[Fifth of my weekly oratorial expositions on Broad View, KBZZ 1270 AM Reno.  Click on the microphone to listen.]

This past Saturday, Representative Maxine Waters, congresswoman from the Los Angeles area of California, was addressing some of her constituents and said this:

“I’m not afraid of anybody.  This is a tough game.  You can’t be intimidated.  You can’t be frightened.  And as far as I’m concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell.”

I sent Ms. Waters an email the next day, saying:

“Dear Maxine, regarding your words about the Tea Party, you say you’re not intimidated, so why don’t you come on Broad View next week and discuss exactly what the Tea Party has done to earn a curse of eternal damnation.  Let’s refrain from using insults and avoid speaking from ignorance, and simply talk ideas and facts, okay?  I know you’re busy with your trial for ethics violations but, if you’ve got some time, let’s talk.  Love, J.P.”

I haven’t heard back from her.

Two days later it was Representative Frederica Wilson’s turn.  She’s another black congresswoman, from Florida this time, and she was also addressing a town hall gathering of constituents:

“Let us all remember who the real enemy is.  The real enemy is the Tea Party—the Tea Party holds the Congress hostage.  They have one goal in mind, and that's to make President Obama a one-term president.”

So now that Osama bin Laden is dead, I guess the Tea Party moves to number one on the Post Office wall.

Last year it was Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, congresswoman from the Houston, Texas, area, addressing the national convention of the NAACP:

“All those who wore sheets a long time ago have now lifted them off and started wearing, uh, clothing, uh, with a name, say, I am part of the Tea Party.  Don’t you be fooled.”

There are always a lot of “uhs” and grammatical mistakes when Sheila Jackson Lee speaks because she’s pretty stupid even by congressional standards.  This is the woman who asked a NASA witness during a committee hearing for a photograph of the American flag that Neil Armstrong planted on Mars, and she thinks the Vietnam War ended with, quote, “Two Vietnams working side by side, living in peace.”

This week, at an event to honor the new Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial in Washington, Sheila had another chance to hurl insults at the Tea Party:

“Martin King wrote in 1961 about love, war and civil disobedience and he said we must be determined to resist reactionaries.  My friends, you are now entering a reactionary period probably worse than post-Reconstruction.”

You got that?  The Tea Party, which is certainly the reactionaries she’s talking about, by wanting the country to return to its constitutional republican roots is worse than the white racist Ku Klux Klansmen Democrats who rampaged through the South hanging Republicans from trees.  By the way, a lot of people don’t know this, but the KKK lynched all Republicans, not just the black ones, and black voters back then were almost 100% Republican because they could see firsthand who was against civil rights and who was for them.

There was another Jackson at that Martin Luther King ceremony this week: Jesse Jackson.  Naturally, he had some comments about the Tea Party, too:

“The Tea Party is not new.  It's just a new name for an old game.”

And Jesse knows about “old games,” being a race hustler for half a century now.  I’m guessing that Martin Luther King was spinning in his grave if he heard any of the hate speech being uttered in his honor this week.  And he was already spinning in his grave because the new statue they’re dedicating tomorrow was made in China, and the sculptor is a Chinese guy... and for crying out loud the new statue of King sort of looks Chinese.  What happened?  The government couldn’t find a black sculptor somewhere in America who needed a few bucks and wanted to make a statue of Martin Luther King?  Really?

Anyway, that’s beside the point.

The amount and volume of racial hate speech coming from black politicians is rising to ridiculous levels, that’s the point.  I consider myself a Tea Partier, although to be honest I’m not exactly sure what that means.  To me it means that I identify with tens of millions of other Americans, of all races and all political backgrounds and all levels of wealth who believe in individual freedom and limited government.  That’s all.  I don’t wear a white sheet on weekends or secretly attend meetings where we concoct ways to keep “The Race” pure or have any plans to form a militia in the Sierra foothills.  On July 4th, 2009, I attended my one and only Tea Party gathering, down on Virginia Avenue, and I attended that event with a black woman who didn’t bother to hide the fact that she voted for Obama for president.  We walked all around through that event, talking to people, and when people learned she was an Obama supporter, she received nothing but friendly discussion.  “Why?  Why do you like him?” they would ask, honestly amazed that anybody could like Obama, and then they would smile and laugh and try to change her mind.

All in all, and I’m not exaggerating one single bit, that Tea Party gathering was the nicest, friendliest group of people I’ve ever seen.  Passionate about America and freedom, but nice people.

The Maxines of this world?  I think their time has passed and they can sense it.  A larger and larger percentage of the population is multi-racial and no longer comprehends those sour, tired lines of racial B.S., and looks at the Maxines like artifacts in a museum.  The liberal/socialist method of governing the country has failed miserably and the repercussions have been worse for the constituents of the race hustlers than for anybody else, and that makes them desperate.

Looked at in that light, I don’t feel anger for Maxine Waters and her ilk.  I feel pity.

“You do not wake up one morning a bad person.  It happens by a thousand tiny surrenders of self-respect to self-interest.” —Robert Brault

From Reno, Nevada, USA        Tweet

September 15, 2011 - Great article. I have to disagree with you that most people are over the race issue. I have friends and family who are of many different races and we live in a predominately black neighborhood. It's always interesting to hear what different ethnicities have to say about one another. It's actually shocking sometimes. I know white people who still use the N-word on a regular basis, I know a black couple who prefer that their own children only play with white kids, I have friends who won't shop at certain stores because they are "black people stores," I have a black friend who recently told me that black men only date white women because they are "weaker" than black women. I've heard older white men say "colored people" instead of black people. This only scratches the surface and certain things are not worth repeating. Racism still runs deep in our society. Sometimes I just smile and nod when people talk this way, while in my head I'm thinking "wow, you are really stupid aren't you?" In my opinion, people who are racist, are mainly those who have never been exposed to other races. They base their opinions on what they've heard from their parents or seen on television. If you take the time to get to know people, it becomes obvious that we are more alike than different. However, I feel like, with blacks and whites, namely, we may be getting more "polite" with one another, but the ignorance appears to continue to get passed down through the generations. - Samantha, Michigan

August 28, 2011 - People like Maxine Waters are despicable human beings no matter what your political beliefs are. Surely we don't need to reduce every single political discussion down to calling those we disagree with racists. By doing that, Waters and Lee and the rest insult the people who have faced and overcome REAL racism in their lives. - C.P., Las Vegas

August 28, 2011 - Couldn't agree with you more. Just learned about you and the radio show from Amy. Keep up the good work! - Carol B., Reno