"Someone must hold the line"

Ta-Nehisi Coates gets to the heart of the bogus "controversy" over the NAACP.

Today, NAACP delegates passed a resolution to condemn extremist elements within the Tea Party, calling on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.

The reaction to this announcement has been swift and, in the main, negative. Next door, Dave Weigel, whose knowledge of the Tea Party is formidable, dismisses the resolution as "silliness" and "a stunt," and Chris Bodenner bemoans the fact that he ended Monday praising the Tea Party over the NAACP. If I'm reading this right, Michael Tomasky believes Obama should attack the NAACP because their resolution "heightens division." I think Michael McGough captures the spirit of "sensible" criticism:

I see a fairness problem with the NAACP's resolution calling upon Tea Party leaders to "repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches." (The quote is from an NAACP press release which does not provide the text of the resolution.) Calling on an organization to denounce abhorrent behavior by some of its devotees may seem reasonable. But it implies that the extremists/bigots/bombers are a sufficiently significant component of the organization that such a gesture is necessary.

The NAACP's announcement initially struck me in much the same the way. But some hours of considering this have proven to me that my initial skepticism says more about the broad American narrative of race and racism, then it does about the justness of the NAACP's charge.

I think it's worth, first, considering the record of American racism, and then the record of the Tea Party and its allies. Racism tends to attract attention when it's flagrant and filled with invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is frame-flipping--positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do not simply want to marry, they want to convert our children into sin. The Jews do not merely want to be left in peace, they actually are plotting world take-over. And the blacks are not actually victims of American power, but beneficiaries of the war against hard-working whites. This is a respectable, more sensible, bigotry, one that does not seek to name-call, preferring instead change the subject and strawman. Thus segregation wasn't necessary to keep the niggers in line, it was necessary to protect the honor of white women.

SNIP

Given this record, I am at a loss to understand the criticism directed at the NAACP. This is a Civil Right organization who's taken as part of its mission opposing any attempt to inject racism into American politics. When the Tea Party's media advocates, when the politicians the movement embraces, when the speakers at its conventions do precisely that, and the NAACP responds by "calling on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches," I have trouble finding the actual problem.

Given my own initial skepticism, I'm left with the notion that many of us that like to consider ourselves sober-minded and fair, have forgotten the history of this country we love. No matter. I cannot speak for others, but I was immediately jogged back to reality by the Tea Party's response:

You're dealing with people who are professional race-baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It's time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history...

This is not some deluded crazy, who has infiltrated the Tea Party with an offensive sign. This is the national spokesman for the Tea Party Express claiming that one of the authors of the 20th century American revolution is actually a "vile racist" organization. This is who they are--America's far right-wing, speaking with all the emboldened ignorance that is fast becoming their stock in trade. I have had, and continue to have, my criticism of the NAACP. But the notion that they are somehow being unfair to the Tea Party, that President Obama should denounce the NAACP, says a lot about our desire to forget and their insistence that we do no such thing.

I have long been one to question the NAACP's relevance. Moments like these remind me that I have been very wrong. It is not my style to spend my days attempting to enlighten or embarrass the Tea Party. But someone has to do it. Someone has to say, "It's not OK." That is not work for "sensible" people. But it's work that has to be done. Someone must hold the line.

It's too easy for white liberals who work with and for black professionals, who socialize with black friends, who actually back in the day marched into tear gas for the cause, who wore out shoe leather canvassing for Barack Obama, to dismiss Tea Party racism as the last gasp of a dying fringe.

If you don't think the NAACP's resolution was a timely and profound call for a return to genuine American values, then you haven't been paying attention.