The Tea Party movement has earned a reputation as an organization that promotes racist views. This is largely in part because of its unrelenting attempts to cast suspicion upon President Barack Obama’s citizenship and more recently his academic credentials. But according to Lloyd Marcus, a conservative activist who also happens to be African-American, the Tea Party isn’t just a white thing.

In an opinion piece that appeared in the American Thinker, Marcus wrote that the liberal media either ignores Black Tea Partiers or casts them in the role of Uncle Tom. And he’s honest enough to concede that conservative media and Tea Party organizations rarely shine the spotlight on Black conservatives.

“We have many great Black conservatives on our side. They should be featured front and center at our rallies, TV shows, radio shows, etc., not for the sake of Black conservatives, but in defense of our Tea Party movement,” he wrote.

According to Marcus, the liberal left is actually the group that plays the race card, “exploiting Obama’s skin color for everything it is worth” by claiming that any opposition to the president’s agenda is racist.

Marcus is calling on his fellow Black conservatives to come out into the light and take their message to African-American communities. He plans to launch a mini-tour to Black college campuses that would feature Black conservative speakers and rappers.

“Black conservatives are valiantly fighting alongside our fellow white patriots in the Tea Party movement. It’s time to rip away the cloak of invisibility,” he said.

(Photo:Tannen Maury/Landov)