people who go to tanning beds hate their whiteness. You would think that tea baggers would support punishing self hating white people who would prefer to be the color of Mexicans perhaps to confuse immigration officials.
Also, tanning bed tax = wingnut lie # 44364546 also.
Batocchio
Funny how these “national spokesmen” for the “grassroots” teabaggers are always diehard Republicans of some prominence. Mark Williams isn’t as well-known as Dick Armey, but he’s being doing hate radio for a long time now. He’s also a particularly vile racist – his comments after Hurricane Katrina were particularly appalling.
jake the snake
@sparky:
So, you have no historical knowledge of the Democratic Party?