Countdown Special Comment on the Tea Parties and Race.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Keith Olbermann touches on the part of the tea party protests which I have always been most uncomfortable with.

But let me ask all of you who attend these things:

How many black faces do you see at these events?

How many Hispanics? Asians? Gays?

Where are these people?

Surely there must be blacks who think they're being bled by taxation.

Surely there must be Hispanics who think the government should've let the auto industry fail.

Surely there must be people of all colors and creeds who believe in cultural literacy tests and speaking English.

Where are they?

Where are they?

The London Times said that Tancredo's opening speech revealed "a dark underbelly of xenophobia". And it's hard to find fault with that analysis.

All this talk of taking their country back makes me wonder; from who? It's so lazy to accuse people of being racist that I have long held back from doing so, but Tancredo's speech didn't play with racist notions, it positively bathed itself in them.

And, as Olbermann says, it's so very rare to attend any political event and find that every single person in attendance looks just like you.

Normally political events are attended by every race and every religion. Why is the tea party movement so exceptionally Caucasian?

And when the opening speaker at their rally calls for literacy tests before people are allowed to vote, we are no longer even communicating in code. All of us know the history of that particular test and what it's intention was.

Tags: Olbermann, tea party protests, racism