In a recent Huffington Post column, co-host of the Al Sharpton show and “frequent MSNBC contributor,” Earl Ofari Hutchinson (pictured above) had some choice words for members of the Republican party.

It appears, according to Hutchinson, that regardless of whether Republicans like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Rick Perry denounce rocker Ted Nugent’s comment calling President Obama a “subhuman mongrel,” those Republicans are still racist.

To Hutchinson, Republicans can never not be racist because there are racist people in America who vote Republican. Moreover, it’s the Republican appeal to voters residing in the south and in “flyover” country that makes the party perpetually racist.

A blast here and there against a nutty rocker is not even the proverbial finger in the dike against the steady torrent of racial baiting that has routinely poured from the lips and actions of legions of GOP rank and filers, especially against Obama… The hard reality is that there are still millions of GOP backers in the South and Heartland, and the gaggle of right-wing webs, blogs, and talk radio jocks that think the GOP’s only flub is that it’s not truly conservative enough. They have hammered the GOP that any retreat from its core beliefs and message will perpetually doom it to political extinction in national politics. They warn that if the GOP suddenly started pandering to minorities and gays it could kiss millions of their fervent supporters goodbye.

To say nothing of the improper — and arguably bigoted — stereotyping of the South and Heartland as inherently racist, the above quoted excerpt is ironic for a number of reasons. First, it wrongfully presupposes that those who believe the GOP isn’t “truly conservative enough,” (i.e. the Tea Party movement) are also somehow automatically racist. This assertion is wrong for so many reasons that it no longer merits serious consideration.

Second, Hutchinson neglects to account for – or perhaps actively avoids recognizing — the racism lodged firmly within his own party. To illustrate my point, I’ve cataloged a few notable recent examples of Democrat bigotry for Mr. Hutchinson to peruse at his pleasure.

During the 2008 election cycle, Democrat Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid, referred to President Obama as “light-skinned,” and having “no negro dialect.” When news of the Senators comments surfaced in book about the 2008 campaign, Reid apologized.

Last year, South Carolina Democratic Chairman, Dick Harpootlin, predicted Indian-American Republican Governor, Nikki Haley, would be sent “back to wherever the hell she came from” in 2014 by her Democrat challenger. Criticism followed Harpootlin’s comment causing him to respond saying that anyone offended by it was, “attempting to feign insult.”

Clarence Thomas, the second African-American Supreme Court Justice, and frequent target of Democrat racism has been attacked repeatedly over the past year on the basis of race. Earlier this month Alabama Rep. Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery) called Justice Thomas an “Uncle Tom” while speaking from the Alabama House floor.

Not long before that, following a 5-4 Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act, Minnesota Democrat state legislator, Ryan Winkler, tweeted, “#SCOTUS VRA majority is four accomplices to race discrimination and one Uncle Thomas…” (“Uncle Tom” is a connotation to describe someone subservient to another and has its roots in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s pre-Civil War novel about slavery, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”)

The list goes on and on.

Truth be told, regardless of what region of the country you hail from or what political party you call your own, racism still exists. However, it appears only to be Republicans – particularly in the south – that are stigmatized as “racist.”

This is because the standard, both in the media and in popular culture – is applied differently to Republicans than it is Democrats. In a recent exchange with Wolf Blitzer, Newt Gingrich aptly described this as “selective media outrage.” It’s not that outrage over comments like those made by Nugent is necessarily misplaced, it’s that many are rightly curious as to where the outrage is when substantially similar comments are made from the other side of the political spectrum.

So, Mr. Hutchinson, would you apply the same standard of perpetual racism you accuse Republicans of to your fellow Democrats?

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