Last night, the members of the National Tea Party Federation participating in an “All Hands” conference call unanimously decided the following:
The membership of the National Tea Party Federation has this evening suspended and will immediately expel Tea Party Express from any further association with the Federation should they fail to publicly rebuke Mark Williams and remove him from their ranks by 3 pm eastern time Saturday July 17.
The rebuke must take the following form:
1. Mark Williams must be officially removed from the ranks of the Tea Party Express.
2. Notice of Mark Williams’ removal must be placed prominently on the official Tea Party Express website.
3. Tea Party Express must issue a press release articulating points 1 and 2 above.
A message on the NTPF web site indicates the TPE refused the ultimatum:
[TPE has] no intention of taking the action we required for their group to continue as a member of the National Tea Party Federation.
Therefore, effective immediately the National Tea Party Federation is expelling Tea Party Express from the ranks of our membership.
Tea Party Express is operated by the Republican Party PR firm, Russo Marsh & Rogers. TPE is best known for organizing the three tea party rally bus tours, including one last spring in which Sarah Palin was a paid speaker at a rally in Boston.
The scandal arose last weekend when the NAACP approved a resolution at its annual meeting in which it criticized tea party leaders for not distancing themselves and their movement from racist signs and statements at tea bagger rallies. In response to the resolution, Mark Williams unleashed a racist tirade against the NAACP in the form of a letter from today’s “Colored People” to the ghost of Pres. Abraham Lincoln.
In the letter, Williams used the term “Colored People” about a dozen times in seven paragraphs, but it was his assertions that African Americans are lazy and unable to think for themselves that read like unvarnished racism. “As Colored People we must have somebody care for us,” wrote Williams, “otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions…”
On Friday, Williams deleted the letter from his website. Instead of apologizing, however, Williams claimed he’d removed the letter because NAACP leaders had “realize[d] their error and [were seeking] to mend fences.”
Williams couldn’t let the matter go without showing his ignorance one more time, however:
I would suggest to those offended by the term “Colored People” (the phrase that made my article so controversial) please contact the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and join me in calling for an end to their use of the racial slur.
Apparently Williams doesn’t know that the term “colored” — which became obsolete in the 1960s — was considered respectful by all races in 1909, the year the NAACP was founded.
There is at least one remaining hate group on the NTPF roster, however. The Family Research Council, an anti-gay group that advocates making homosexuality illegal, is listed as an affiliate. The FRC has been in the news lately because one of its founders, Dr. George Rekers, was involved in scandal involving a young male prostitute.
I guess that since the so-called tea party changed its name from tea baggers when its leaders finally caught on to how rude the name was, Williams expects all groups to change names at will.
IMO, only a true racist like Williams would be incapable of realizing that the amount of melanin in one’s skin doesn’t determine one’s level of intelligence. It is this same condescending attitude that many republicans have toward us that continues to cost them at the polls.
How stupid does one have to be NOT to realize that the people he/she attacks with racial slurs and stereotypes will not vote for their candidates? That would be like me beating my kitty on a daily basis and expecting him to cuddle with me when I want him to. The cluelessness of some “conservatives” boggles the mind.
One of the greatest insults that some “conservatives” can make where I’m concerned is to draw the conclusion that I’m not intelligent enough to know for whom to cast my ballot. I should think that with an undergraduate degree and multiple graduate degrees in multiple areas, plus having taught for over 30 years, that I can choose the candidate I think would best represent me. That this BS is so pervasive within the Republican Party in 2010 is outrageous, shameful, and un-called for.