Tea Party Racism

Michael Gerson wrote an article today in the Washington Post, Signs of sanity from the Tea Party, about the Tea Party movement's response to the racism of some of its members which have recently caused them some bad publicity. As a former speech writer for President Bush, Gerson has the political experience to speak authoritatively about this third-party movement to the Post's broad audience.

The Tea Party, says Gerson, has incurred some of the wrath from liberals who like to blame Obama's unpopularity on racism in America. The recent firefight originated when the NAACP approved a resolution calling out racism in the Tea Party movement. Tea Party members and sympathetic conservatives lashed back, accusing the NAACP of blatant partisanship and even asking the IRS to reconsider the NAACP's tax-exempt status. Other Tea Party members merely accepted the accusation. Mark Williams released a shockingly racist parody which subsequently got him expelled from the Tea Party organization as a whole. Clearly, the racial tensions have not been eradicated with the election of an African-American president, but really, who thought they would?

The Tea Party has responded fairly well to the ruckus, calling Williams' post "clearly offensive" and taking actions to publicly condemn racism in the party. In addition, the NAACP admitted that the Tea Party movement as a whole is not racist. Gerson's stance on this commotion is that the Tea Party is showing "small but significant signs of sanity." He says this is essential for the well-being of the party, especially with so few months left between now and the November election. He also made the statement that African Americans "have suffered provocations throughout American history that make the complaints of Boston's original tea party movement seem trivial in comparison." Gerson says their reactions are not only appropriate politically, but simply decent.

I agree with Gerson that this show of sanity for the Tea Party is an important step for them as a movement. Third-party movements have nearly always been short-lived. The political system in America seems always to tend towards a dual-party system, never more or less. Thus, the eventual hope of the Tea Party is only to gain enough support and cause enough racket for one of the mainstream parties to change. Once the Tea Party gains enough support, either the Republican or Democratic party will inevitably mend their ways to allow the amalgamation of the Tea Party supporters into their group. That, or the Tea Party will die out from being too extremist. The deciding factor in the fate of the Tea Party and what they stand for will be how well they present themselves to the American public, and how many voters they can rally to their flag. Showing some sanity towards issues of racism is an important step towards that end.