Who Wrote the NAACP ‘Racist’ Tea Party Report?
- Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:15am by
Meredith Jessup
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Two weeks before a potentially game-changing midterm election, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has given its endorsement to a report labeling the tea party as a self-preserving movement of racist bigots. It‘s no wonder given the fact that NAACP’s political agenda conflicts with the vast majority of the tea party platform of smaller government and reduced spending.
With Wednesday’s release of the report, however, the news media is once again dropping the ball, not only by not pointing out the NAACP’s obvious conflict of interest with the tea party movement, but in failing to do their due diligence in reporting on where the report comes from and why it was written.
The Washington Post reports that the NAACP-endorsed “Tea Party Nationalism” was “put together” by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, but doesn’t report further on who the IREHR is. Politico reports that the NAACP “commissioned Leonard Zeskind and Devin Burghart” to write the study, but makes no mention of who Zeskind or Burghart are other than noting their association with the Institute.
The IREHR is a group with “long-held dreams for social and economic justice,“ who condemn the ”so-called Christian right, paleo-conservatism, and other far-right movements“ for their ”symbiotic relationship[s] with nativism and white nationalism.”
Call me crazy, but I think this group may have had a specific agenda in mind before they set out to paint the tea party movement as… uh… nativists and… gee, white nationalists.
But who are Zeskind and Burghart, the two authors the NAACP “commissioned” to write the report? The New York Times reports that Zeskind, a lifetime member of the NAACP, has “written extensively on white nationalism,” a serious understatement. Zeskind’s career has revolved around an obsession of the “abyss of mayhem and murder” America faces at the hands of “white nationalists.“ He has worked to establish himself as an ”expert on extremist groups” various media outlets routinely rely on for comment, but few have bothered to expose his own extremist past.
Laird Wilcox, a civil rights activists who is known for examining extremists on the right and left ends of the political spectrum, has previously had Zeskind on his radar. Like many notable modern liberals, Zeskind reportedly got his start working with the Sojourner Truth Organization (STO) where his primary role was motivating the working classes “to make a revolution.” The STO’s role model: Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, whose “iron discipline” the STO idolized.
In a 1978 article he wrote for the group’s journal, Urgent Tasks, named after V.I. Lenin. Zeskind wrote about “Workplace Struggles in Kansas City” and discussed the value of a grassroots “school of communism” that would “destroy the marketplace, not sell at it.” In a 1980 article for the same publication, Zeskind denounced the American military “as a tool of U.S. Imperialism.”
A 1981 City Magazine profile of Zeskind, author Bruce Rodgers described him as elusive and “near hysterical” and paranoid. Further, the STO was described as a group which surfaced “on occasion to distract and intimidate non-violent groups working for social change.”
According to reports, Zeskind spent the 1980s as a member of one pro-Stalinist group who worked to provoke the Ku Klux Klan and stir up racial tensions between blacks and whites. In 1986, this National Anti-Klan Network changed its name to a more benevolent-sounding Center for Democratic Renewal. In 1989, with Soviet communism on the way out, Zeskind told the Jewish Chronicle that he was “never the kind of Marxist-Leninist that they think of“ and claimed his Stalinist ideology was no longer a ”defining feature of my politics.”
At the same time, the CDR and other leftist groups were busy re-branding themselves as well. According to Wilcox, rather than present socialism or Marxism-Leninism as their goal at the time, they chose to change tactics and “piggy-back it onto anti-racism which is far more popular.”
At the same time, Zeskind’s co-author, Burghart, expanded his work studying “white nationalism” to include condemning anti-illegal immigration groups like the Minutemen on the country’s southern border, claiming the group was not patrolling the border to enforce American immigration laws, but only to prevent non-whites from entering. According to Burghart, the Minutemen represented “Klan-style” border patrol.
While working for the Center for New Community, Burghart participated in programs of the Center for Democratic Values, the think-tank arm of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Zeskind and Burghart began working cooperatively at the IREHR and have written in the past about “birthers” –but only now insist the label belongs slapped on the tea party.
During the summer, Zeskind and Burghart turned their focus toward the tea party. On July 11, Zeskind delivered a presentation to the NAACP’s National Convention specifically addressing the “dire threat” of the tea party (emphases mine):
The Tea Parties are a little bit like a poison apple–with three layers. At their center is a hard-core group of over 220,000 enrolled members of five national factions, and hundreds of thousands more that we have not yet counted but are signed up only with their local Tea Parties. At the next level is a larger less defined group of a couple of million activists who go to meetings, buy the literature and attend the many local and national protests. And finally there are the Tea Party sympathizers. These are people who say they agree with what they believe are the Tea Parties’ goal. These rank at about 16% to 18% of voters, depending on which organization is doing the polling. That would mean somewhere between 17 million and 19 million adult American voters count themselves as Tea Party supporters.
This is an overwhelmingly white and solidly middle class slice of the population, slightly older and less troubled financially than the rest of us. Please, remember this point when some political pundit or the other tells you these are economically strapped Americans hitting out at scapegoats. These are not populists of any stripe. These are ultra-nationalists (or super patriots) who are defending their special pale-skinned privileges and power. …
Now much of the media attention has been focused on FreedomWorks Tea Party, because it is headquartered in the DC area, and because Dick Armey was a big deal Republican. There are some who mistakenly speculate that this is an “Astroturf” phenomenon, that is a fake grassroots thing conjured up solely by Republican money and party officials.
But it is a real grass roots problem for us, and Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks Tea Party is not one of the larger Tea Party groups. ResistNet and Tea Party Patriots are actually the largest of the six national factions.
The Tea Parties are not just about taxes and budgets. They are against everything we are for, beginning with President Barack Obama. …
The IREHR also convened a July meeting in London during which, as Burghart notes, the growing momentum of the tea party was discussed on an international scale (emphases mine):
From the reaction of the audiences during my recent Searchlight-sponsored speaking tour of the United Kingdom, July 17-21, it appears that there is a high level of interest and concern about the influence of the Tea Parties on the political scene here in the United States. …
The tour began in London at a Labour Friends of Searchlight conference. Early in the day, highly-regarded Labour MP John Cruddas encouraged the crowd to learn from one another, and declared that Labour “must create a party rooted in a culture of organizing.” Continuing the organizing thread, I used my keynote speech to discuss the organizing techniques utilized by the Right in the United States. From the Christian Coalition to the Tea Parties, the Right has adapted new organizing techniques to stymie progressive change. …
At each of these events, the vast majority of the attendees responded that they closely followed American politics and were concerned about the rise of the Tea Parties. In my presentations, I discussed the birth of the Tea Party movement, and the size, scope, and ideology of the national factions.
Back in London for the final event of the tour, we held a public meeting to discuss the Tea Party phenomenon in the council chambers of Unison—Britain’s biggest public sector trade union. At the end of my presentation, there was tremendous interest in hearing about efforts to counter the rapid growth of the Tea Parties. We discussed the resolution passed by the NAACP condemning racism in the Tea Parties, and the NAACP delegates who held up “Hope Not Hate” signs on the convention floor.
An old Stalinist standby for undermining opposition is “ritual defamation,” as Wilcox has noted, “to call people names in the hope of defaming, discrediting, stigmatizing or neutralizing them.” From decrypted Venona files, we now know that the KGB routinely used race to divide people and British author Mark Shields has observed how the Soviets hoped “to weaken internal cohesion of the United States and undermine its international reputation by inciting race hatred.”
Are today’s liberals taking a page out of the old Soviet playbook? It would seem that way, as many on the left have decided the best way to undermine the influence of the tea party is to paint it as racist, nationalist and bigoted.
The NAACP and the report‘s authors clearly have a stake in undermining the growing influence of the tea party and it’s hardly coincidental that the report has been unveiled just two weeks from election day.
Given their past experiences working as radical leftists hell-bent on purposefully undermining the tea party movement, is it really so far fetched to assume that the NAACP’s latest “report” isn’t just another coordinated attack on the tea party from the liberal left?




















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Comments (124)
conservativeme
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 7:07amI read the report. They did nothing to tie anybody of significance in the Tea Party to anything racist. Lots of generalizations that anybody could make. Quit talking about it, and it will go away . . .
Report Post »wendio
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 6:54amWhen ‘groups for profit’ that thrive on lies have the sunlight exposing their mess… they can count on funds stopping.
2012… defund HATE …start here and move on to the next!
Report Post »grayjohn
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 6:47amSince the Tea Party has no leadership, no czar, no headquarters, how is it that one has to “sign up”?
Report Post »The NAACP is more like the CCCP than anyone ever realized. Colored people? Sure, as long as that color is soviet red.
EP46
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 6:07amLet me get this straight…….the idea of redistribution of wealth is so everyone has what the “white middle class” has or more which is suppose to be the American dream ……but the white middle class are bad and evil ?? They just want to take the “stuff” and get rid of the people I guess. I never hear any one say that one of the 10 Commandments is “you shall not covet”. Covet is to want what someone else has. It is truly sad how rich black people use and abuse people of their own race with fear and anger.
Report Post »blacksmith
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 5:31amIt is a sad fact that when most afican-Americans are polled that they have a conservative lean to their ideology but they are stuck with the historical inaccuracy that the republican party is the party of racism and hate. We need to embrace and educate the liberal minded so they do not live another 400 years in bondage serving a progressive agenda. freedom is our ultimate goal not just for us but all our bretheren. Let us all do our best to remove the boot of ignorance that Sharpton,Jackson,the NAACP and the progressive democrats have forced upon the necks of all the good people of America
Report Post »Contrarianthinker
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 2:46pmWise counsel. Do you have a specific strategy to do this?
Report Post »Momma M
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 4:35amWho wrote the NAACP “Racist” Tea Party Report? Duh… a RACIST!
Report Post »BarryDead
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 4:34amThe last gasp of a dieing dinosaur
W@nd@
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 4:06amIf the tea party is likened to a poison apple,
Report Post »it is due certainly to having been sprayed by enough poison from the left
to have it coat the apple, but the poison did not come from within
the apple itself but from without….
poison spewed by those full of vile venom of hate
from within their evil hearts!
It is a very hard article to read ~
sickening that someone could be so devoid of humanity whatsoever and
be called credible…
seems if there are indeed apples about –
it is these rotten ones at the bottom of the barrel!
joseph Fawcett
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 3:30amThank you the Blaze for this report, I appreciate it. We can only combat a lie when it is exposed as a lie.
http://www.josephfawcettart.com western artist
Report Post »Arc
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 3:27amTo all the Veterans: Personally, I did not fight Marxism, Communism or Socialism to stand idly by while the Democratic Party and the Left align themselves with all three. The men and women of the United States who bled and died, were permanently scarred and wounded fighting for FREEDOM deserve much more than to have the United States forsake their sacrifice. EXPOSE all of the anti-freedom individuals and organizations that are attempting to turn this country into a SOCIALIST state.
Report Post »LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!!!!!!!
retsofarik
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 7:16amI am a vet And I am ready to fight THEM aswell!
Report Post »deskpilot
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 7:42amRight There BESIDE you. USN(Ret)
Report Post »Bob_R_OathKeeper
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 8:05amLocked and Loaded. Semper Fi.
Report Post »M31Sailor
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 9:42amThank you for your service. Please start the war on these people Nov 2nd at the ballot box. If, at some point , the Obamacrats say they will not leave their positions of power who will the military stand with them or the Constitution?
Report Post »libertyordeath87
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 11:29amI am ready to defend the Consititution as well! Locked and Loaded!
Report Post »Disc_Coastie
Posted on October 23, 2010 at 9:50amI will join with you… US Coast Guard, Vet… My Grandfather did not sacrifice for me to let any administration sell us down the river!! Freedom is not free!
Remember in NOvember! Progressives are cancer, November starts the CURE!
Report Post »JDanielCross
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 3:10amPS Annual membership in the NAACP is only 30 dollars.
Report Post »Taquoshi
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 8:47amAre you suggesting that we all join and take over from the inside????
Report Post »Will NV
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 6:08pmIs that in food stamps?
Report Post »338lapua
Posted on October 22, 2010 at 8:45amI HATE giving money to folks that are sooooo wrongheaded. But I am in.
Report Post »BoilitDown
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 3:03amFREEOMOFSPEECH: Your “speech” is a little slurred. Please clarify what you’re talking about.
JDanielCross
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 2:54amIt’s ironic that the “study” also found anti-semitism within the Tea Party, considering the anti-semitism that is rampant amongst “Black Leaders”. From Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson, to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farakhan, to Rev. Al Sharpton, the race hustlers have used the anti-semitism within the black community to their advantage.
Report Post »Start thinking strategically and tactically, folks. Bitching and moaning isn’t getting anything done.
How about this: I’m all for the advancement of colored people. How about joining your local chapter of the NAACP? Become a card-carrying, voting member. Start thinking outside the box.
338lapua
Posted on October 22, 2010 at 8:43amThat is an interesting idea. Anybody else want to try this? Problem is I appear white.
Report Post »staythecourse
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 2:24amMeredith….good article. Thank you.
Report Post »Jimmers46
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 2:21amMr. Johnson, rot in hell!
Report Post »newsflea
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 2:14amFalse claims of racism have been such an effective tool to unify the left, they will keep reinventing newer and more wicked uses. How utterly sad for black America.
Report Post »WISEPENNY
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 2:04amWhere was the NAACP when Bad Az Shahbaz was spewing his venom about the need to “kill them *******’s babies“ or the SDIU boys whipped the snot out of one of their black brothers for passing out ”don’t tread on me“ flags at one of their ”peaceful” demonstrations. They have no credibility.
Report Post »Even if they do find someone violating someone else’s rights, they can’t seriously conclude that over 60% of the population is accountable for the isolated infringement, can they? That kind of logic is the real dangerous thinking! It’s actually sociopathic on their part.
Beckofile
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 4:54pmBut thats the good racism. You know the one that keeps the NAACP is the race business.
Report Post »BoilitDown
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:47am“Ritual defamation” certainly does decribe what the MSM is doing to the Tea Parties. I am vary glad that the destroyers of America find the Tea Party Movement a “dire threat” to their socialist, race baiting ideology.
Report Post »I’ll bet their “report” adds to the ranks of the Tea Parties.
Perhaps massive amountgs of e-mails to the media denouncing their acceptance of this report might have some effect. That will be my meager contribution.
Will NV
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:46amThe NAACP should be changed to NADCP National Association for the decline of colored people.
Report Post »We are all colored.
Miami
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:46amRacist…?
Bigoted…?
Get back to me when they denounce the new Black Panthers.
Does anyone remember, “we are going to have to kill us some white babies” & “when we have a funeral march i n our black neighbor hood, they will have one in their’s”
PLEASE
Report Post »Miami
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:58amOh yeah,
When they denounce Louis Farrakhan for bashing Jewish people…
Report Post »walkwithme1966
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 3:03amThe new Black Panthers only has 2 members – gees – got off this one as it has been worn out.
Report Post »http://maboulette.wordpress.com
Taquoshi
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 8:45amWalkwithMe -
I truly WISH the New Black Panther Party only had two members. Unfortunately, it had more. And they are all spewing their bile to others, particularly now since Holder gave them a pass with the voter intimidation case. And of course, they are not racists….
Report Post »Wiz001
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 10:46amWalkwithme1966..
Report Post »If you are using the link up put up to get your lies, ur i mean your information then i can see how you would be confused on the issues. I went there and they have a way of putting out lies that are real suttle but lies none the less..Acusing Angle in Nevada of wanting to take vets. benifets away from them??? they must have confused what mr obama said about making the military personal pay for their own health care even if injured in battle(cause it is a volunteer service). Do not get me wrong, it is not wrong to look at these loony site. i do just to see what B/S they are coming up with, BUT you also have to read the other site and then form an opinion. Which is probably why you are here(i hope) and not to just rile these good people into an arguement. Not that the conseratives have all the answers but they seem to be looking out for the good of the WHOLE country and not just a few intrest groups. And if you look at their web site http://www.newblackpanther.org/ they have 6 members on the board so that makes the 2 member statement wrong. And then there are many who may not be on record as being a member but do support them.. This group is just a black KKK and the black population need to get rid of the racists in their orginazations before they can truely feel equal(which they are but the NAACP and BPP keep making them feel like they are heald down), lack of education will hold ANYONE down.
kindling
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:43amThis latest set of lies is for only one reason…..it is to get people of color angry and out to vote. How sad it is because it is simply not true. It is not about race at all, but lying is the only way the left has to protect its power.
Report Post »Beckofile
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 4:50pmI feel so sorry for the black folks that have traded one slave master for the Federal slave master. The schools and welfare state have devestated the black family and rugged individualism their grandfathers fought for.
Report Post »WISEPENNY
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:40amIt’s time they learned that white is a color, too!
Report Post »printdesignchicago.com
Posted on October 22, 2010 at 7:40amgood comment! i’m so tired of this reverse racism crap coming from the liberal left. more black are racist now than whites.
whitey dis, and whitey dat, and gibs me dis or dat has got to stop.
Report Post »Bob_R_OathKeeper
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:31amRacists calling others racist, we are clearly in the time when, “Right becomes Wrong and Wrong becomes Right.” Prepare for the worst and pray for best.
Report Post »Will NV
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:29amNAACP = The real racists.
Report Post »Keep up the good work and no one will even talk to you, you should be shuned.
You are traitors to your own kind.
BreeZee
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 6:03amThis is the final straw, they’ve finally done it, I hate them all so I guess I’m a racist. NAACP, Jackson and Sharpton are the biggest race baiters in the world!!!
Report Post »ron the veteran
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 8:04amwe all know now that the NAACP stands for the NATIONAL ANTI AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY. get a good look america these are the ones we need to make leave this nation. there are plenty of socialist countrys to go to. america is about to become as unwelcoming as we can get to these traitors. we cant let them stay. we must rid our nation of this cancer and its us who are the kemo. and if we all chipped in a dollar to the TAKE OUT GEORGE SOROS FUND money will go to the person who takes him out or who turns states evidence against him. its time to fight fire with fire and run these so called revolutionarys out of america. lets set them adrift headed south to cuba in a leaky boat. we are civilised but even civil people must fight for their freedoms. remember the british are the ones who started the revolutionary war but it was we americans who finished it. they were backed into a corner too. we need to run over the top of them just like our founding fathers did.
Report Post »Contrarianthinker
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:25amI predict that this smear job will change many non black people who were sitting on the fence to vote for Tea Party candidates. I also predict that that the 90% of blacks who vote based on race will use this as justification for continuing being black racists.
Report Post »cheezwhiz
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:40amI also predict that that the 90% of blacks who vote based on race will use this as justification for continuing being black racists.
Report Post »——
Agree 100%
So sad but true
Flagwaver
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:43amMoved and seconded… The motion has passed.
Report Post »kindling
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:46amAnd hopefully it will open the eyes of the country to the truth. Good shall be called evil and evil shall be called good. The truth will make you free and big government will take you into slavery.
Report Post »FreedomOfSpeech
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 2:01amThese jokers are scared that the people will take power back from the Kenyan usurper.
Obama burns books like the Nazis.
Report Post »LadyIzShy
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 6:43amhere here I agree.. sad is it that so many in america dow hat tey are told without THINKING.. my son is the SAMR way makes me crazy that at the age of 21 he still does this.. Heaven help us all
Report Post »wildjoker5
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 6:56amWhen O’Rieley generalized Muslims as the people who killed “us”, there is a good point about minorities being scared that if you start generalizing entire groups like Muslims as being terrorists, you can start generalizing the black communities by the way people act in Compton. Although I totally agree and know that all Muslims are NOT terrorist, and all terrorist are NOT Muslims, I think there is actually a point to the argument of minorities of keeping wide spread generalizations out of the limelight because that is where stereo-types come from.
Now that being said, the 1 or 2 signs brought to the Tea party rallies that maybe, somewhat remotely racists, either by design or accident, are usually dealt with on the spot by others in the rallies. But it is clearly 100% ok by minorities, particularly NAACP, to paint not just the Tea parties as Racist, but white people as a whole as racist. When will they ever get away from the Hypocrisy and start taking responsibility for their actions, or inaction of being a general help to society. Sharpton and Jackson encourage the lazy part of their race to keep sitting around and wait for reparations.
Report Post »snowleopard3200
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 8:19amThis report will change some minds, and harden the radical and fanatical to their own selective causes among all factions that see justification within its hate filled and bigot spewing words.
Bottom line is this report is by people wanting “Social and Economic justice!” which has one very simple wording of a earlier age = Communism (Stalinistic)
Report Post »Beckofile
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 4:46pmNAACP would not exist without racism. The Tea Party would exist without racism. This is not about racism. Follow the money and you will see that racism pays the NAACP lots of dividends.
Report Post »Selecao_USSA
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 7:45pmAgreed. Sometimes, I can’t stand to see nearly all of my fellow black Americans march to that beat these days. I just get to be too much. If only it were possible to show them that the Left has implanted this racism and bigotry into them since the time Dr. King was freed from Birmingham jail by the JFK admin on one condition: he had to start backing Democrats from that point on (throw them a bone, so to speak).
Since then, the community overall has been placed in a “psychological cotton field” looked over by Liberals, “Progressives,” Socialists and Communists in the Left (and some on the Right). And their greatest achievement was changing the NAACP into a Left-wing, race-baiting organization. After knowing that, I couldn’t stay as a member of that organization.
This is just another way that the NAACP shows themselves as an irrelevant civil rights organization. Hell, CAIR makes them look like a joke now.
Report Post »JKN
Posted on October 22, 2010 at 8:29amNever-ending false cries of “racism” are not only pathetic, but washed up… Kind of like the boy who cried wolf…
Report Post »ginsberg
Posted on February 18, 2011 at 1:19amSo according to you 90% of black voters are racist. Gee cant imagine why people get the impression tjat the t.p. is sympathetic to racists. dumb comment.
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