Niger Innis slammed New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel for comparing the tea party to “white crackers” who opposed civil rights in the South, Friday.

“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,” Innis, an African American and the chief strategist for TheTeaParty.net, told The Daily Caller in an interview.

According to Innis, Rangel comparing the tea party to segregationists represents the same strategy white Southern Democrats in the South used prior to the civil rights era — back then obscuring the issues by playing what he called the “nigger 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 ‘nigger card’ back then,” Innis explained.

“Now black Democrats have learned that trick and are dropping the ‘cracker card,’ with their black constituents,” he added. “But in the case of the poor whites back then and the poor blacks today what you had was politicians running away from their record and confusing the issue.”

Innis, who is also the national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), said that Rangel is part of a “long tradition of Democrat, racist demagogues” who run to race when they are not able to deliver for their constituents.

“What Charlie Rangel should be talking about is the level of performance of kids in the public schools in his district, what he should be talking about are the lack of jobs and the record high unemployment rate in his district and among black Americans all across his country,” Innis explained.

“What he should be talking about is the black-on-black genocide that is taking place in the urban center,” he added. “But unfortunately leaders like Charlie Rangel and the leaders that have run Detroit for the last 50 years have nothing but a record of failure and want to change the issue.”

Of being compared to a “white cracker” Innis joked that Rangel had made history.

“I can tell Charlie that many racial epithets have been used against me, particularly with the spelling of my name, but I have never been called a ‘white cracker’ so he’s made history.” Innis said.

Rangels’ comments about the tea party appeared in The Daily Beast Friday.

“It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police,” The Daily Beast quoted Rangel. “They didn’t care about how they looked. It was just fierce indifference to human life that caused America to say enough is enough. ‘I don’t want to see it and I am not a part of it.’ What the hell! If you have to bomb little kids and send dogs out against human beings, give me a break.”

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