Cain said that he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet if he were elected to the Oval Office. He clarified his remarks, but I don’t think the “clarification” makes him look any better. Cain also agrees with Birther-for-publicity and no-chance-of-running-and-even-less-of-a-chance-of-winning Donald Trump who has doubts about Obama’s birth.

The Tea Party’s problem with race is well-known. There was even a study conducted by the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality that looked into race and the Tea Party. The director of the study said it showed, “The Tea Party is not just about politics and size of government. The data suggests it may also be about race.”

Cain’s xenophobia and racism toward Muslims and Obama is ironic. He is a black man running for president in a movement within a party that has a race problem. At the same time, he asserts his own black masculinity to run against Obama and garner support from that same movement and party.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr

See also: Herman Cain Says He’s A Real Black Man, Implies Obama Isn’t

Follow me on Twitter and let’s connect on Facebook.

Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin, co-founders of Tea Party Patriots were two of many from Tea Party groups who responded to the resolution. They responded, though, as if they didn’t read the NAACP statement. In an opinion piece in Politico, they said, “The latest strike by the left comes from the NAACP, which has resolved that the tea party movement is inherently “racist.” At its most simple, this is a direct attack on the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.”  They continued, “The NAACP has long history of liberalism and racism.”

Then along comes Mark Williams. He’s a Sacramento talk show host and spokesperson for a group called the Tea Party Express. In response to the resolution by the NAACP, or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – who, to be clear, didn’t say all Tea Partiers are racist, but that there are elements in the movement who are racist – Williams wrote a satirical letter as if he’s NAACP president & CEO Ben Jealous writing to Abraham Lincoln. His argument is that the NAACP is antiquated and racist. His “proof” of that and hook in the letter is the word “Colored” in the organization’s name.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the letter:

We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government “stop raising our taxes.” That is outrageous! How will we coloreds ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society?

Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.

As outrageous as the letter is, the ironic thing is that Williams made the NAACP’s point about racist elements in the Tea Party. It’s as if Williams doesn’t know what racism is. It’s as if he’s ignorant of the fact that the NAACP, one of the nation’s oldest civil rights organizations, was founded in a time in which blacks were called Coloreds, and keeping the name might be an homage to the legacy of the organization. It’s as if he’s ignorant to the history of blacks in this country being stereotyped as lazy and taking handouts, and using those stereotypes might not make people sympathetic to his cause. It’s as if he’s ignorant to the fact that saying slavery was a “great gig,” the 13th and 14th Amendments should be repealed, using terms like “massa” and saying those “Coloreds” want to be slaves again is insulting and insensitive to the pain of slavery and the legacy the institution held and continue to hold over so many in this country.

It begs the question, how ignorant is Mark Williams and why did the Tea Party make him one of the voices for its cause? He or someone in his camp must’ve realized the letter was offensive. He removed it from his site shortly after it was posted, but that wasn’t enough for others in movement. The National Tea Party Federation, which is an affiliation of many Tea Party groups, expelled the Tea Party Express over the weekend when the group wouldn’t disassociate itself with Williams.

But Williams letter makes clear that these racist elements are not just a fringe. It’s more than just a few posters or a small group of people yelling nasty things in protests. Former Congressman Tom Tancredo said at the Tea Party convention last February, ”people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’, or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama.”

What’s key, though, is what some of these leaders of not just the Tea Party, but leaders of the right do when accusations of racism are made. They engage in what Ta-Nehisi Coates calls “frame-flipping.”

..positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do not simply want to marry, they want to convert our children into sin. The Jews do not merely want to be left in peace, they actually are plotting world take-over. And the blacks are not actually victims of American power, but beneficiaries of the war against hard-working whites.

Just like, as Coates points out, Glenn Beck who said Obama is a racist, or Williams who said the NAACP is racist when he defended the Tea Party against the organization’s resolution. And then there’s the Shirley Sherrod mess this week, where USDA official was forced to resign because of an edited tape posted on a conservative website made her look like a racist, when she was actually telling a story about overcoming racism. (As an aside, I think the NAACP handled the Sherrod situation absolutely poorly.)

But it’s not just the guys with a radio show or a big blog who frame-flip. The CBS News/New York Times Poll released in April showed that 52% of Tea Partiers believe too much is made of the problems black people face compared with 28% the rest of the population, while one in four the Tea Partiers believe the Obama administration only wants to help black people. So, to the Tea Partiers, who are 89% white and have a higher income than the rest of the country, it is they who are being oppressed.

What I thought was the NAACP coming late to the party, actually got a Tea Party spokesman to prove exactly what people have been saying for months. There are people in the Tea Party movement who have a problem with race and a problem with a black man being president. It’s not a fringe group. There are elements of the Tea Party movement that are racist.

The NAACP resolution could ironically help those Tea Partiers who are sincerely worried the role of government, regardless of the race of person is in the White House. If the Tea Parties can effectively purge people in both their leadership and ranks who are using race for political gain, like Williams, these political groups might achieve some of their stated goals of smaller government and fiscal conservatism. If, however, they and the Republicans continue to brush off the accusations of racism and continue to frame-flip when the issue is raised, the changing racial makeup of the country is going to knock the Republicans out of power for a long time and make the Tea Party lose the political clout they’ve started to accumulate.

Sarah Palin’s and Barack Obama’s very different styles and appeal illustrate the contradiction Americans have about our leaders. Some people like Joe the Plumbers. Others like elites. Others like the two wrapped up into one.

Palin, who has said she’s thinking about running for president in 2012, blew away the Tea Party Convention crowd in Nashville for a price of $100,000. What unique brand of folksy does the Tea Party get for 100-grand? She delivers lines like, “How’s that hope-y, change-y stuff working out for ya?” and writes on her hand. (You’d think with all that money, she could just remember the four concepts she scribbled on her palm.)

On the other hand (pun intended), Obama’s State of the Union speech last month was just the opposite of Palin’s folksy speech. There were the customary two introductions of the president and 91 ovations, including 58 that brought Congress – at least some of them – to their feet. Kings, queens and dictators get that type of adulation.

I realize I’m talking more about style here than substance. Intelligence, the ability to juggle multiple problems and motivate others to help with those problems are important skills for a president, but style is important, too. How politicians present themselves and their ideas can make or break a campaign or tenure in office.

The over-the-top ceremony we give to officeholders, particularly presidents, runs counter to the man-of-the-people quality we demand from the men and women who campaign to get elected to office. On the campaign trail, candidates do everything they can to show how “regular” they are. “Regular,” of course, means “not elite.” Ivy League educated Obama went to diners and had beers with voters. Hillary Clinton, who also went to an Ivy League school, downed shots on the campaign trail and Republican flavor-of-the-moment Senator Scott Brown made his GMC truck a part of his campaign.

Once in office, though, politicians, particularly in higher office, are given the accoutrements of political success: titles, adulation and ceremony. They are adorned as soon as the inauguration is over. Politicians aren’t addressed as Mr. McCain, Ms. Palin or Mr. Obama. It’s Senator, Governor and Mr. President. And they have these titles for the rest of their lives! After the inauguration, a huge parade and numerous balls welcome the First Couple to the White House. They’re like a royal couple moving into the American Presidential Palace.

It’s easy to see why we would want our politicians to seem down-to-earth and in-touch with our needs. We want them to know what we go through. We want them to feel our pain. They represent our interests and us – they’re supposed to, at least.

There’s another possible source for the reason why we want our politicians to be ordinary and extraordinary. We’re a country based on the premise of social and economic mobility. We tell our children they can be anything they want: an astronaut, a baseball player or president of the United States. So, when we see politicians of any level, we want to believe we can do that. We may not want the job, but I think Americans want to believe that anyone can achieve high office. It’s the notion that we have the opportunity to be chosen and elevated by our peers to our nation’s political aristocracy.

Of course, being president is huge job and an awesome responsibility. The president and the rest our leaders – federal, state and local – are trusted with everything from our roads and parks to our rights and freedom. The pressure, power and responsibility call for an extra-ordinary person. They don’t have to be aloof, but maybe they shouldn’t be just anybody.