Teabaggers aren't racists, they just think blacks are shiftless

Bell Curve aficionado Patrick McIlheran's howl of outrage over the NAACP's call to "repudiate the racism of the Tea Parties" has reasonably been denounced as the "worst piece of journalism I have ever read."

Patrick declares:

Similarly, the “taxed enough already” movement is neither made up of racists nor driven by racism nor to any measurable extent embracing racism.

One might have some sympathy for McIlheran's position were it not for the fact that a nontrivial number of teabagger leaders (h/t Balloon Juice) and personalities can't stop themselves from making racist remarks -- just ask Fred "watermelon seeds" Dooley.

Or that surveys have found that teabaggers are, to quote Bruce Bartlett, "largely unsympathetic to African Americans."

But not all! For me, a highlight of the Milwaukee tea party was the interaction between an an African American guy handing out  bumper stickers and a female teabagger. "Are you really a black conservative?" she asked. He replied in the affirmative. She said "good for you" and commented on how rare a specimen he was. Unsympathetic or just condescending? Or just totally color blind?

That said, perhaps we should be thankful that McIlheran stops short of equating liberals with Maoists, especially given he's previously put them on a continuum with the Nazis.

Comments

[libhomo]

It's weird how much of our society thinks it's OK to be racist, but it's not OK to acknowledge that someone is racist or discuss it.