Even for Mark Williams, this is bizarre. In an interview with NPR, he accused the NAACP of wanting racism to continue because it is profitable for them.
Now to a war of words between the Tea Party and the country's largest civil rights group. At its annual convention in Kansas City, the NAACP approved a resolution condemning what it calls racist elements within the Tea Party. Tea Party leaders dispute the charge, as NPR's Cheryl Corley reports.CHERYL CORLEY: Here's how this fray began. NAACP President Benjamin Jealous issued this challenge to the Tea Party...
Mr. BENJAMIN JEALOUS (President, NAACP): You must expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take full responsibility for all of their actions.
CORLEY: Last night, delegates at the convention unanimously approved a resolution echoing Jealous's words. It said that while the group believed in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in democracy, the Tea Party should repudiate bigoted statements, images and any racist leaders.
Mr. MARK WILLIAMS (Spokesman, Tea Party Express): I don't recall the NAACP speaking out when George Bush was portrayed as curious George or as the Joker.
CORLEY: Mark Williams is a national spokesman for the Tea Party Express.
Mr. WILLIAMS: I don't recall the NAACP ever standing up and saying that we needed to, you know, civilize discourse when Republicans were in the White House.
CORLEY: A number of Tea Party leaders say they don't tolerate racist displays. And Williams contends that it's actually the NAACP that's bigoted.
Mr. WILLIAMS: You're dealing with people who are professional race baiters, who make a very good living off of 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.
First we have the false equivalence argument that has definitely seen better days, where Williams whines about how the NAACP treated George W. Bush back in the day. While it is true that in 2004 the NAACP and then-President Bush had some tense moments, I could find no evidence of the NAACP agitating for its members to spread the "Curious George" theme at all.
However, there's a pretty large difference between the NAACP calling for the Tea Party to renounce racism like this, and Mark Williams' contention that the NAACP exists to profit from racism, even "more than slave traders."
Until recently, Williams was on the payroll of the Tea Party Express, Inc. They're the group that sponsored the Sarah Palin Book Tour and is based here in California. Funded by Ross Perot and other uber-conservatives, they specialize in muckraking and bus tours. Williams stepped down as the head of the group, but retained his position as spokesman.
Because, well, he is so eloquent in his statement of Tea Party values, isn't he?
John Amato:
The fact that a vile Mark Williams is a spokesman for anything trying to appear civil is indicative of the far extreme right nature of the Tea Party crowd. A man who's called African Americans too lazy to get out of the way from Hurricane Katrina should have been enough to have disqualified him for ever commenting on the issue of race in America. But NPR does it's duty in mainstreaming disgusting characters like Mark to the public. beign a racist really does pay off.
Williams: ..they didn't have the necessary brains and common sense to get out of the way of a Cat 5 Hurricane and then when it hit them- stood on the side of the convention Center expiring while reporters were coming and going..
Morris:...that's just sickening---that is atrocious what you are saying.
Williams: The only role race plays in this is that the American black population has been the prototype for an entire race of people being, being turned into a group of dependents of the government--trapped there, I'm using that word very loosely are screaming we want help, we want help..
And here's another one.
