Racist, Anti-Gay Slurs from Tea Party Mob on Capitol Hill

John Lewis, Tea Partiers

At a health care reform rally on Capitol Hill Saturday, the sheet came off Tea Party protesters who have opposed President Barack Obama's most important policy initiative.

It was the white sheet of the Ku Klux Klan.

With chants of "Nigger, Nigger," white protesters opposed to health care reform yelled racist taunts and other curses at black members of Congress. At least one protester was arrested in one of the ugliest confrontations on the steps of Congress in recent memory.

The protesters who were supposed to be voicing their anger at the health care legislation slated for a rare Sunday vote exposed themselves for the racist reactionaries a good portion of them truly are.

Rep. John Lewis (pictured above), a Georgia Democrat and veteran of the 1960's civil rights marches, said the chants on Saturday reminded him of the darkest days of the freedom struggle.

Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is openly gay, was taunted with chants of "faggot" by others in the crowd.

The protesters, many of whom were identified as Tea Party members, can't let the arguments they make against the reform package, many of them quite legitimate, simply stand on their own merit.

Now in the final hours before the vote, momentum is shifting toward passage of the president's proposal. And a sense of desperation is causing subtle racist and homophobic leanings among some protesters to rise to the surface.

I'm not going to say the racists at Capitol Hill yesterday represent the majority of anti-health care reform supporters.

But the hateful outbreak should send a loud message to black people: be vigilant.

For a segment of white America, health care reform is all about a black president doing something for the have-nots, like providing health care reform for 30-million Americans who can't afford insurance.

Absolutely nothing President Obama will do in office will ever satisfy them, so look very carefully at their arguments and rationale when they attack the president. And don't be surprised if the attacks become more brazen and racist in their nature.

For them, it's all as simple as black and white.