The Color of the Party
By Jacob Batchelor, Staff Columnist
Published on Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The Tea Party movement has captured the attention of the American public; it is difficult to go a day reading or watching online, print or televised news in this country without seeing some mention of this now infamous group. Part of the attention, I think, is due to simple morbid fascination — the “Balloon Boy” factor of modern media. Many others — myself included — follow Tea Party news stories in wonder and worry that this could be the political future our generation is inheriting.
There are pleasant anecdotal encounters with Tea Partiers, such as in the recent column by Jasper Hicks ’12 (“My Tea Party,” April 2010), that contrast with the general craziness shown in the media. But now that this political group has been around for awhile, it is time to look past media depictions or personal encounters and decide what the Tea Party is about and whether or not we, as a generation of voters, should keep paying attention.
Recent statistical surveys have evidenced what I and many others have come to believe: one of the main underlying ideologies of the Tea Party movement is racism — a last desperate pitch of middle-class white America to hold on to a version of our country that they hold dear and that no longer exists. We, young voters, need to stop taking the Tea Party seriously as a political force in our country until a time when their often vague and contradictory ideologies come together to something more than a thinly veiled racist agenda.
The University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Sexuality recently surveyed racial attitudes of Tea Party enthusiasts. The results were disturbing, if unsurprising. Of the 18 percent of the general population who consider themselves members of the Tea Party, only 35 percent “believe Blacks to be hardworking,” only 45 percent “believe Blacks are intelligent” and only 41 percent “think that Blacks are trustworthy.” Numbers were similar with regards to Tea Party views on Latinos. Overall, the study suggests, as recently reported by Newsweek, that Tea Party supporters have a 25 percent higher probability of “being racially resentful” than non-Tea Party supporters.
While these survey questions could have been somewhat loaded (many might say people of all races lack the qualities listed in the survey), the numbers are significant enough to warrant distress. To look at the statistics in reverse, more than half of Tea Partiers believe black people are unintelligent and untrustworthy, and a full 65 percent of them believe blacks are not hardworking. Now maybe these numbers are not enough to convince anyone that the entire movement is predicated on racist attitudes. Obviously there are going to be some supporters who legitimately want a smaller government, decreased spending and the impeachment of President Barack Obama in the belief that he is a foreign-born Muslim socialist. But given that the movement has come in this moment rather than during the George W. Bush administration, which saw the beginning of two costly wars, expansion of executive power and the creation of an unfunded Medicare prescription drug plan, I find the official rhetoric of the Tea Party rather unconvincing. Perhaps if they called for decreased defense spending and a revoking of the Patriot Act, I’d listen.
Another interesting way to view the Tea Party movement and its relation to race was recently put forth by prominent anti-racism writer Tim Wise. In his essay “Imagine if the Tea Party was Black,” he plays an “imagine” game in which the rise of the Tea Party was brought about not by middle-class whites, but black Americans. Do what he asks, and imagine. As horrible as it is, the movement in reverse would be completely different. The same people who support the Tea Party now would be up in arms against that for which they now fight, decrying how degraded the fabric of our proud nation has become. Picture Glenn Beck covering the story — or the current Tea Party’s reaction to a black Glenn Beck.
This, as Wise puts it, is the nature of the white racial attitude the Tea Party embodies — “The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit [white people] do, on a daily basis.”
The Tea Party phenomenon is disturbing, to say the least. Its existence and racially charged ideology detracts from the legitimacy of many conservative causes. As liberal as I am, I want a strong conservative party. I want grassroots movements of “real Americans” to march peacefully on the National Mall. But what I don’t want is for us as a nation, as a generation, to take seriously a fringe group of Americans dissatisfied with the direction of racial relations and realities our country is heading towards. They are the past, we are the future.
Hate to burst part of this column’s bubble, but I think the Tea Party racism thing is a little bit shortsighted in perspective. Reason has a pretty convincing analysis.
http://tinyurl.com/2wm25a7
By reason on May 4 | 4:33 am
The referenced study is highly questionable. It surveyed 1006 people, only 354 of these were “valid”, and only one third of the latter, 117, strongly supported the tea parties. Is that a meaningful sample? Further, were the conclusions skewed by the authors’ biases? For example, they offered no analysis of their own fact that 25% of those who strongly-supported the tea parties were themselves non-white?
Are Black people hardworking and trustworthy? As individuals and as a group, no more or less than any other race. As a demographic group in the United States, hard to argue otherwise when such a huge percentage of Black males are incarcerated. The reasons for this have nothing to do with the tea parties, but will impact the opinions of anyone being surveyed.
The study is full of logical flaws. Only 45% of tea party supporters believe Blacks are intelligent? Even this does not mean the other 55% are racist. What if they believe that people of ALL races are generally not intelligent?
And finally, even if all racists (admittedly they do exist) support the tea party movement, that does not mean the movement is all racist or is not primarily concerned about intrusive government unrelated to race. My guess is most racists support eating. Does that mean that the rest of us who also support eating are racist?
The bottom line: The Tea Party movement is exactly what it appears… people who have lost faith in politicians who put their party interests (both Republican and Democratic) ahead of the country’s interests; people who are tired of an ineffective and costly bureaucracy of government that little-by-little usurps the freedoms of individuals.
If you want an example of gatherings that are clearly racist, why not look to the recent riots in southern California over the Arizona immigration law. Regardless of which side of the issue one is on, the dispute in CA (vs in Arizona) is over racial profiling and not the problem of controlling drug-related crime on the border.
By About Government, not Race on May 4 | 7:58 am
You wrote: “The Tea Party phenomenon is disturbing, to say the least. Its existence and racially charged ideology detracts from the legitimacy of many conservative causes. As liberal as I am, I want a strong conservative party. I want grassroots movements of “real Americans” to march peacefully on the National Mall.”
I have a hard time believing you really mean this. The Tea Party movement began before the Arizona immigration debate. “Real Americans” did march peacefully on the mall. Even if many (not all) were white, that does not make them less real. Perhaps you are disturbed that some subset of “real Americans” have views different than your own, and you grasp at straws to discredit their legitimacy.
Tea Partiers were just as unhappy with the Bush administration on domestic issues, where “compassionate conservativism” turned out to be a veil hiding a belief in Republican big government. It is just that these concerns were overshadowed by the events of international terrorism. Now the Obama administration has accelerated the Bush policies of big government, big business, big special interests, and Tea Partiers are saying “enough.”
By Sarah on May 4 | 9:12 am
Let’s just stick with the theme here. Jacob has been drinking the media Kool-Aid that convinces him that a large group of Americans, not a fringe group, who favor smaller government, lower taxes and their own freedom and the freedom of their fellow citizens, is racist. Not one word of the eight paragraphs quotes any racist statement by anyone in the tea party. The tea party welcomes anyone of any race or background who believes in liberty. To Jacob, this is the past. Jacobs present and future are devoted to attacking those who don’t agree with his ideology of the goodness of centralized power over the individual. His ideology is that of the American internal counter Revolutionary. That ideology is an ideology of the death of the individual. Jacob doesn’t have a clue what horrors his ideology has brought to the world, either today or in the past. Intelligence without understanding is dangerous and anyone who writes columns calling people who favor liberty racists because they don’t have a good counter argument should realize that their brains have utterly failed them.
By Brandon Lachner on May 4 | 9:23 am
Oh no, the Tea Party is full of racists! Yeah, haven’t heard that one before. It appears the author’s information came from a study done by the University of Washington as reported in Newsweek.
In fairness to the author, it appears that the folks at the Institute kicked the numbers out the door before they analyzed all the numbers. Once they did so, it appears that there is no correlation between Tea Party support and racism (http://spectator.org/archives/2010/04/27/diagnosing-racism).
It seems the author has been taken in by the “general craziness” shown in the media once again.
By Teetotaler on May 4 | 10:33 am
but your argumentation is flawed, as these numbers are anecdotal as well. what if a poll were conducted of americans in general on how they feel about blacks?
what sort of results would come out of a polling of attitudes of dartmouth students towards asians? racism isn’t a problem unique to the tea party.
By anonymous on May 4 | 12:05 pm
Batchelor writes tea parties are “a last desperate pitch of middle-class … America to hold on to a version of our country that they hold dear and that no longer exists.”
Not that there is anything wrong with having a middle class, or economic mobility across classes. No matter the idealism, progressive policies of redistributive change are responsible for middle-class extinction, as the rich take from the middle to give to the poor while keeping themselves wealthy. (Who receives all that interest on the debt anyway?)
Taking out the reference to “white”, this op-ed is a terribly condescending and elitist statement about middle Americans and their values. Inserting the color adjective is itself racist.
By Joe the College Plumber on May 4 | 5:21 pm
This is the ugliest political commentary I’ve ever read. Your bias is appalling. I don’t know what you think the conservative side of the political spectrum should be but the Tea Party is the closest thing to in since the ‘70s.
The conservatives in this country couldn’t figure it out in the 70s. Goldwater preached small goverment and supply side policies but it wasn’t until they took the social issues of the bible belt that it really worked. Perhaps this is a sign that the social issues aren’t the issue anymore. The pro-lifers have lost. Maybe that isn’t an issue anymore and a new conservative movement can rise that doesn’t have the agenda that hinders a lot of the conservative agenda.
Racism is the opposite of what the Tea Party is about. In a way it’s rejecting any ‘isms and caring about the way the government is truly run.
By Kyle D. Waters on May 5 | 9:58 am
The bias of the opening commentary is indeed appalling. Further, the decision by the D editors to publish such a piece, written by their own staff columnist, without some balanced counter-argument, is an indication they share the same bias or are naively unaware. Not one commenter above has risen in its defense.
By Tea Party Animal on May 6 | 9:44 pm