Apr 16, 2011

That's What it's All About

The first black man got elected President. Thousands of white people took to the streets yelling about taking their country back while shouting racist dog-whistles and attacking the fourteenth amendment.

This was accompanied by sanctimonious outrage against any and all who dared suggest that race was a motivating factor.

But bravo to you, Mr. David Williams, friend-of-a-friend on Facebook, for dropping the pretense and admitting what the Tea Party is, has always been, and always will be about:


There's a black man in the White House.

(The original version of this post did not say "black man". The intent was to condemn the image by starkly stating what it merely implied, and I thought at the time that there was a case for so doing. I have since come to the opinion that the word is not mine to use no matter the intent and no matter the case. I retract it, as best I can, with my apologies. --Andrew, 2/8/2022)
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownApril 16, 2011 at 2:42 AM

    Generalizations are always completely true and helpful!

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  2. andrewApril 16, 2011 at 2:48 AM

    hmm, let me cut and paste from where i'm having this same discussion on a link here:

    I've made a quite specific case against the Tea Party and race as a motivating factor there. I would bolster that case with video such as this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI

    as far as demographics go, the representation of blacks among 'Tea Party supporters' is ~half that of the population at large (6% v. 11%):

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/tea-partiers-fairly-mainstream-demographics.aspx

    I'm not sure how loosely they classify 'supporter' (it seems to be something like 'holds a favorable view of' rather than 'actively participates'), but certainly playing 'spot-the-minority' in crowd shots is instructive.

    as for the rhetoric, well they really are coming out against the fourteenth amendment:

    http://teapartynationalism.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=135%3Atea-party-leaders-attack-constitution&Itemid=104

    they really are going on about "states' rights":

    http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=104524

    and "states' rights" really has been a racist dog-whistle since the days of Calhoun.

    throw in the conspiracies theories about illegitimacy (ie, birtherism), the anti-colonial meme, the fears of his radical black pastor and subsequent accusations of being a muslim. for the people who indulge in that sort of rhetoric at this particular point in history those factors will admit of no other conclusion than race as a strong motivating factor--indeed, the STRONGEST motivating factor.

    and that's a generalization that is both true AND helpful.

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