Is the Tea Party racist? The NAACP thinks so. And the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white pride group, agrees.

Of course the Tea Party is racist, crowed a blog post on the Council's website yesterday -- and it would be proud of its racism if it weren't wussy.

The post was written by James Edwards, a radio show host and author of Racism Schmacism. His website, the Political Cesspool, declares as its motto: "Conservatism is dead. Liberalism has no answers. What comes next? The rise of ethnopolitics."

After the NAACP passed a recent resolution condemning the Tea Party as a bunch of bigots, the ragtag band of would-be American revolutionaries launched into denials. That's because they're week-kneed, lily-livered racists whose instinct is to "bend over and grab their ankles", wrote Edwards, who suggested they connect with their inner-cackling villains:

"Instead of replying with a loud BWAHAHAHA! or a 'Yeah? What's your point?' or 'So what?' or 'Of course we're racists - we're white people. That's what "racist" means' or 'Can any of you race hustlers even spell "racist"?' The Tea Party predictably went into their usual bend over and grab their ankles mode. They protested that oh no, we're not racists at all, we don't tolerate racists at our rallies which are really huge rainbow coalitions."

Edwards is right. The Tea Party is hiding the truth about itself: Racist groups are quietly welcomed at its starchy street fairs, even right here in Florida.



Last January, a state chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) set up shop at a Tea Party rally in Invernness, Citrus County. Senate candidate and Tea-Party darling Marco Rubio headlined the event, while the CCC handed out pamphlets and swag.

They wrote a proud blog entry about it: "Florida CofCC works crowd at TEA party." The

Anti-Defamation League warned of the group's attendance a day ahead of time.



The CCC extols the free market and other conservative shibboleths. But it dislikes "the mixture of the races," and, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, looks upon black people as a "retrograde species of humanity" and abhors Jews.

Last May, its CEO insisted to New Times that its secret member-list includes mixed-race people, blacks and a Japanese Shinto practitioner. But it wouldn't be a white pride group

without plenty of whites - from working stiffs, he said, to law enforcement officials, doctors, lawyers, professors, and office-holders of both political parties.