Tea Party Resolution; Updated; Further Updated

Since the Tea Party is a movement and not an organization (although some may try to make it one), it seems to me that any member of the movement has as much authority as any other to propose a resolution. Here is my modest attempt:

The Tea Party hereby resolves that it calls upon the NAACP to repudiate the racist elements of its organization and the organizations that it expressly or impliedly supports, and make elimination bigotry from all side and sources a top priority.

Let's face it, discrimination on the basis of race is wrong. Bigotry on the basis of race is wrong. You can't define away black bigotry by claiming that only whites can be racist. Such a definition is bigotry per se.

Update: Below is a video of Shirley Sherrod, a federal employee, bragging about discriminating against a white man based on his race (i.e., doing the minimum so she won't get a complaint) speaking to an appreciative NAACP audience. Bigot.



Further update: The lady bigot on the clip resigned today.

Even further update: The speaker winds up the speech saying that even though she initially responded in a bigoted way (not her words), she learned she need to help all poor people regardless of race.



Oddly, the NAACP had a copy of the full video (I did not). The NAACP without looking at the full video condemned the speech. Her supervisor at the Department of Agriculture forced her to resign.

And here is the commentary by Riehl World View on the entire tape in context:

Several disputes have broken out on Twitter over the full-length, 45 minute version of Shirley Sherrod addressing an NAACP gathering. Sherrod spends 15 - 20 minutes recounting tales of racism in the South, including the murder of her Father. On a personal level that is tragic. But the fact remains, she uses it as a device to provide her with absolute moral authority to speak on issues pertinent to today. And if you listen carefully to Sherrod, I believe she reveals herself to be both a racist, who sees things in terms of color, as well as a latter day Marxist. She uses race, in part, to justify those views.

In Sherrod's view, there is no one world, or even two. There are three. The elite, or wealthy, the whites, propped up over blacks, and then there are blacks. Far from the post-racial America some of her rhetoric would lead you be believe she embraces as a vision, this is a woman trapped by views of race and class that make her a poor public servant at best. Listen to these three minutes and decide for yourself.

In her world, any racism that existed in the past very much exists today. She hasn't truly grown at all based upon her own words.

Nonetheless, the selective editing and presentation of the video should give us all pause ... and caution about selective editing. Others have noted that the NAACP release appears to have some editing as well.