03 Aug 2013 Rangel Remark Wrong, Tea Party is Diverse, Distinguished

As Rachel Jeantel’s testimony in the George Zimmerman trial made clear, “cr-cker” is a racially-charged term.  Yet a senior liberal lawmaker felt entitled to use it when referring to the Tea Party movement during an interview with a major Internet media web site.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) tried to equate Tea Party activists who oppose government policies such as the takeover of private health care in America and poorly-administered spending programs to civil rights era segregationists.  Rangel said about the Tea Party: “It is the same group we faced in the South with those white cr-ckers and the dogs and the police.”

It’s going to be hard for Rangel to prove the Tea Party has a police force, but what is more surprising is that the liberal lawmaker – who has served in Congress since before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated – could think it is appropriate to throw out a racial term such as “cr-cker” (which has so recently been a topic of national discussion) in referring to his political enemies.

Unless it’s for crass purposes of political assassination, of course.

Project 21 member Niger Innis, in an interview with The Daily Caller, suggested Rangel’s toxic terminology is an act of political judo:

It is not surprising that lazy, shiftless politicians who have an abysmal record for their community would want to diffuse the issue of what they are doing for their communities by dropping the race card.  I’m making a direct connection between the way games were played with poor whites in the South.  [White Southern Democrats] would drop the “n-gger card” back then.  Now, black Democrats have learned that trick and are dropping the “cracker card,” with their black constituents.

Niger, a Tea Party activist and chief political strategist for TheTeaParty.Net, said he has never been referred to as a “cr-cker” in the past.

Other members of Project 21 who are black and yet still affiliate with the allegedly “white cr-cker”-dominated Tea Party movement, are also speaking out against Rangel’s incendiary and clearly unhelpful contribution to American political discourse.

Emery McClendon is a Project 21 member and a Tea Party organizer in northern Indiana who received an award from Americans for Prosperity for his activism on behalf of smaller and more responsible government.  Emery said:

Perhaps Charlie Rangel needs to recheck his American history before he speaks.  The Tea Party is composed of conservative, God-fearing people – not those who rallied with the likes of Bull Connor and other southern Dixiecrats in the 1960s.  Unlike the Ku Klux Klan, the Tea Party movement invites all citizens to become involved in its activities.  I am not aware of a single racial event tied to the Tea Party movement since it began in 2009.

Demetrius Minor, a Project 21 member who has also attended his share of Tea Party events in southern Virginia, said:

The remarks made by Representative Charlie Rangel present a tarnished and divided stance on racial relations in America.

We should focus on strengthening and uplifting one another, and this comment unfortunately moves us towards regression – not progression.  We should always condemn racial bigotry and embrace a more peaceful and harmonious society.

And Project 21 member Lisa Fritsch, who has spoken at many Tea Party events in her native Texas and elsewhere – and who is the author of the book Obama, Tea Parties and God, said:

We should all be embarrassed and disgusted by Representative Rangel and his pathetic attempt to lie his way into importance.  He is indifferent to the truth and wouldn’t know a true Tea Party patriot if they smacked him on the face.  His constituents should call for an apology for his racial disparity of whites and demand more from their elected representative.  He has outed himself as the racist bigot.  Enough is enough.