Change.org Race-Baiting Continues
This is the most troubling message yet received directly from Change.org, one of astrorturf’s biggest and baddest community organizing groups. After seeing what happened this weekend, why are they not mindful of the violence they are stoking?
Our response is interspersed…
THIS WEEK on CHANGE.ORG
Dear Subscriber,
The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States was a watershed moment in American history, demonstrating how far we’ve come from the racial inequality of segregation and Jim Crow laws.
Yes we agree. Good-hearted people, mostly white, were eager to prove that we are NOT a racist nation, so much so, that we were willing to overlook the candidate’s sordid background with regard to his having been nurtured by communists and socialists… and vote for him anyway, hoping this would be a milestone for our country. But when he proved to be doing things destructive to America, we also spoke out. Apparently, this is not allowed. Does someone’s skin color preclude them from being criticized? It would seem so…
But over the past year, we’ve seen a disturbing undercurrent of racism across the country, most notably among a sizable portion of the Tea Party movement.
Hmm, most notably among the Tea Party? GOT ANY PROOF? Just wishing it doesn’t make it so. In fact, the tea party in NH has not so much as garnered a parking ticket and many law enforcement people themselves are members. Oh sure, certain Nazi-funded groups have tried to create smears to discredit the movement of the people, but since their attempts had no basis in fact, they backfired.
Only 40% of Tea Partiers believe that President Obama was born in the United States, and signs at Tea Party rallies regularly compare him to an African witch doctor — or worse.
Questioning citizenship has nothing to do with race. Absolutely NOTHING. It has to do with his qualification to hold office. We at NHTPC do not concern ourselves with this issue but if someone wants to question it, it is THEIR RIGHT, is it not, in a free country? Perhaps they are egged on by the fact that when confronted with that very accusation, Obama did not deny it, only stating “So what. I’m not running for President”.
We are not familiar with the sign mentioned, but we can only imagine that anyone who is not a complete political newbie understands that it is likely a play on the term ‘voodoo economics’ — used by a past politician to show his disapproval for a certain system being promoted. Many feel that Obama’s health care reform will subject them to ‘voodoo medicine’. Again not a thing to do with racism, but everything to do with BAD POLICY.
Public officials sympathetic to the movement such as U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins have added fuel to the fire, saying that “Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope.”
This is also an expression that came from the 1800s from a book, and has nothing whatsoever to do with race. You need to grow up and/or study history instead of knee-jerking everything into ‘racism’.
And last month, in one of the most offensive public acts of racism in recent memory, Tea Party protestors in front of Congress spit on civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis, denigrating him with the racial slur “nigger.”
Most offensive because it is yet MOST UNPROVEN. Still there has been no proof of anyone spitting or calling names despite a $100K reward offered to the UNCF by Andrew Breitbart. The Congressman himself has even backed down on his claim. But still you use this to bait people and it’s working.
Tea Partiers are now starting to feel the brunt of the violence groups like yours, and the media have caused, with this kind of talk. Does President Obama sanction this kind of talk? I don’t think he does.
Our ongoing battle with race is not just black and white. Two weeks ago, Arizona passed an anti-immigrant law that permits police to use racial profiling to stop anyone on the street who looks like an undocumented immigrant and to demand proof of legal U.S. residence. The Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles says it rivals “German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques,” and one Arizona sheriff was explicit in calling the law “racist.”
Once again you are manufacturing BALD FACED LIES in order to race-bait and incite ‘reconquistas’ to the kind of violence we saw over the May 1 weekend when 3 innocent people were attacked and injured. There is NOTHING in the Arizona law that is different from the national law, and no one can be profiled just because they look ‘different’. The person has to be doing something else illegal first, before it would even be discovered that he or she were illegal. In fact, many of the protesters who were doing the violence last Saturday admitted aloud they were illegal and nothing happened to them.
It’s clear that despite our very real progress, issues of race and racism are not just a thing of our past.
It is clear that since you have no answers for the failings of this administration, you are resorting to racism where none exists, with the intent of creating a scenario of the worst kind for the future, to serve your political ends.
In response to this reality, and with the hope of helping to shape our future, Change.org is pleased to announce the launch of Race in America, our sixteenth cause.
Starting this week, Change.org’s team of more than a dozen Race in America writers will be bringing you daily news, commentary, and opportunities for involvement on issues of race. As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Chancellor writes in his first column for Race in America, the site’s goal is to build bridges that span the racial divide — by “shining a light on issues and problems; by sparking honest conversation and by providing vehicles for action.”
Shame on you.. so now you are going to fan the flames of violence by writing more lies and garbage? Will you be responsible for all the people who might get hurt as a result of your filthy agit-prop?
Discussions about race are often uncomfortable, and many people would prefer to sweep the issue under the rug. But to ignore the issue is to cede the conversation to those who would exploit issues of race to advance their own social and political ends. If we seek a world in which racism is no longer a salient part of our society, we must be willing to stand up and be part of the solution. We hope you’ll join us in this effort.
To start, people cannot have a conversation with people like YOU, who LIE. We hope you will reconsider your extremist and incendiary language, stop lying about Arizona’s law, which is the same as the federal law and even includes a clause that prohibits stopping someone for no good reason, and stop the race-baiting.
You are causing innocent people to be attacked and injured by your incitement of violence and hatred.