I’ve occasionally had differences with the NAACP, but in this case they’re absolutely right — it’s long past time for Tea Party organizers to take a stand against the significant racist element in their movement: NAACP Passes Tea Party Racism Resolution.

The resolution was approved in a vote by more than 2,000 delegates at the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Kansas City.

Versions of the resolution condemned “explicitly racist behavior” in the Tea Party movement and called on people to “repudiate” what it described as racist elements of the Tea Party. The final text of the resolution has not yet been made available, however, and that language may have changed.

As the Associated Press notes, NAACP President Ben Jealous has said the Tea Party movement needs to “be responsible members of this democracy and make sure they don’t tolerate bigots or bigotry among their members.”

Members of the Tea Party movement vehemently deny that their movement is racist.

Note: every word in that last sentence is a link, and there were lots more.

The racist elements of the Tea Party movement are only one of their most visible problems, and maybe not even the worst. The influence of the weird Ron Paul paleo-libertarian cult is also a huge problem, the influence of extreme fundamentalist religious sects is another, and the influence of the John Birch Society and their offshoots is still another.

The Tea Party movement is a deeply destructive force in American politics.