MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell hosted Johnson Publishing CEO Desiree Rogers on her show on Tuesday to discuss violent political rhetoric. Johnson publishes Ebony magazine, the current issue of which features articles measuring the level of racist speech within the Tea Party and questioning Obama’s toughness in dealing with such vitriol. Mitchell called the articles “provocative” and “recommended” reading. She also asked Rogers if she thought the racist political rhetoric has reached its highest levels now that an African-American is President.”Some very provocative articles here about whether [President Obama] is tough enough and whether or not the politics that we’ve been seeing – Tea Party politics, and the like – really reach a new level of white supremacism, of anti-African-American rhetoric,” Mitchell summarized the recent issue of Ebony. The magazine’s website features a read by Rep. Keith Ellison (DFL-Minn.) on prevailing over racist Tea Partiers in the recent election. The title of the column is “I Fought the Tea Party – and Won.””The chasm between fact and fiction in the current political climate is disturbing,” Ellison writes. Yet he also accuses “Tea Party” Republicans of hurling racial epithets at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) during the health care debate, something that was never proven with video evidence.Another feature article, as Mitchell noted, talks about if the Tea Party has risen to new levels of racism in its discourse. One column titled “Racism, Inc.” first innocently wonders that “much has been written about whether the Tea Party movement is racist. It may or may not be.”But then the author adds that he has seen enough of the rallies to conclude that “many of those who are present….don’t see a liberal president. They see a black man who is president and believe, because they have been led to do so, that America is failing because of the color of his skin.”

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