Black Tea Partiers Take Heat

Black conservatives are used to having to defend their values, but they now are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white "tea party" movement—and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of America's first black president. "I've been told I hate myself," says the chairman of the black conservative Frederick Douglass Foundation. "The assumption is the Republican Party is for whites."

Opponents have branded the tea party as a group of racists hiding behind economic concerns—and reports that some tea partiers were lobbing racist slurs at black congressmen last month haven't helped. But black conservatives say race shouldn't enter into a discussion of fiscal policy. It's "not about a black or white issue," says Angela McGlowan, a black congressional candidate in Mississippi. "It's not even about Republican or Democrat, from my standpoint. All of us are taxed too much." (More Tea Party stories.)