“It’s strayed away from the message of wasteful spending and Washington not listening to its constituents, and it’s become more of this rally of hate,” he said. “The tea party leaders should apologize on behalf of the irresponsible comments that were made, but they should also stand very firm on where we stood and where they stood in 2009.”
He and other black conservatives are divided over the grass-roots movement of tea party groups that has caught fire with adherents of small government and fiscal responsibility. The tension stems from reports of racial and homophobic slurs directed against black and gay members of Congress who voted to overhaul health care, from photos circulating on the Internet of signs raised at tea party protests with slogans such as “Obama Promotes White Slavery,” and the exhortation of a speaker at the group’s convention that voters should be subject to literacy tests.
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