Last week, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) found himself in hot water about remarks he made about the far right. While he’s rightfully been criticized for his choice of words, his underlying message is one worth considering.

Grayson’s re-election campaign sent an email to supporters last Monday with an image of Ku Klux Klan members near a burning cross. It also used rhetoric comparing the Tea Party movement to the KKK, according to ABC News.

Many top Democrats were quick to condemn Grayson’s remarks, and rightfully so. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, was “disappointed” in the imagery used in the email, according to an article published by Politico.

The criticism levied at Grayson in the past week has been more than fair. The campaign email crossed a line in terms of appropriateness and offensiveness.

It’s both foolish and unfounded to claim that the entirety of the Tea Party comprises racists. It’s also overly extreme to compare its party members to a group like the KKK, which is often considered a symbol of hatred in America.

But it’s even more foolish to ignore the racist rhetoric and actions coming from some Tea Party members.

Remember the huge Tea Party Tax Day protests held across the country in 2009, when the movement first started? I remember seeing images of the signs at these events, and some of the phrases depicted were most definitely racist.

One said: “Obama-nomics: Monkey see, monkey spend,” along with a caricatured monkey.

Likening the first African American president to a monkey is absolutely racist, no matter the intent.

Another Tea Party member carried a sign that said “Obama’s plan” in big red letters. Under that, it read, “white slavery.”

Again, an incredibly racist remark designed to incite feelings of fear in white supremacists around the country.

Of course, the far right will argue that some of these signs aren’t meant to be racist, but such an argument fits right in with the new racism in America. That is, failing to acknowledge that racism still exists and remains an issue.

How many times have we heard the far right fail to acknowledge the racist undertones of some of its rhetoric, while at the same time charging members of the left with so-called “reverse racism” against whites?

After the Trayvon Martin verdict was reached, a dear family member asked me if the testimony calling George Zimmerman a “cracker” was racist.

It wasn’t. Using that word to refer to white people doesn’t have the offending power that the N-word has precisely because there aren’t hundred of years of prejudice, slavery and oppression behind it.

Racism indeed rears its ugly head in many areas of our society, and becomes especially evident in the criminal justice system.

According to the NAACP, African Americans now make up nearly 1 million of the 2.3 million incarcerated individuals, or half of the prison population in the United States. This is a staggering statistic. Africans Americans are also incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites.

What’s more is that people of color often receive harsher prison sentences.

This past summer, Marissa Alexander, an African American woman from Florida, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot at her abusive husband, according to ABC News.

Compare that to white Hispanic George Zimmerman, who was acquitted in his trial despite the fact that he killed an innocent teenager.

Thankfully, an appellate court recently overturned Alexander’s conviction and gave her a new trial.

Grayson was indeed wrong to liken the Tea Party to the KKK. But if the racial divide in America is to be fully healed, conservatives must stand up to racism within their ranks and actively work to eliminate it.

David Swenton is a senior political science and writing and rhetoric major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] or followed on Twitter at @DavidSwenton.

Published on October 30, 2013 at 1:39 am