Tea Party Bounces Radio Host and Blogger for Racist Column

Mark Williams, a conservative radio talk show host, blogger and Tea Party Express principal, has been expelled from the National Tea Party Federation for a racist column he posted on his blog.

In his defense, Williams said it was written as satire and not mean to be taken seriously.  He deleted the column after receiving hundreds of e-mails and phone calls chastising him for posting the column.

The firing signals a possible split in the Tea Party movement, according to CNN Talking Heads.

Tea Party spokesman David Webb made the expulsion announcement on the CBS program Sunday Morning.

Williams wrote the incendiary blog post in response to an NAACP resolution that called on Tea Party leaders to crack down on racist elements in the movement.

The 101-year-old civil rights group cited signs carried at Tea Party events and racial slurs reportedly shouted at black members of Congress during the heated debate over health care as examples of racism in the movement.

"Dear Mr. Lincoln," began the fictional letter posted by Williams. "We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!"

Williams went on to write that the Tea Party movement couldn't be racist because it opposed government bailouts for Wall Street banks and big corporations.

"Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn't that what we want all Coloreds to strive for?" the posting said. "What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bailouts directly to us coloreds!"

NAACP President Ben Jealous met Williams' statement by telling CNN, "Good riddance, Mark Williams." But he praised Tea Party activists like Webb, who is African-American, for standing up and "self-policing" their movement.

"As the movement grows up, you have to act responsibly and they have to keep doing what they just did to Mark Williams and make it clear there is no space for bigots here, period," Jealous said.

CNN reported that some political leaders interviewed on Sunday talk shows also said the Tea Party movement itself wasn't racist, but needed to distance itself from any elements that bring prejudice and bigotry to its events.

Should Williams have been expelled for expressing his literary efforts under the Constitution's Freedom of Speech doctrine?  Do you consider his posting as racist?  Would you have expelled Williams?

What do you think? 

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