Tea party activists and supporters, including Palin, have spoken out against the resolution.
Tea Party rally supporters welcome buses arriving into Clinton Square on Monday. Mike Greenlar / The Post Standard.The NAACP has passed a resolution condemning what it feels is rampant racism in the Tea Party movement. The movement was passed on Tuesday at the organization’s annual convention in Kansas City, Missouri.
The resolution puts the oldest civil rights organization against the grassroots conservative movement that has won some recent political races.
"We take issue with the Tea Party's continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements. The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no space for racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in their movement," Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a statement to CNN.
Tea Party leaders are angered by the resolution, and are striking back.
"I am disinclined to take lectures on racial sensitivity from a group that insists on calling black people, 'Colored,' " Mark Williams, national spokesman of the Tea Party Express, told CNN.
Williams also went on to tell NPR, "You're dealing with people who are professional race-baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It's time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history."
Listen to the whole NPR story here:
Sarah Palin also voiced her anger with the resolution on her Facebook page Tuesday evening through a long note.
"To be unjustly accused of association with what Reagan so aptly called that 'legacy of evil' is a traumatizing experience, and one of which the honest, freedom-loving patriots of the Tea Party movement are truly undeserving," Palin wrote.
NAACP leaders say there is plenty of evidence to prove any who deny racism in the Tea Party wrong. Hilary Shelton, directly of the NAACP’s Washington bureau, gave some examples to CNN including when Tea Party members spat on Congressman John Lewis, a veteran civil rights activist and called Congressman Emanual Cleaver the ‘N-word.”
NAACP also claims that Tea Party activists show other racist behaviors, including waving signs that degrade President Obama and other African Americans.
Many Tea Party leaders say that their organization is not about racism, claiming they are about fiscal issues and being American.
Some leaders of the Tea Party say that racists do show up to rallies because they know there will be media there. However, they insist that racist groups are not welcomed.
What they're saying about the NAACP/Tea Party:
»CNN: NAACP passes resolution blasting Tea Party 'racism'
»CBS: Palin Comes to Tea Party's Defense After NAACP Passes Racism Resolution
»Vanity Fair: Tea Party Spokesman Says NAACP Has No Right to Lecture About Racism
What do you think of NAACP's resolution? Leave your comments below.