The Tea Partiers Aren't The Racists

On O'Reilly tonight I was dismayed by Al Sharpton saying that a sign reading "take back our country" was racist.  "What do they mean by 'our' country?" Sharpton asked.  Then I was further dismayed to hear Juan Williams say that we have to consider that the president is a black man and we should be careful about what we say for this reason.

What bothers me here is that Al Sharpton, Juan Williams and most of the hard left see Obama as a black man first and the president second.  And yet the Tea partiers are the racists?  I find it very disturbing to hear that we should meter what we say based on the skin color of the person we're talking to or about.  How can we ever get past the very real, and very horrible problem of racism when we have people telling us that we MUST consider the race of the person and adjust our words accordingly.

It shouldn't matter what color skin the leader has or anybody else for that matter.  We shouldn't see Obama as a black man first and the president second.  As much as I hate it, the man is the president and no assumptions should be made that opposition to his policies has anything at all to do with his race without hard evidence.  The idea that somebody can cast such a broad interpretation of an innocuous statement as to claim it is racist based solely on the color of his skin is tragic, insulting and racist in itself.

I refuse to see an individual by their color first.  Each man and woman will be judged by their actions, and claiming racism where it doesn't exist is keeping a wound open while the rest of us are desperately trying to make the wound heal.

Shame on Al Sharpton and shame on Juan Williams.