Posted on 01/07/2011 12:06:41 PM PST by markomalley
(CNSNews.com) – The black leadership network Project 21 accused former Democratic National Committee Chairman and presidential candidate Howard Dean of “playing the race card” over remarks Dean made at a breakfast event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
Dean said the Tea Party was the “last gasp” of a 55-year-old generation and that most people involved in the Tea Party movement are “almost entirely over 55 and white.”
“This is the last gasp of the generation that has trouble with diversity, and the new generation doesn’t,” Dean said. “As I am fond of telling college audiences, you all have friends of different races, different religions and different sexual orientations and you all date each other.
“That’s not how I grew up and not how the Tea Party grew up,” Dean said. “The Tea Party is almost entirely over 55 and white.”
However, Dennen Borelli, a fellow at Project 21, said, “I’m black and nowhere near 55 and a strong supporter of the less government, less taxes and spending and increased freedom that the tea parties embody.”
Project 21’s statement issued Friday called Dean’s analysis of the Tea Party’s role in the recent mid-term elections and the upcoming presidential race in 2012 a “simplistic interpretation,” which opens “the new year on a hateful note by playing the race card against ‘tea party’ supporters of limited government.”
Dean said the Tea Party is reacting to a changing demographic in the United States, including the election of the nation’s first black president.
“I think it’s a group of older folks who’ve seen their lives change dramatically,” Dean said. “The country’s not the same.
“Every morning when they see the president they’re reminded that things are totally different than when they were born,” Dean said.
“Dean may be right that many tea partiers are older and more are whiter than me, but I don’t see the racial panic that Dean infers,” said Jerome Hudson, a 25-year-old college student and Project 21 member who has spoken at numerous Tea Party events.
“I receive applause and cheers for speaking from my heart about individual responsibility, the values of hard work and American exceptionalism,” Hudson is quoted as saying in the statement released by Project 21.
Borelli said that Dean, formerly a practicing physician, had misdiagnosed the political change happening in the United States, including the Tea Party’s influence on elections that put Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives.
“The Tea Party is the remedy to the toxic policies of the Obama administration,” Borelli said. “The recent progressive legislation and regulatory stranglehold brought high unemployment and three dollars-a-gallon gasoline.”
“You don’t need a medical degree to see the real cause of what’s unsettling Americans, and now – as a body politic -- they are treating what ails them,” said Borelli.
"Obviously struck and frustrated by the complete rejection of progressive policies and the reality of a host of new Tea Party-backed members of Congress coming to Washington, Howard Dean threw a verbal tantrum and made unfounded claims eluding to racism being a big factor. He should be ashamed of himself," said Borelli.
At the Christian Science Monitor event, Dean said the “vast majority” of Tea Party activists are populists who are against free trade, who do not mind taxing wealthy Americans and who want to see the federal budget balanced.
As for their influence on the 2012 election, Dean said it will depend on what faction of the Tea Party is dominant among the three he thinks make up the movement: the “racist fringe” Tea Party, the “corporate” Tea Party led by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey or the populist Tea Party crowd.
“I can’t wait to see which Tea Party really emerges,” Dean said.
"Dean's comments are of a consistent and tactical narrative meant to spin the situation,” said Hudson in the Project 21 statement. “The midterm election proved that the tea party message of less spending, lower taxes and a constrained federal bureaucracy won with American voters. In response, Dean and others on the left appear ready to play the race card to shore up any remaining vestiges of power."
Every time the good doctor speaks, he plays the delusion card. He needs a time out, in a rubber room.
I’m not 55 (I’m 33) and at one point in the past, probably wouldn’t have been considered white either. Mostly by guys like Howard Dean I might add. (I’m of Italian descent).
The first American President ever to get point on cleanliness. ‘He don’t stink at all folks, not even a little!’ LoL
So what we have is
Bright
Articulate
Black
Clean
Nice-looking
All the qualities you need to be a Dem President.
Who needs
Experience
Accomplishments
Excellence
Academics
Intelligence
Wisdom
Integrity
Trustworthiness
Nah, all those thing can’t compare to being the first Black man ever who is bright And clean.
I wonder how MLK and Collin Powell felt about Biden’s insights.
The guy is senile. He really is. LoL
and that means what howie???? You’re white. Your DEFINITELY over 55...so...what are you trying to say howie? Trying to gain points are ya? What an idiot he is a true and pure CLOWN of the highest order.
The guy on the left looks like “Epic beard man” from YouTube.
...You mean the former Governor of the whitest state in the Union????
Nah, it's just tactics.
Put 25% of the electorate in your pocket and verbally whip them up into red-hot race hate against the 75%, and you stack the deck for every election. Do the math.
That's what the Dems have been playing at since FDR was elected.
Katrina......he felt we were sorts racist here in the aftermath and comments about black looting and lawlessness.....something like that....other....a few black freepers....went with him....most came back in time.....im just the messenger as to how I recall it faintly.....u asked
Katrina......he felt we were sorts racist here in the aftermath and comments about black looting and lawlessness.....something like that....other....a few black freepers....went with him....most came back in time.....im just the messenger as to how I recall it faintly.....u asked
Are you possibly Sicilian. My BIL was and quite dark skinned. Passed away several years ago in his 70’s and still had a FULL head of black hair no grey...Loved him very much and a sweeter guy your ever meet...he once said the only soap he used to wash his hair was a bar of Ivory..
Thanks. He might have had a point. I don’t recall anything specific, but I remember thinking that a few comments were close to the edge.
I wish he’d come back.
Given some unpleasant realities it's not easy being a minority freeper especially a celebrity one like he is/was.
Katrina sorta exposed some of those harsh realities that reflect poorly on black culture and many freepers who live in homogeneous areas and have little experience with such things were shocked by reports coming from the Superdome and Convention Center of barbarism and what they saw of looting and the ineptness of Nagin and they sounded off in anger. For folks like me who grew up within 2 hours of New Orleans it was about what we expected..
Personally I rarely ever witness white supremacist talk here and the only time I ever saw it was actually a ruse perpetrated by a black moderate GOP group based in MD sent to infiltrate the forum and shame us. It backfired. So I have never bought the notion espoused by some hre that racism is part and parcel of the forum...JR is extremely strict on this and bends over backwards to tolerate for example a balance just for appearance...but his recent homosexual agenda purge bagged a few we had known were not one of us for years.
On Mike, I'm mixed. Personally I liked him and I respected that it was a bigger leap to embrace conservatism simply due to his peer group and expectations but I did not always agree with him...especially on the sensitive stuff, but he is/was very capable.
Like I said it's complicated. Conservatism for me is empirical truth based on realities and personal experience...tempered with God given moral idealism....not ideology or party so much but about what works and what is based on what I see and witness..hence my own views often conflict with minorities here.
It's unavoidable.....I always qualify by admitting that it's easy for a 50 year old white southerner like me to be conservative..hell we all are...or at least around 90% plus
No, mostly Neapolitan ancestry on my father’s side. Mother’s side is (Quaker) German, Irish, Dutch. I am darker than the average German or Brit, but not that dark skinned really. Just that I know in many parts of the US in the early 20th century, Italians were considered “other” than white.
I loved my brother in law....His father was from the old country (shhh black hand) but that was another branch of the family...His mother was first generation Italian..Loved her too. I was the only one she ever gave her recipe for Lasagna to. But she made me promise I would never tell anyone else.. It is magnificent..Now my daughter knows how to make it...
I use to make it so much the recipe never got written down cause I never figured I'd forget...but alas, I lived too long, should have written it down...When my daughter first made it, she called and said it didn't taste right, I had to go over and taste it to see what what missing.. It has been perfected once again...:O)
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