On Black Tea Partyers and Racism

I rarely pay much attention to any sort of insulting nonsense, preferring to keep to an intellectual level which is consistent with the seriousness with which I take my ideas. But this article by Associated Press Writer Valerie Bauman, entitled Black Conservative Tea Party Backers Take Heat, is an exception. I just had to defend my Tea Party "brothers".

Ms. Bauman writes:

"They've been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement — and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation's first black president."

Unfortunately, Ms. Bauman gives credibility to the charges that the Tea Party Movement is fundamentally racist, without any attempt to provide evidence from the accusers. It's just presented as a valid position of "opponents".

"Opponents have branded the tea party as a group of racists hiding behind economic concerns — and reports that some tea partyers were lobbing racist slurs at black congressmen during last month's heated health care vote give them ammunition."

The "reports" of "racist slurs" are not evidence of anything but the ignorance of the few alleged "tea partyers". One can hardly call that "ammunition" for the "opponents" attack on the entire Movement.

Perhaps she felt she needed to give her piece balance, because it is otherwise a decent portrayal of the Black Tea Partyers and the unjust slurs they have to put up with.

Nevertheless, I had to address the racism charges. Here are my comments:

To fully understand the source of the smears against the Tea Party Movement, one must look to the epistemological level.

These absurd racism accusations thrown at the Tea Party Movement are a product of those whose minds are frozen on the perceptual level of consciousness. They see mostly white faces, and reflexively conclude racism. Where's the evidence? That would require logical connections. Their anti-conceptual inability to think on an abstract level blinds them to the fact that it is exactly that - their own racism - that leads them to their conclusion that "I see white, so it must be racism". The black Tea Partiers are not evidence to the contrary, in their concrete-frozen minds. They are mindlessly brushed off as traitors to the black collective.

The wide diversity of ideas espoused by Tea Party participants is ridiculed in an open admission of the inability (or fearful refusal) to challenge them intellectually. That would require thinking, which is hard work.

"How can you not support the brother?", is the refrain of the racist-tribalist-collectivist mentality, the most successful products and logical result of the Progressive Education Establishment, which fosters the anti-conceptual mindset.

Thinking is a choice that each of us must make, as individuals. The smear merchants should put aside their unsubstantiated insults and instead choose reason and debate, and refute the ideas of their black (and white) Tea Party "brothers" in honest intellectual discourse, if they can.

Posted 7:51 PM