Aug 03 An Open Letter to Representative Keith Ellison Regarding the Tea Party

Dear Congressman Ellison,

I identify with the Tea Party movement. You and I do not agree politically. That said, I assume you to be an intelligent individual. As you consider the following, I hope you will provide me with the benefit of the same doubt.

Last November, you met with a delegation of Tea Party activists who descended upon Washington D.C. in protest of the health care bill. The Star-Tribune quoted your reaction.

“They were pretty polite and reasonable after we started talking,” Ellison said. “Not that we ever agreed, but they really were fairly polite, you know, and I was not really prepared for that.”

That’s an interesting admission. Clearly, you held some preconceived notion of who a Tea Partier is and how they behave which turned out not to be true.

As I read of your recently expressed solidarity with the NAACP’s call for the Tea Party to “repudiate racist elements,” it appears you remain unprepared to confront the true nature of this movement.

“I think there have been some individuals associating themselves with the tea party that have expressed extreme racist views and I think the tea party as a movement should disavow those people,” Ellison said. “If they don’t disavow it, they’re going to be associated with it.”

As a nod to our mutually presumed intelligence, let’s acknowledge this comment for what it is. As Politico points out, your party’s national committee has chosen to bank on a negative public perception of the Tea Party movement – a perception they hope to create – as they continue to conflate the movement with the Republican party. For your part in this strategy, you posit this rhetorical alley-oop, a plainly unreasonable demand for the decentralized  movement to act as a whole. You and I both know there is no one organization which can step forward and disavow anything on behalf of the entire movement. We also both know you will associate the Tea Party with racism, no matter how many individuals or groups repeatedly assert their commitment against it.

I will not push you to feign ignorance of this strategy – and your place in it – by condemning you for it. I acknowledge it as politics as usual, a partisan tactic not intended for rational critique. Instead of condemning you, I want to help you. I want to empower you with the knowledge your strategy suggests you lack. Perhaps it will prepare you for your next encounter with us, so you won’t be caught surprised.

Even if you publicly pursue the tired narrative of Tea Party and Republican Party as one, it would serve you to privately acknowledge the difference. The Tea Party movement cannot be handled utilizing the same old divide-and-conquer tactics which work in partisan politics. Political parties are chartered with a single purpose, to elect candidates and hold power. To that end, politicians and parties concern themselves with reputation and public perception, occasionally at the expense of stated principles. The activists who make up the Tea Party reverse those priorities.

The movement is not married to a brand. Defame “Tea Party,” and we’ll rise as something else. Discredit one group, and five more will take its place. Destroy an individual reputation, and others will rally to the cause. What you face is more than a political opponent. When you strip away the signs and banners, and look beyond the rallies and meetings, the Tea Party is nothing more than citizens turned on to their civic duty.

You face commitment. You’re dealing with people who are daily cognizant of the sacrifices of men like Army Sgt. 1st Class Mike Schlitz, a wounded warrior whose disfigurement was incurred fulfilling his oath to protect and defend the Constitution. You’re dealing with people who daily reflect upon the price our Founding Fathers paid to secure the blessings of liberty for posterity. Such people do not shrink from name-calling.

In your district, we are the Minority Ethnic Political Caucus, a group coordinated by North Minneapolis businessman Don Allen and attended by frequent Tea Party rally fixture (and candidate to replace you) Barb Davis White. They are tired of the perpetual promise of urban economic development which never comes. On the national level, we are represented in part by C.L. Bryant, a former NAACP chapter president who now advocates aggressively for fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets. In your neighboring district, I coordinate the Minnesota CD3 Tea Party Patriots. Like you, I started as a black kid from Detroit who later adopted Minnesota as home. I have been welcomed with open arms by Tea Party groups in rural Mille Lacs County, suburban Carver County, and anywhere liberty advocates are found.

I invite you to spend some time getting to know the Tea Party activists in Minnesota. If you’re intent upon associating us with racism, you might as well associate names with faces. Do us the courtesy of directing your accusations at the specific individuals who have “expressed extreme racist views.” Don’t allow them to operate in the shadows. Point them out. Then we’ll talk repudiation.

Sincerely,

Walter Hudson

Cross-posted at Fightin Words, where comments are welcome.