NAACP & Tea Party: A Local Black Candidate Responds to Charges of Racism

What a beautifully and powerfully written response to the NAACP's recent charge of racism it launched against the Tea Party movement.  [Source: Missouri Political News Service]

Republican 1st District Congressional Candidate Calls Out NAACP

July 16th, 2010 by mopns_admin

Republican first congressional district and Move-On-Up.org member Martin Baker calls out the NAACP.

By Martin D. Baker
When it was first brought to my attention that the NAACP had used their bully pulpit to condemn the Tea Party movement in one of its first acts of its national convention, branding those who associate themselves with it as racist, I laughed at the absolute duplicity of it. I asked myself, “at what point did the Tea Party movement become such a threat to the coffers of the NAACP that they felt the need to fire a broadside salvo against them?” Has what was once a historical organization that spearheaded the advancement of civil rights become a faction of jealous rage?” but most importantly I asked once question…“WHO DESIGNATED THE NAACP AS THE ARBITERS OF ALL THAT COULD BE DEEMED RACIST RATHER INDIVIDUALLY OR COLLECTIVELY?”

As a Black American who has proudly spoken at Tea Party events over the past two years, I am rather dismayed to hear that I am a racist, but I guess I must thank those great leaders for informing me of this egregious error in judgement that I have wrought upon my fellow Black peers. Without the NAACP letting me know that by virtue of me speaking on decreasing the role of government, espousing personal freedom, and speaking on the values of family and sanctity of life,that I literally had become an agent provocateur for a racist organization that is inciting people to rise up and commit all sorts of calumny and evil upon my own race. So With all that in mind, I wish to formally submit the following statement with my new found knowledge.

To the leadership of the Local, State and National offices of the NAACP

Sirs:

I must at this moment take a stand against your acidic statements regarding the Tea Party movement and its membership. Not only are your views off base and wrong, they truly do not advance a dialogue to meet in the middle and address common issues that will advance the causes of freedom and justice here in our great country. I am a proud former speaker at Tea Party events in my hometown of Sikeston, Missouri and never once did I feel unwelcome nor as an outcast - which is the feeling that a black person should get if surrounded by rabid racists as you perceive the Tea Party groups to be. I challenge any of you to actually attend a Tea Party or better yet, I invite you to SPEAK at a Tea Party event. I can say with a high degree of certainty that you esteemed ladies and gentlemen would have a better chance to be invited to speak there than you would invite a peer of yours from the tea party to refute those statements at a gathered convention of your membership. The time for this acidic rhetoric must end! If you wish to continue a legitimate pursuit of equality and justice for all, you are not advancing those gains by branding an entire group as racist. I believe the term would be STEREOTYPING…a phrase we as Black Americans are quite familiar with.

I personally take offense at your statements because that also affects me by virtue of my affiliation with these patriots. In my current Congressional campaign in Missouri’s First District, I attempt to break down walls of ignorance and intolerance that have been built up by peoples of many parties and races, yet I refuse to use a broad stroke and condemn an entire group, organization, or club as the NAACP has done in this fashion. I implore you to retract this statement in a most expeditious manner and once again take your place as a legitimate force for equality and racial justice in America, instead of the group that seems to seek the media’s spotlight by screaming racist at every turn while taking a blind eye to true injustices that we could discuss at length - involving black on black crimes where black Republicans/Conservatives are treated with disdain - or in the case of Ken Gladney here in St. Louis, with violence. Yet in that case, you were rather silent. But today you wish to pillory that group that did stand with Mr Gladney when his racial peers chose not to.

I ask each one of you in a leadership role with the NAACP and your auxiliaries to truly look at the groups you put the racist label on and follow the advice of former president Ronald Reagan to “trust but verify”. Check your facts before you condemn a group and if you choose to pass judgement, please also be prepared to have that same judgement passed on you which of course continues the cycle of distrust and anger which will never advance mutual causes to advance freedom in America.

Respectfully Submitted,

Martin D Baker
Republican Candidate United States Congress
Missouri First District