Three Lessons of "Hidden Figures"

I just saw a film that sent electric shocks through my body from beginning to end.  The film was "Hidden Figures."  The film tells the story of three remarkable African American women who worked for NASA in the post-war South and in so doing helped the United States reach space.  The film made me laugh, but also cry.  The film inspired me, but also enraged me.  Watching the film, I turned to my 12-year-old boy too often to try to explain the unexplainable.  How do you explain "Freedom Summer" and the "Freedom Rides"?  How do you explain and try to make sense of segregation and the need to walk to a bathroom half a mile away because the bathroom next to your working space is "for whites only," only to return to your desk and find your supervisor in your face because you disappeared for too long?  What do you say when your child asks you, "when did the Klan stop killing people"?

What do you say?

As I watched the film, three over-arching lessons kept racing through my mind.  The first was about the film itself and the history it depicts.  Where did these moments in history go?  Where have they been?  And how do these movies help us recover them?  The film reminds me of the early history of Reconstruction, and particularly the writings of the Dunning School.  This early history understood the freedmen as lazy, unenlightened, and undeserving of the rights that Reconstruction had granted them.  This is no longer the way we remember this period .  How do we explain this change in the historiography of Reconstruction?  This question forces us to ask more general questions: What is history? Who owns it? How do we change it?  How do we make sense of the past?

In thinking about these questions, it is important to remember Eric Foner's warning about revisionist history:

It’s hard for people not versed in history to get the point on why historical interpretation changes. In the general culture “revisionist historian” is a term of abuse. But that is what we do. Revising history is our job. So every historian is a revisionist historian in some sense.

This is what "Hidden Figures" means to me.  History is full of hidden figures.  It is important to reflect on who they are, why they are hidden, and who is hiding them.

The second lesson is about the Constitution.  Our Constitution.  The film offers a subtle lesson about the Constitution and its meaning as lived experience.  One of the three central characters in the film, Mary Jackson, wants to be an engineer yet needs to fulfill some graduate-level courses, which are offered by the University of Virginia through the local high school. The local white high school.  The year was 1961.  Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954.  The question whether Ms. Jackson could have taken courses at the local high school should have been settled by Brown, but it was not.  The courtroom scene is important for what it teaches us about our Constitution and the scope of our rights.  Ms. Jackson goes to court to enforce Brown, yet the judge reminds her that this is Virginia.  He ultimately allows her to go to school, but only night school.

The lesson is clear.  The Constitution is nothing but words on paper.  By itself, the Constitution means nothing, but it can mean everything.  The Constitution, those words on paper, are whatever we want them to be.  If you need an explicit example, look no further than the history of the Fifteenth Amendment.  The freedmen came to the polls in large part through the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which forced the former confederate states to allow Blacks to vote and take office as a pre-condition of rejoining the Union.  The Fifteenth Amendment nationalized what the Reconstruction Act had imposed on the South three years earlier.  This is the climax of Black political participation in the 19th Century.  Then, like a slow burn, Black voter turnout began to dwindle.  By the turn of the century, the Fifteenth Amendment had come to mean nothing.  It was a dead letter.  In some parts of the country, Black political participation had decreased by large percentages, in some places by 100%.

This is a remarkable development.  How does it make sense for Dr. King to ask for the ballot in 1957 in a world where the 15th Amendment is the law of the land?  This takes us back to the earlier question: what is the Constitution?  The Constitution is whatever we decide that it is, understood through the sweat and tears of political struggle.  Put a different way: constitutional rights are not given to us.  They never have been and never will be.  In the brave new post-2016 election world, this is a crucial lesson.  The upcoming women's march on Washington is a fitting start.  But it is only a start.

The third lesson is about talent.  And merit.  And the promise of equality.  The women in the film were clearly talented and met whatever definition of merit one wishes to adopt.  And yet, as we raced the Soviets to the moon, we cast them aside.  Racism is really that powerful.  How do we overcome it?  How do we overcome and move past years of oppression and discrimination? That is the question of our time.  But this is not a new question.  One popular conservative answer is that only our stubborn refusal to see and use racial categories will help us to overcome race and racism.  I wish I could believe that.  This is not to say that we will not get there.  It is to say, however, that we have been trying to overcome racism for generations.

Katherine Johnson, the woman at the center of the movie, did get the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

By our first Black president.  

What does it mean to look "presidential" (or "professorial," or "decanal," or...)?

One of the big stories of the 2016 presidential election is whether Donald Trump looks and acts presidential. This is no idle conversation.  What voters want to know is whether Trump can act like a president is supposed to act, do the things a president is supposed to do, look like a president is supposed to look.  Note that the bar for candidate Trump is very low.  Reading from a teleprompter will do.  Or not behaving like a sixth grade bully.  Note also that the point is not whether he is or can be presidential.  The point is whether he can pass for one.

Think first about what that means.  And think next about who benefits and who does not when we think about candidates, and jobs, and life, in that way.

What's happened to us (or, what explains the allure of a Donald Trump candidacy)?

The candidacy of Donald Trump takes me back to law school.  I will never forget the day we discussed Shaw v. Reno -- the North Carolina racial gerrymandering case -- and the professor called on the guy in the back.  The guy in the back had not done the reading.  And upon every question, his answer was the same: "I don't know."  But there was something about the way the guy in the back answered the questions.  He must have seemed convincing enough.  And the case must have been confusing enough.  The professor liked those answers just fine.  

I bet the guy in the back must be a successful litigator somewhere.

This is the way I think about the Trump candidacy.  How could any of this happen? I don't know.  How could a person with no political experience get this far?  I don't know.  How could a person with such a checkered past get this far?  I don't know.  How could a person with as many bankruptcies and divorces speak for the "moral majority"?  I don't know.  How could a person recently labeled a racist by an influential columnist get this far?  I don't know. 

I could go on.

These are the questions that journalists and political scientists are now asking.  They are interesting questions.  As I think about the Trump candidacy, however, my mind goes back to the founding of the United States and the many fears and concerns that occupied the minds of the founding generation.  They feared precisely this, populism and what might amount to mob rule.  They feared direct democracy.  They feared the union of citizens "actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."  This is where checks and balances came in, and federalism, and separation of powers, and the Senate, and the Electoral College.  You can add to this list the rise of the party system and its disciplining influence on the impulses and passions of the masses.  

You can read many accounts of what has happened to the Republican party to get us to where we are today. I am more interested in a separate question: isn't Trump's the very candidacy that our constitutional structure is designed to avoid?  It is tempting to go back through time and compare the 2016 election cycle  with prior cycles (1964 is a popular example, and the Goldwater candidacy).  But I agree with those who argue that Trump is sui generis. His candidacy is unique.  And it raises the question:  What has happened to us?  Is this who "We the People" are, at out core?  Is the Trump candidacy a reflection of our basest instincts?  

Unlike the guy in the back, we know the answers to these questions.  

Wondering about the Success of Kentucky Basketball, Race, and What Ifs. . .

It is that time of year again: March Madness is back.  Tonight, Kansas plays Kentucky for the national championship.  Yet something about the game makes me uneasy.  The feeling of unease began during the Kentucky-Louisville game last Saturday night.  There were many possible reasons.  For example: seeing Coach Calipari on the sidelines, he of the vacated records at UMass and Memphis; associating the University of Kentucky with the new one-and-done trend in college basketball; the hypocrisy of keeping student-athletes out of class for as long as they do during March in search of glory and money.  But it wasn't any of that.

Instead, it had something to do with race.

There is something jarring about Kentucky basketball.  Watching the game Saturday night, one could not help but admire the skills and athleticism of the players on the court.  I loved watching Marquis Teague, whom I saw playing in high school and who has grown immeasurably since January; Anthony Davis, who happens to be the second freshman to ever win the Naismith award as college player of the year; and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, slated by some experts as a top-five pick in the upcoming NBA draft. These are three of the four freshmen who joined the team this past year.  The sophomore class includes Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb, also expected to be drafted in the first round.  Incidentally, these players all happen to be black.

Here's what bothered me: quite often, CBS would turn to the crowd after a great play, perhaps after a time out.  And not once did I see one Black face in the stands rooting for Kentucky.  This is not to say that Kentucky basketball does not have any Black fans; I am sure it does.  Rather, the point is that Kentucky's fan base is overwhelmingly white, while its basketball players are overwhelmingly Black.  Hence my unease.

Without question, Kentucky basketball has now become the sexy destination for elite basketball players.  Yet I cannot help but wonder about the politics -- racial or otherwise -- of the fans as compared to the politics of the players.  I also wonder about college admissions and whether these players would be accepted at institutions such as the University of Kentucky without their basketball skills.  I wonder where these fans stand on affirmative action and the upcoming Fischer case.  For those then alive, I wonder about their thoughts about Black players before 1969, the year when Kentucky basketball first integrated.  I just wonder.

And here's what I really wonder about: what if all these one-and-done players, the Anthony Davis' and the Kidd-Gilchrist's, decided to play together not at the white University of Kentucky, but at a historically black college, or even at the University of Detroit or Wayne State University? What would such a decision do for the city of Detroit, or for historically-Black colleges in general?

That is my dream.

The Strange yet Unremarkable Case of Jeremy Lin

Stop me if you've heard this story before: A terrific high-school athlete is overlooked during the recruiting process because he does not fit the stereotype of what college athletes are supposed to look like.  He ends up at a terrific college, yet not an athletic powerhouse.  He has a terrific college career, but pro scouts ignore him the same way college coaches ignored him before. He catches on with a pro team, and then another, and then another.  He is not sticking with any one team for long.  And then, almost out of necessity, he gets a chance.  One chance.  One time.  One game.  And he blows it out of the water.  

The story is almost out of central casting, tailor-made for Angelo Pizzo.  For those not paying attention to the world of sports in the last week or so, this also happens to be the story, in a nutshell, of Jeremy Lin, Taiwanese American point guard for the New York Knicks.  How in the world do we explain the fact that a multi-million dollar system designed to scout talent missed as badly as it missed with Jeremy Lin? Here's the cold reality:

"It's the Asian thing," says former NBA player Rex Walters, who's Japanese-American and wound up with [Jesse] Evans' job at [the University of San Francisco]. "People who don't think stereotypes exist are crazy. If he's white, he's either a good shooter or heady. If he's Asian, he's good at math. We're not taking him."

Lin looks like a math major, not a basketball player.  Simple as that.

But make no mistake, this is not a new story. We have seen it a million times.

This is the story of Toby Gerhardt or Brock Forsey, white running backs in a world where running backs happen to be black; or the story of many black quarterbacks in a world where quarterbacks happen to be white.  The argument applies to basketball players and concert pianists, to college professors and football coaches, to welfare recipients and college students.  Stereotypes abound, and they affect our decision-making in ways that we often fail -- or refuse -- to recognize.

Think about what this means for debates over hiring and college admissions.  Close your eyes a moment and think about what a college student is supposed to look like, or better yet, a college professor.   As you do that, try to imagine what happens when a faculty gets together to choose a new colleague, or worse yet, when a faculty gets together to vote on a tenure case.  Even those who have never been privy to one of those meetings have a pretty good idea of what goes on. 

Ask Rex Walters.

When Racism Talk is Counterproductive?

I have been following the recent kerfuffle between Melissa Harris-Perry and her critics over whether white liberals are holding President Obama to higher standard than they would a similarly-situated White President and whether this double standard is evidence of white liberal racism.  I'm a big fan of Professor Harris-Perry's work; she is one of the more insightful voices in pundit land. I am also sympathetic to what she wanted to do in the piece.  Specifically, I think what I take to be the essence of her claim--that on average, black citizens see the political world differently that white liberals--is an important point. But I think the column is generally off the mark on the racism charge and it does a disservice to the essence of the claim, which does deserve a hearing.  This is one example of where I think racism talk is counterproductive and I'll say more about that below.  Professor Harris-Perry also offered a response to the critics, which I found useful in parts and unpersuasive in other parts.  Here I'll focus on the main article.

Let's meet the charges.  In a recent article that has apparently caused a firestorm, Professor Harris-Perry writes:

If old-fashioned electoral racism is the absolute unwillingness to vote for a black candidate, then liberal electoral racism is the willingness to abandon a black candidate when he is just as competent as his white predecessors.

Professor Harris-Perry then explains that White liberals are guilty of electoral racism because they are abandoning President Obama when they did not abandon the last Democratic President Bill Clinton, even though Obama's record as president is similar to that of Bill Clinton's record at comparable periods in their respective tenures.

Harris-Perry's argument seems quite simple on its face, but requires a lot of assumptions/factual assertions that makes her argument pretty easy to attack and the responses to her argument quite predictable.  First, are white liberals in fact abandoning President Obama?  What is the evidence for that claim?  Second, is Obama comparable to Clinton (Harris-Perry's preferred baseline)?  That is, isn't Obama's performance in office worse than Clinton's performance as president. Third, did white liberals fail to criticize Clinton?  Fourth, what about the fact that African-American leaders have also been quite vocal in their criticism of the President and that support for the President among African Americans has started to soften?  Are they alone entitled to be critical and unsupportive?  Fifth, assuming that there is a double standard, what is the evidence that it is racial?  Maybe white liberals are more impatient now than they were under Clinton.  Maybe the expectation for Obama was greater because of his campaign rhetoric.  Or maybe the stakes are higher now than they were under Clinton. Or maybe there is now a more militant and more vigilant liberal base that came of age post-Clinton.  Sixth, Harris-Perry's temporal comparisons are not comparable.  She's comparing Clinton's reelection numbers to Obama's current popularity. Seventh, isn't the charge of racism simply a political move meant to silence the President's perceived opponents? Etc.

The bottom line here is that there are a number of strategies for meeting and parrying the racism charge.  The response to Professor Harris-Perry has been quite predictably along the lines outlined above, though of course not as systematic.  See for example Salon's Joan Walsh's piece, Salon's David Sirota's response, and Corey Robin's here. These responses are generally hard-hitting, but not unexpected when one accuses people of racism.  I found most of the responses, at least the serious ones, generally thoughtful.  By that I meant they met the claim on its merits and attempted to refute the claim with merits-based arguments.

To accuse someone (or a group of someones) of racism is to level a significant charge that requires the complainant to meet a great burden.  In my view, Professor Harris-Perry did not meet her burden which left her open to the rejoinder that the racism charge is too facile and misguided. By the same token, I think the critics missed the core of Professor Harris-Perry's complaint, which is that disparate racial perceptions are consequential.  But I also think that that core complaint was occluded by the charge of racism, which is why racism talk here is ineffectual.

This exchange between Professor Harris-Perry and her critics is an example where racism talk is counterproductive.  Those times include when the complainant has not met his or her burden of proof and when the real aim of the complaint is not so much racism but disparate impact.  Disparate impact can be the product of racial animus and racism, but that is not always so.  Moreover, simply because a disparate impact is not the product of conscious and intentional racial animus does not mean that disparate impact is irrelevant to racial justice.  In the context of Professor Harris-Perry's column, I would much rather have a discussion on disparate racial perceptions than a discussion on whether white liberals are racist.  (Thus, for example, when Professor Harris-Perry writes in her response to her critics that perceptions of racial inequality by folks of color ought to count, I think that opens a real avenue for conversation about the agency of citizens of color this democratic polity and how far perceptions of legitimacy ought to take us.)

Though I think that Professor Harris-Perry's initial column failed to meet its burden of proof, it was not clear to me how to take her response to her critics.  In her response to her critics, she sought to expose three "common discursive strategies that are meant to discredit" those of us who write about race and politics.   I'll only focus on the first strategy here. The first strategy of the critics is to demand proof of racism.   Professor Harris-Perry observes:

The first is a common strategy of asking any person of color who identifies a racist practice or pattern to “prove” that racism is indeed the causal factor. This is typically demanded by those who are certain of their own purity of racial motivation. The implication is if one cannot produce irrefutable evidence of clear, blatant and intentional bias, then racism must be banned as a possibility. But this is both silly as an intellectual claim and dangerous as a policy standard. 

. . . .

I believe we must be careful and judicious in our conversations about racism. But I also believe that those who demand proof of interpersonal intention to create a racist outcome are missing the point about how racism works. Racism is not exclusively about hooded Klansmen; it is also about the structures of bias and culture of privilege that infect the left as well.

 I think Professor Harris-Perry is clearly right that intentional racism does not exhaust the racial inequality category.  However, I also think that race scholars need to be much more precise about what they mean by racism.  In particular, I think we need to do a better job of theorizing the link between racial inequality and disparate impact.  Keeping with what I've said above, it is not clear to me that it is helpful, either rhetorically or theoretically, to call disparate racial impact racism when disparate racial impact is unmoored from intentional racial discrimination.  (Here's a hypo: suppose you find out that one of the most liberal members of the Supreme Court after reasonably opportunity has never hired a black clerk, is that Justice a racist?  Is it useful to label that Justice a racist?  Or should we simply talk about why that practice is problematic and leads to racial inequality?  Are we better off taking about making sure that all doors are open to all regardless of race, or are we better off by saying that Justice so and so is a racist.)  If Professor Harris-Perry is urging us to broaden our concept of racial equality outside of a racism/not-racism frame or racism-as-intentional discrimination construct, I think that's helpful.  If she's saying that racial inequality claims are hard to prove and therefore claimants should be relieved of proof, then she's off the mark.

I was not sure how to process the other two claims, so I won't dwell on them here.  My bottom line is two-fold.  First, when scholars or intellectuals of color (or anyone else for that matter) level a charge of racism, we need to meet our burden of proof.  Second, we also need to think hard about when it is productive to talk about racism and when it is productive to talk about practices or perceptions that lead to racial inequality even though there is not a bad actor that serves as the prime mover.

Thinking about a white Michael Vick

I can hardly think of a quarterback who has accomplished as little as Michael Vick has accomplished yet with as much press.  I am not saying it has never happened.  I just cannot think of any.

Here's the latest, which thankfully is not related to his football life: would Michael Vick be treated the same way for abusing his dogs if he were white?  This is from a piece for ESPN the magazine:

All of that is why, to me, Vick seems to have a deeply African-American approach to the game. I'm not saying that a black QB who stands in the pocket ain't playing black. I'm saying Vick's style is so badass, so artistic, so fluid, so flamboyant, so relentless -- so representative of black athletic style -- that if there were a stat for swagger points, Vick would be the No. 1 quarterback in the league by far. 

Race is an undeniable and complex element of Vick's story, both because of his style as well as the rarity of black QBs in the NFL. A decade after he became the first black QB to be drafted No. 1 overall, about one in five of the league's passers is African-American, compared with two-thirds of all players. But after his arrest for dogfighting, so many people asked: Would a white football player have gotten nearly two years in prison for what Vick did to dogs?

As soon as the reporter wrote this question, he began to hedge about its import.  For example, "[t]his question makes me cringe. It is so facile, naive, shortsighted and flawed that it is meaningless. Whiteness comes with great advantages, but it's not a get-out-of-every-crime-free card. Killing dogs is a heinous crime that disgusts and frightens many Americans. I'm certain white privilege would not be enough to rescue a white NFL star caught killing dogs."  All the same, he thought to ask it, and on a mainstream magazine to boot.

From what I gather, the reaction has been deafening, and largely negative (see here and here; but see here). But it appears that the negative reaction is largely a response to a decision by ESPN to offer a picture of a white Michael Vick.

I don't get it.  The idea itself is hardly crazy, that a white person would be treated differently than a black person for the same offenses.  So is the problem here with the picture?

Help me out, Guy.

Mis-using Racism

I'm particularly skeptical of cries by racism from white liberals against white conservatives.  Too often those accusations simply use race to discredit a political perspective.  MSNBC commentator Ed Schultz got caught doing exactly that here.  He accuses Texas Governor Rick Perry of racism after Perry said that there was a black cloud hanging over America.  Schultz states that Perry is referring to the President, when Perry is clearly referring to the economy. Schultz is clearly attacking Perry's political position, but as an aperitif to the political attack, he first accuses Perry of racism.  This is clearly a mis-use of race and the folks who will pay for it ultimately are folks of color when they object to legitimate acts of racism.

Hollywood turns white

The ten movies nominated for best picture this year are more racially homogeneous than the ten movies nominated in 1940.  You can read the piece for yourself and draw your own conclusions.  The question posed by the piece is really what intrigues me: is this "an anomaly, or an unsettling sign of the times?" The answer is complicated, as the article makes amply clear.  As I read it, I could not help but think of Disney's first black princess, in the "Princess and the Frog."

When it premiered, "Princess and the Frog" was an unqualified artistic success.  The movie received an 84% positive rating from 155 movie critics. It also garnered three Oscar nominations including one for "Best Animated Feature." Released by the powerhouse Disney brand, the movie was bound to be a commercial success, a welcomed addition to the highly successful Disney "princesses" franchise.  

But it was not meant to be.  At first glance, the movie appears successful enough, grossing $104 million at the box office.  But this figure hardly compares to the success of related Disney films, such as "The Lion King," with an adjusted gross of $554 million; "Finding Nemo," with an adjusted gross of $404 million; and "Cars," which grossed an adjusted $293 million.

Even among the princesses franchise, the "Princess and the Frog" does not fare well.  "Snow White and the Seventh Dwarves," grossed an adjusted $782 million; "Sleeping Beauty" grossed an adjusted $521 million; and "Aladdin" gross an estimated $396 million.

(By point of comparison, Disney's latest film, "Tangled," with an 89% rating and featuring a white heroine once again, has already grossed $192 million in 12 weeks) .

Adding to the curious fate of this film, none of the aforementioned films -- or any other Disney film, best I can tell -- can be accessed instantly on netflix.  The one film you can access instantly is "Princess and the Frog."

For the life of me, I cannot explain why this film has received such a negative reception compared to all other Disney films.  Could it possibly be that the race of our heroine made all the difference in the world?  Could it be, that is, that children all around the country were not yet ready for a black princess, even if their parents were ready for a  black president?  

This example shows why race has always been a "marketing challenge" for Hollywood.  

Let the market speak.

More on the NAACP and the Tea Party

In a previous post I was critical of the NAACP's recent resolution to condemn racist elements within the Tea Party movement. I was skeptical of the move on speech/associational grounds and also on political grounds. I remain skeptical particularly upon further reflection (though for a more balanced analysis than mine please see Sherrilyn Ifill's characteristically thoughtful piece on the The Root.com).

Upon further reflection, one of the more troubling aspect of the NAACP's move here is that it feeds into a classical narrative about racism that is not reflective of the modal manifestation of race in the 21st Century.  Most of us quintessentially understand racism as a belief that communicates animus against someone of a different race.  For example, if someone said, "I don't like black people," we would easily classify that person as a racist, not least because the assertion of animus is the classical understanding of racism.  The classical response to classical racism is colorblindness: if everyone would be blind to color (not pay attention to or notice race), we would be rid of racism and racial inequality.

Racial conservatives assert, rightly in my opinion, that classical racism has declined significantly.  By almost all measures, white racial animus against blacks has waned significantly.  Manifestations of racial animus, of the type that the NAACP singles out from the Tea Party, are rare.  It does not mean that they don't exist, but they are not the modal expression of racial inequality.  From this evidence of decline of racial animus, racial conservatives conclude, wrongly in my view, that we no longer have a race problem.  Moreover, they conclude, again wrongly in my view, that the answer to racial animus is colorblindness.

Racial progressives are less concerned with racial animus, we're concerned with racial inequality. When the black unemployment rate is almost twice that the white unemployment rate (8.6% compared to 15.4%) we have a racial inequality and thus a race problem. Racial inequality can be the result of animus, but in the 21st century it does not have to be.  I previously referenced on this blog a paper by Samuel Bowles, Glenn Loury, and Rajiv Sethi entitled Group Inequality.  The arresting part of this paper is the rigorous demonstration by the authors that racial inequality can persist infinitely in the absence of racial animus.  That is, if you got rid of all instances of racial animus right now and you enforced vigilantly anti-discrimination laws, without other intervention, we would experience racial inequality well into the foreseeable future.  Thus for racial progressives a focus on racism, especially as understood as animus, is significantly short-sighted, distracting, and passe.  What we need is to begin talking about and providing solutions to resolve racial inequality.  We need a paradigm shift and the NAACP should be leading this paradigm shift.  (See this column by DeWayne Wickham).

When the NAACP focuses its (and our) limited energies on fleeting instances of classical racism in the Tea Party movement, the NAACP reinforces the classical racism model.  It tells people that what we should really be concerned about are white people who do not like black people (especially the black President) and wish to do us harm.  But racial animus is not the threat to people of color today, racial inequality is the threat.  By focusing on arguable instances of racial animus, the NAACP reinforces the classical racism model and prevents us from shifting the racism paradigm.  Thus, delaying the attainment of true racial equality.

The NAACP's move is short-sighted for another reason.  As I mentioned above, the classical answer to classical racism is colorblindness.  The problem with colorblindness is that colorblind policies are at best of limited utility in combating racial inequality.  However, racial conservatives are winning the colorblindness rhetoric because the debate is being waged on their terms.

Accusing the Tea Party of racism gets the headlines, but solving racial inequality actually helps people of color. If the NAACP is truly serious about the advancement of the colored people, it needs to focus on contemporary racial inequality and lead a paradigm shift.  Otherwise, it's not clear why a bunch of people are paying dues.

Tea Parties and Racial Epithets

I don't know whether it is true that that individual tea party protesters have used racists and homophobic epithets against Democratic lawmakers (see for example this report by Politico's Kenneth Vogel and this report). But even if it is true, Democratic leaders should have a muted reaction and should not attempt to use this for political gain.