Former U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chairman Mary Frances Berry, a long-time prominent liberal activist, has admitted in an interview with Politico that the left is trying to smear the tea party movement as “racist” for strategic reasons, not out of genuine concern that the movement is itself racist.

Berry called the tactic an “effective strategy” and chose not to denounce it.

“As an active participant in the tea party movement, I know the movement’s motivation is about Obama’s policies and not his race,” said Deneen Borelli, a Project 21 full-time fellow who has spoken at many tea party rallies and is scheduled to speak at the “Uni-Tea” rally in Philadelphia on July 31. “Race card politics is the last-ditch effort to shift the debate away from President Obama’s harmful policies such as the government’s takeover of health care and his failure to create jobs — both of which are having an impact on his popularity. This diversion may also help Obama to try to jam through cap-and-trade legislation through Congress. It’s a grand distraction from policies and may unfortunately increase racial tensions.”

Berry, now the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and History at the University of Pennsylvania, was asked, “will branding the tea party ‘racist’ work?”

Berry replied:

Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness.

“This is exactly the kind of thing that has irked me all of my adult life, to put it mildly,” said Project 21 member R. Dozier Gray. “This willful and purposeful use of the race card for nothing more than political gain is toxic to race relations, and Mary Frances Berry must know that. But she evidently does not care. Based on her comment, political posturing takes primacy over whatever real issues regarding race that she might pretend are her calling cards. I have seen this all before. I find it shameful.”

Project 21 member Bob Parks added: “What’s most disturbing about this very public quote? Not only is Mary Frances Berry making this comment without fear of admonishment, and that progressives have apparently embraced and are employing these very shameful, race-baiting tactics — but Berry is likely teaching this ‘social thought’ hate to children.”

Left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky, whose tactics have been studied and followed by Barack Obama and his followers, taught his activists to “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” The Tea Party movement has unnerved the left and energized supporters of smaller government, causing the left to target it, as per Alinsky’s method, with bogus racism charges.

The Politico interview with Berry is available at http://www.politico.com/arena/bio/mary_frances_berry.html.

Washington, D.C. – The following is a statement by Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research:

Shirley Sherrod falsely said Andrew Breitbart would “like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery. That’s where I think he’d like to see all black people end up again.” Then Sherrod said Breitbart is a racist, called Breitbart “vicious,” and then said Breitbart’s alleged racism is why he’s allegedly “so vicious against a black president.”

By contrast, Breitbart ran a video of Sherrod that, unknown to him, was out of context, and later, according to media reports, Breitbart expressed regret. Sherrod became nationally famous, lost her job, saw her reputation rehabilitated within a day, was offered a new job, had a private conversation with a President of the United States of whom she thinks highly, and is now a hero to many. I’d be very much surprised if she hasn’t received some lucrative speaking offers.

Ultimately, no harm, no foul.

Furthermore, while Breitbart didn’t know the famous first video was out of context, Sherrod has to know she has no evidence Breitbart wants “all black people” to be slaves. Publishing the video without checking it out first it was an error, but it was nothing personal against Sherrod, and an unintentional error. When Sherrod said Breitbart wants black people to be slaves she was being intentionally malicious and irresponsibly inflammatory.

There’s no doubt about it. When the scales are weighed, Sherrod’s offense is far greater. She owes Breitbart an apology.

I don’t expect he’ll get one.

Shirley Sherrod has also said opponents of ObamaCare are racists.

I don’t suppose we’ll get an apology, either.

Washington, D.C. – In the wake of the Obama Administration’s controversial firing of Shirley Sherrod at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a new video — available in it’s entirety — is casting her husband, Charles, as someone harboring radical racialist sentiments.

Deneen Borelli, a Project 21 fellow and Fox News Channel contributor, said: “Professor Sherrod’s racist comments add another chapter to the ongoing debate about racism in America. Sherrod’s use of color-coded politics has no place in today’s society and it’s especially disappointing that his twisted logic was communicated at an educational institution.”

Charles Sherrod, a former civil rights-era Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee activist and current Albany State University professor, gave the keynote address at the University of Virginia Law School’s “50 Years After the Sit-Ins” conference on January 30, 2010.

In a speech that is available in its entirety on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m22eXuYNbkY, Charles Sherrod speaks about the need to “find a way to leverage the $900 billion we spend on consumables each and every year.” He ends this discussion on this topic with a radical challenge to the audience:

“Find a way that we can trust each other so that our monies can work for our total liberation. We have ideas, inventions [and] athletic talent, but our labors and our monies and our contracts usually end up in the white folks’ hands and pockets. When will we trust our own? When will we feel responsible to save ourselves?”

He then becomes conspiratorial about elections and uses racist terms about blacks who do not adhere to an undefined black agenda:

“[W]e must stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections. We must not be afraid to vote black. And we must not be afraid to turn a black out who votes against our interest. We’ve got to stay tough…”

“Shirley Sherrod, the former Department of Agriculture employee, can’t be held responsible for what her husband says, but you can’t help wondering about the kinds of conversations these two might be having in private about race issues,” said Project 21 member Joe Hicks, host of the “Hicks File ” at PJTV.com and the former executive director of the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “Since liberals are ‘sensitive’ about black people being labeled bigots, let’s put Charles Sherrod’s comments into ‘context.’ They were captured from a speech given earlier this year. Sherrod, a long-time activist, said ‘We must stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections.’ Okay, there is no ‘context’ imaginable that makes this kind of racial garbage acceptable. Imagine a Klansman making a reverse version of this comment and one will quickly understand the double standard that often gets applied in these circumstances.”

On the July 17 edition of “Geraldo At Large” on the Fox News Channel, Borelli appeared on a panel discussion about race and politics with NAACP senior vice president Hilary Shelton.

During the discussion, Borelli asked Shelton if the NAACP would issue a statement condemning those who expose her to race-based abuse because she is an outspoken black female with views.

The following is the Borelli-Shelton exchange on “Geraldo At Large”:

Borelli: “I’m a black, female conservative. I’m often targeted by individuals who call me all kinds of names: racist, an Uncle Tom, a traitor – you name it. I’d like to know if the NAACP will issue a statement condemning those individuals who were doing that.”

Shelton: “Why, yes, ma’am… Just give us some details… The very broad answer is… yes, we repudiate anybody calling you a bad name in the political arena.”

Shelton added that the NAACP repudiated past assaults on Bush Administration cabinet members General Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

A video of the exchange can be seen at http://tw0.us/Kw2.

Borelli has been called the n-word by liberal critics, as well as other epithets such as “house negro,” “Stepin Fetchit,” “Sambo,” “Uncle Tom,” “Auntie Tom” and a “pitiful excuse of a human being,” among many others.

Project 21 will send a detailed letter to Shelton chronicling some of the past racist statements made against Borelli and other Project 21 members.

Last week the NAACP passed a resolution they will unveil later this year that calls on leaders of the tea party movement to denounce alleged racism in their ranks. There was no similar action regarding progressive mistreatment of black conservatives.

“I hope that Hilary Shelton’s pledge on ‘Geraldo At Large’ to have the NAACP officially repudiate racially abusive statements about black conservatives was earnest and not just a way to get out of a tight squeeze,” said Borelli. “The era of the wink-and-nod use of the race card in politics must end.”

Borelli added: “Progressives cannot hurl stones at the tea party movement for alleged racist behavior without hitting a few of their own glass houses. There is a particularly strong and sinister vitriol reserved for black conservatives, and it is wrong for the NAACP not to recognize it and demand it be stopped. I am looking forward to Hilary Shelton making good on his pledge to speak out against it.”

Washington, D.C. – In appearances on the Fox News Channel this week, NAACP executive Hilary Shelton claimed he attended a major tea party event despite having said three days before that he had not attended a tea party, was “afraid” to go to a tea party rally and had only watched media reports about them.

“Did Hilary Shelton lie to me?” asked Deneen Borelli, full-time fellow with the Project 21 black leadership network. “If he can’t give a simple, straightforward answer about whether he has been to a tea party, that certainly calls the truthfulness of his other claims about the tea party movement into question.”

On the July 16 edition of “America’s Newsroom” on the Fox News Channel, Borelli and Shelton — the NAACP’s senior vice president for advocacy — debated the merits of the NAACP’s resolution decrying alleged instances of racism at tea party events. In this debate, Shelton claimed to have attended the tea party rally at the U.S. Capitol on the weekend of the House of Representative’s vote on health care:

Borelli: “Have you been to a tea party?”

Shelton: “I was. As a matter of fact I was on Capitol Hill at that tea party rally ”

However, on the July 13 edition of “America Live,” he had a different answer when asked the same question by Phil Dennis of the Dallas Tea Party:

Dennis: “Have you been to a tea party event?”

Shelton: “I have watched you on TV. I’m afraid to go I have not.”

Which is it?

“The increasing politicization of the NAACP is putting the reputation of this venerable civil rights institution at risk. For it to be allowed to be used as a weapon to attack the tea party movement calls its credibility into question, and Hilary Shelton telling two tales of his interactions with the tea party is troubling,” added Borelli. “I would suggest he take the time to read the tea party’s Contract from America and attend a tea party rally — for the first or second time — with an open mind.”

Video of both interviews can be seen at http://tw0.us/Jho.

Mychal Massie wrote a letter to President Obama on December 4, 2009 asking for a special prosecutor that continues to remain unanswered. In his second certified letter to President Obama, dated July 8, 2010, Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie wrote: “During the time that I have not been dignified with a reply, the problem has festered to a point where perceptions of racial bias within your Justice Department cannot be ignored.”

“Seeing that President Obama has ignored reasonable requests by me and others for a thoughtful investigation of the alleged flagrant abuses at the Justice Department, one can only deduce that the actions there may have his silent support,” said Massie.

On Election Day 2008, three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense were alleged to have intimidated voters outside of a Philadelphia polling place. Career attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice pursued a case against the men and were on the verge of a verdict against them when Obama Administration political appointees at the Department were said to have “ordered them to reverse course” on the case.

Charges against two of the men were then dropped completely, and the man who wielded a nightstick at the polling place on Election Day 2008 was ordered to refrain from doing so again until November 15, 2012.

In his original certified letter to President Obama, which was received by the White House on December 14, 2009, Project 21′s Massie pointed out the seriousness of the allegations and the concern Obama and his key allies — including Attorney General Eric Holder — expressed in the past for allegations of unethical behavior and avoidance of civil right prosecutions at the Justice Department.

In his request, which was repeated in the second letter, Massie wrote: “Because of your past concern about maintaining the Justice Department’s impartiality, actions taken in response to past allegations and new revelations of a separate but no less serious incident taking place under the Justice Department’s new leadership, I ask for your assistance in seeking the appointment of a special prosecutor.”

Since then, one of the career attorneys who prosecuted the case — J. Christian Adams — has resigned in protest about the handling of the case. Adams testified to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that the Obama Justice Department “abetted wrongdoing and abandoned law-abiding citizens” with regard to the New Black Panther Party case.

Adams has further testified that “[t]here is an open hostility to race-neutral enforcement of voting rights laws” within the Obama Justice Department and that career staff are being ordered not to comply with Civil Rights Commission subpoenas for more information about the case.

“It’s very disconcerting that the Obama Justice Department seems to have a double-standard regarding racism,” noted Project 21 fellow Deneen Borelli. “While they are fighting the Arizona immigration law in part because it is claimed that it might erode civil rights, they are reportedly unwilling to do anything about voting rights complaints that don’t fit a politically-correct framework. Justice is supposed to be color-blind, but it seems to have become racially politicized under the first black president and first black attorney general. This erodes the Obama Administration’s credibility.”

Massie added: “The President’s inaction with regard to the New Black Panther Party case allows the perception of racial bias at the Justice Department to fester. It is yet another curious and questionable action regarding race by this White House that will likely impact how history perceives Obama. One thing he could do to help himself if answer Project 21′s certified letter.”

Massie has sent a copy of this second letter to Congressman Frank Wolf, ranking member of the House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee; Congressman Lamar Smith, ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary; Congressman Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

“As a frequent speaker at tea party rallies around the country, I can assure the NAACP that the tea party movement’s concerns are about President Obama’s policies and not his race,” said Project 21 fellow Deneen Borelli. “I’m deeply concerned that the NAACP is being used as a political tool to do the dirty work of the progressive movement. Instead of criticizing tea parties, the NAACP would be better served denouncing the racist comments made by a member of the New Black Panther Party and their voter intimidation outside a Philadelphia polling place in the last presidential election.”

According to a report in the Kansas City Star, the NAACP, which is conducting its 101st annual convention in that city, will take up a resolution as early as Tuesday to urge “all people of good will to repudiate the racism of Tea Parties, and to stand in opposition to its drive to push our country back to the pre-civil rights era.”

Kansas City NAACP chapter president Anita Russell said the tea party movement is “really not about limited government.” The resolution reportedly dwells on “explicitly racist behavior” that relies upon anecdotal posters opposing President Obama and allegations of the use of racial epithets by tea party participants.

Project 21′s Borelli added: “I urge the delegates to read the Contract from America – a list of policy objectives for Congress that was developed by tea party members nationwide. These objectives are clearly about limited government and liberty. In fact, the NAACP should be very concerned Obama’s cap-and-trade energy policy will lead to higher energy prices and higher unemployment – particularly among poor and minority households.”

Borelli, who has spoken at tea party events nationwide (including last year’s 912 rally at the U.S. Capitol) is the author of the commentary “Liberals Crash Tea Party, But Stay Silent On Black Panther Hate Talk,” published by FoxNews.com on July 12, 2010.

“Personally, I’m tired of arguing with the ignorant,” said Bob Parks, a Project 21 member who has also participated in tea party events – including the rallies outside the U.S. Capitol the weekend of the House votes on Obamacare. “Al Sharpton recently tried in vain on his radio show to get me to apologize for alleged tea party racism. He tried to get me to apologize for racial epithets hurled at Congressman John Lewis that only Lewis seemed to hear. I would guess neither Al Sharpton nor the overwhelming majority of NAACP members have ever been to a tea party, so they speak from intentional ignorance. While liberals scream racism at the tea parties purely because of their audacity to oppose Obama, it’s the progressives who seem to feel free to use racial epithets against others as they know – as is seen in this instance – that the NAACP turns a blind partisan eye.”

The NAACP’s Russell reportedly is “pretty certain” the anti-tea party resolution will pass.

“Progressives have hijacked the NAACP to the extent that the group stands silent as conservative blacks suffer indignities for their beliefs. Some NAACP even egg on this appalling behavior – providing political cover and lapdog services for these elitists,” said Project 21 member Kevin Martin. “As a conservative black man, I have felt more welcomed and at home within the tea party movement than among those of my own who side with the this new NAACP. If a few random signs of President Obama looking like the Joker is indeed racist, then where was the NAACP when conservative blacks are depicted as lawn jockeys, Oreos and Uncle Toms?”

“The level and depth of ignorance and misrepresentation of truth is unquantifiable,” said Project 21 chairman Mychal Massie, another speaker at tea party events in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Michigan. “The simple truth is that the tea party movement is about smaller government, lower taxes and an adherence to the Constitution. The NAACP is welcome to disagree with the tea parties, but in making that complaint they must be truthful and not fall prey to ignorance and perceived disaffection.”

A $100,000 reward offer made by Andrew Breitbart to anyone who can provide video and audio evidence that racial epithets were shouted at Congressional Black Caucus members by tea party activists on March 20 remains unclaimed months later.

Read the editorial here.

The truth is many of us can and do see only what we want to see. This is partially what defines us. God forbid we should all be so much alike that life would be boring. The black box above can represent anything you would like it to be and probably even some shrink would tell you that what you wrote would be a reflection of your inner being, perhaps even your suppressed fears, or hopes and dreams.

So much has been made of the Tea Party movement. From both sides we have witnessed the influence of the Tea Party. The Republicans, who seem to think they own the movement, got handed a rude awakening as we saw what happened in Utah with Bob Bennett. The Democrats as well, are dropping like flies as Americans in general are fed up with politics as usual.

If you don’t fit the mold of what the local Tea Partiers want, you won’t get their support. Why is this considered bad by some? Isn’t this exactly what American politics was supposed to be? A country governed of and by the people?

That black box takes on odd illusions I think for some. We have always had political organizations that put their support behind the candidate of their choice. But this Tea Party thing is grass roots and scares the living hell out of some people. As a result a person’s black box becomes a living nightmare for them.

Witness an opinion piece posted at Politico by Charles Postel, an assistant professor of history at San Francisco State University, about the Tea Party that he labels the “dark side of conservatism”.

For whatever reasons, in Postel’s black box he focuses on the main stream media and their insistence on calling Tea Partiers, “populists”. In case Postel hadn’t figured it out yet, the MSM is clueless when it comes to the Tea Party and they too are petrified of it. He spends much of his time wanting to paint the Tea Party, as he says, the “dark side of conservatism” by disproving the media’s contention that it is “populist”.

Here is a grocery list of the things Postel sees in his black box as what makes Tea Parties, “dark”.

1. Tea Partiers are conservatives
2. They repeat catchwords of Goldwater and Reagan
3. “echoes of a well-known grass-roots movement of the 1950s and ’60s — the John Birch Society”
4. Sound like the John Birch Society
5. Author views Obama as a moderate
6. Believes all TPers think Obama a communist
7. Tea Partiers have “angrily taken to the streets”
8. Tea Partiers “are boiling mad”
9. They are “punishing politicians”
10. Tea Partiers are “more concerned about possible inflation of the future than with the current ordeal of the unemployed.”
11. Tea Partiers don’t care about unemployment among blacks
12. Tea Partiers are like Ku Klux Klan members who want to protect their Protestant religion and white race from communism and immigration.
13. Sees Tea Partiers as “birthers”, opposed to immigration and against Mulims.
14. Tea Partiers, being “radical rights” have a “soft spot for bigots”.
15. Tea Partiers are “a movement of the haves and well-protected who” that since FDR, “have feared that their freedom will be lost” if government expands its powers and steals from the rich to give to the poor.

That’s a lot of things to see in a black box. The Tea Party is many things but “dark” is not one of them. It is unfortunate that Mr. Postel sees those who cherish the American dream and a return to following the Constitution as being “dark” and all the other nasty things he sees.

Makes you wonder what kind of a childhood he must have had. (snicker)