Race and the tea-party movement is a false debate

AS a black woman, I've been largely silent about the tea-party movement and whether it's "racist," as charged by many, including the NAACP. But I think the black community should stop making emotional judgments on this topic and consider the facts.

I think we can all agree that the tea-party movement is overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly disdainful of President Obama and his policies.

Sadly, when this is the case, we often can't see the value of such groups because we can easily get distracted by the fact that it's overwhelmingly white, which tends to make some of us feel excluded.

Historically, if you compare the tea-party movement to the 1963 March on Washington, you note that a respectable number of white Americans attended - and also participated in the sit-ins, freedom rides and marches that eventually tore down segregation in America. It was a multicultural and gender-neutral movement, while the tea-party movement seemingly isn't.

But here is my concern: Black Americans are in an economic depression right now and have been since 2007, when the housing and economic crises first started. Yet we seem to be just sitting by as the black middle class experiences the greatest loss of wealth ever.

With black male unemployment at 35-50 percent in some cities, and sisters heading households at alarming rates, we need to get aggressive about a black economic-empowerment agenda that shouldn't depend solely on what the government can do for us.

We've debated whether it's appropriate for blacks to criticize the nation's first black president. My position has always been that we should support our nation's presidents when they are correct and question them vigorously when they are not, regardless of color or party affiliation.

A 2009 New York Times op-ed titled "The Recession's Racial Divide," by Barbara Ehrenreich and Dedrick Muhammad, began by asking, "What do you get when you combine the worst economic downturn since the Depression with the first black president? A surge of white racial resentment, loosely disguised as a populist revolt."

But I think that their conclusion about the tea party may miss the larger issues of why the party exists in the first place - and this is something black Americans need to consider carefully. To narrow it all down to race is a straw man that we should not buy into.

I recently watched the History Channel's "The Story of Us," a fabulous documentary about the formation of America. The 12- part series takes you from the revolutionary beginnings to the Obama presidency. It provides a very clear and majestic insight about what it means to be an "American."

What struck me most was the segment on the American Revolution, and how average, hardworking men and women rebelled against the British Empire in large part because of oppressive taxes. The founders, all men of means (many of whom owned slaves), risked their very lives and fortunes as "traitors" once they declared their "independence" in 1776. What I think we all miss is that the colonies rebelled against economic tyranny and oppression of individual freedom and liberties. This is a key takeaway that often gets lost in the modern tea-party debate.

I THINK we'd all be wise to consider what Thomas Jefferson warned: "Every generation needs a new revolution." Does anyone among us really believe that government knows what is best for our lives? Does anyone among us really believe that paying more taxes will solve what is wrong with the poorest and least among us? Perhaps the African-American community needs to consider what we can do to secure our own economic wealth and our own individual liberties.

To sit by passively and do nothing in the face of such deprivation is against all that we as Americans stand for.

Sophia Nelson contributes to the Root (TheRoot.com), where this first appeared.