Apr 16th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Race at the Tea Party
Here’s another roundup of Tea Party photos:
I continue to find it striking that the TV coverage I saw of the parties didn’t make any mention of the presence of so many signs with a clear racial subtext even though such signs seem to have been apparent to so many of the curious spectators. I would also say that if you want a great illustration of my point about anti-anti-racism being an apparently key tenet of modern-day conservatism, you should check out the comments to my previous post on this subject. I’m pretty sure that nobody who was supposed to appear at a rally with Clarence Thomas and Michael Steele while holding a home-made anti-Obama sign would choose a “Diff’rent Strokes” reference.
70 Responses to “Race at the Tea Party”
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April 16th, 2009 at 10:30 am
I just had to satisfy my curiosity about the tea-parties, so I attended the rally at New York’s city hall. The more I listen to these people, the less I understand what they want. The mixture of anti-corporate and pro-business sentiment, the weird amalgamation of Joe-six-pack populism and Randian elitism–it just didn’t make any sense.
Contra this dissent of the day, the problem wasn’t so much that the protests lacked focus or that a variety of viewpoints were being expressed (though there were 31 flavors of crazy, for sure) but rather that the ideas being expressed were self-contradictory. Speakers spoke of paying down the deficit while both cutting taxes and rebuilding the state’s “crumbling infrastructure.” The crowd wanted financial stablility but also wanted to let the banks fail. The surrounding buildings (City Hall is located right next to the financial district) were repeatedly invoked both as monuments to America’s entreprenuerial spirit as well as fortresses of an elitist cabal that had hijacked the American Dream. Christianist and anti-immigrant/nativist language was periodically peppered with the right’s favorite new meme, the “rainbow coalition” comprised of people of “all colors and creeds.”
And I saw not one, not two or three, but FOUR signs that contained the phrase: “Sarah Palin-Ted Nugent 2012.” Riiiiiiight.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Re: Paul.
The duality of man.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:34 am
If you want to be really finicky — and I do — you could argue that Matt is conflating two different issues.
Republicans are wild about Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal (and Palin) because they realize that they’re in danger of becoming a party of white southern guys with combovers who wear blue blazers and khakis every day. This isn’t anti-anti-racism, or resentment of PC — those were 90s phenomena. This phenomenon is simpler: it’s a desperate effort to look hip without actually changing the content of your agenda.
A sign like the one illustrated here, on the other hand, is not anti-anti-racism … because it’s just racism. Not even camouflaged as an anti-PC protest. It’s just a mildly racist sign that thinks it’s being cleverer than it is.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Now Diffrent Strokes is racist. Unbelieveable!
April 16th, 2009 at 10:38 am
@4: By contrast, Al’s disingenuous conflation of the sign with the show it references … is classic anti-anti-racism of the sort Matt means to describe.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Perhaps it’s the nature of protests itself that gets every fringe element from whatever side out in force.
We’re used to the fact that most anti-war protests have appearances by people calling to Free Mumia, to the point where it’s predictable.
We’re simply not accustomed enough to right-wing protests to the point where their disorganization (what are they protesting, exactly?) and fringe elements are things to be expected as part of a general culture of right-wing protest, yet, so it seems all strange and scattershot. Once they settle into a groove, the signs with ebonics slogans and pro-business/anti-corporate/pro-infrastructure/anti-spending/xenophobic tenor of the proceedings will just be considered part and parcel of the “movement,” regardless of whatever they’re ostensibly protesting against.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:41 am
I don’t disagree with you, exactly, Yglesias, but I think this is a more complicated matter than you’re suggesting, that the networks might be staying away from it for that reason, and that we probably ought to be thankful for that.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Q. Why do billionaires (e.g., Scaife) support teabagging?
A. It gives them an opportunity to trickle down.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:42 am
If nothing else we’ve learned that you can still be racist even though you clearly haven’t met a black person since 1992.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Tyro,
None of this should be surprising to people who followed the Palin rallies. This is the exact same mix of crazy.
But maybe some people really thought it was going to be something different, a general bipartisan movement sparked by recent events. Nope–just more Palin rallies.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:45 am
I’m just recalling all the times that conservatives told me that protests were for America-hating hippies who don’t work.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:47 am
But maybe some people really thought it was going to be something different
Really? Who? Maybe some naive members of the press really bought into the hype that this was a grassroots bipartisan uprising, but for the most part I think even the organizers knew that this was an opportunity to give the defeated anti-Obama faction an opportunity to vent their spleens.
“Some Kenyan wants to destroy america”? Really, where do they get these people from?
April 16th, 2009 at 10:48 am
I’ve got a similar point to Tyro. The media never seemed to notice the bizarre fringe elements of left wing protests, much to the chagrin of the right (which was in power at the time). There was some positively weird stuff being put forth there. So I guess we’ve confirmed that the media isn’t biased, they are just horrible at what they do – I guess they get funneled into the main area where they message is most controlled.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Oh please, MY is sure quick to denounce all the anti-semetic signs at the lefty protests.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Who do you think you’re fooling, Al?
I’ll do you the favor of assuming you’re not actually as stupid as your comment indicates, and that you’re just a dishonest hack:
Who do you think is going to read that crap, and think, “If a black character said a catch-phrase, than using that catch-phrase to draw attention to someone else’s race can’t be racist?”
You just make yourself look like a jackass when you do this; it’s like hanging a “Don’t take anything I write seriously” sign around your neck. You’re just advertising the fact that you write dishonest things.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:53 am
I mostly agree with Tyro @6. Every protest has a fringe; it’s not usually fair to take the fringe as representative.
But I don’t think this really affects Paul’s point @1. Even the core of this protest seems ideologically incoherent to me — more incoherent than e.g. your average antiwar protest.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:54 am
What on earth are you talking about? People make up signs about Joe Lieberman that have lines from Fiddler on the Roof on them? Signs that read “Paul Wolfowitz is a Jew who wants to destroy America?”
I haven’t the foggiest idea what you mean. Anti-semitism, as the gun-nut murderer in Pittsburgh demonstrates, is a rightist phenomenon in this country.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:55 am
The modern Republican party is so classy.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Has anyone noticed anti-abortion signs? I haven’t and that’s the first clue to what’s going on here.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Wow, GOOD POINT, shooter242. I hadn’t thought of that.
Those people will protest the opening of an envelope, but they’re suspiciously absent – and as Paul said, it’s not as if these were particularly ideologically-disciplined protests.
What do you conclude from this?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Tyro,
Maybe some people in the press, maybe some people organizing the rallies, and a few scattered people planning to attend the rallies (we had a commentator, jim, who really seemed to believe these rallies would be more focused on taxation and spending policy). Or not . . . it is hard to tell who is being sincere.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I continue to find it striking that the TV coverage I saw of the parties didn’t make any mention of the presence of so many signs with a clear racial subtext even though such signs seem to have been apparent to so many of the curious spectators.
Ya know, I think the use of that and the other catchphrases is a Rush Limbaugh fan thing. Insert a subtitle that says ‘Rush Limbaugh fan’ every time you see one of those and the Tea Party rallies make a lot more sense.
max
['It turns out he hasn't got that many fans.']
April 16th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Boingboing.net linked to this re-imagining of the Diff’rent Strokes opener. May be relevant.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I thought the sign was a sly reference to Obama teabagging Dana Plato when he was at Occidental.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:16 am
That’s incredibly creepy, Healthy Markup.
Amazing.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Hi all,
The maintenance guy in my building saw the Obama stuff up in my apt. and has since taken to grilling me about Obama’s “real” nationality. (He also obsesses over BO’s alleged overuse of the teleprompter, another bizarre talk radio idea fixee.) Can someone (Matt?) shoot me a link that lays the birth certificate thing to rest?
Thanks,
Jeremy
April 16th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Can someone (Matt?) shoot me a link that lays the birth certificate thing to rest?
If it existed, it would not convince your maintenance guy. You maintenance guy is either consciously lying because he thinks it will get on your nerves and rally anti-Obama sentiment from people who don’t know any better, or he’s consciously lying and set in his ways and won’t be swayed.
There are people who believe that Proctor and Gamble is owned by the Church of Satan, too. Proctor and Gamble has all sorts of documentation explaining why this isn’t true. Think that “the facts” sway these people? it doesn’t sway them. You can, however, humiliate them for believing such stupidities, but I wouldn’t recommend it, since you depend on this guy to fix your faucet when there’s a leak.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Can someone (Matt?) shoot me a link that lays the birth certificate thing to rest?
Here you go:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
April 16th, 2009 at 11:26 am
People make up signs about Joe Lieberman that have lines from Fiddler on the Roof on them?
Naah, they just put him in blackface. See Jane Hamsher.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Has any professional chin-stroker or anonymous malcontent linked this anti-anti-racism to the fact that many of the real Boston Tea Partiers were dressed like Native Americans?
April 16th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Perhaps it’s the nature of protests itself that gets every fringe element from whatever side out in force.
That’s certainly true. But what’s amazing about these protests is that it appears the wacko fringe is apparently ALL they were able to draw, in spite of strong financing, months of planning, and being plugged relentlessly on FOX and on conservative radio.
It’s kind of like the difference between the crowd that went to see two heavily-promoted movies: Batman and Watchmen. Yeah, both groups included the comic book fanboys who will come out for any comic book movie, but the Batman crowd reached further and included literally millions more people who just wanted to see a really good Hollywood movie.
Political protests are like genre movies that way. I mean, they will always draw the “genre” crowd, and with enough hype they also draw the “we’re going to see the movie that’s being hyped” crowd. The question is whether they can draw the crowd that is coming to see the movie!
The Iraq War protests, much less hyped and promoted, did that–there were between a quarter and half a million people protesting in New York City alone. They drew the die-hard “protest” crowd, but more importantly, they drew people who came for the movie! Which was “hey, let’s all say the Iraq War is a really stupid idea!”
These tea party protests, as far as I can see, are the “Battlefield Earth” of political events. They could barely get the sci-fi crowd, and ended up with a big percentage of very weird types showing up–because the event apparently had a “hate Obama” subtext the way Battlefield Earth had a scientology subtext.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:35 am
anyone who has read this blog for more than a week should know with 100% certainty that Al is a jackass. he’s the reason i wrote the M.Y. Pie Filter, in fact.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Heh. Indeed.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:53 am
This post is basically just like the last one, so I’ll repeat the same comment:
April 16th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
We’re used to the fact that most anti-war protests have appearances by people calling to Free Mumia, to the point where it’s predictable.
Sorry for yet another “our nutcases aren’t as bad as their nutcases” argument, but at least at left-wing protests the message drift doesn’t go all the way to internal contradictions. It’s unfocused so it doesn’t accomplish much of anything, and varying flavors of revolutionaries wind up arguing with each other about whether capitalism has to fall before sexism, but they all would agree with each other that both capitalism and sexism are bad.
If Paul’s account in the very first comment is accurate, then the tea parties sound like there are people with “Free Mumia” signs side-by-side with people with “Fry Mumia” signs.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
They could barely get the sci-fi crowd, and ended up with a big percentage of very weird types showing up–because the event apparently had a “hate Obama” subtext the way Battlefield Earth had a scientology subtext.
I think a big part of the explanation is that by the time Fox News got heavily involved, “hate Obama” wasn’t subtext anymore–it became overt.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Big rallies always attract fringe elements.
But as anon rightly pointed out, in truth these were not big rallies, they were small rallies, and the fringe element was dominant, not merely present.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
the event apparently had a “hate Obama” subtext
Subtext? Um, what else were the Teagaggers about, specifically?
See if you can find the abortion signage here:
http://teablogging.net/
April 16th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I think a big part of the explanation is that by the time Fox News got heavily involved, “hate Obama” wasn’t subtext anymore–it became overt.
Although I don’t necessarily agree with that, if it’s true, so what? I can love or hate anyone I want, including politicians, that’s what makes this a great country. Was MSNBC’s hate of Bush overt? I would say yes. Nothing wrong with that, I just don’t watch it. You don’t think the Tea parties make sense, great, don’t go.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Was MSNBC’s hate of Bush overt? I would say yes.
really? So the fact that 2 hours of prime-time were hosted by liberals while the entire rest of the schedule consists of the likes of Joe Scarborough and Chris “the only people who don’t like Bush are wackos” Matthews means can only be interpreted that MSNBC had overt hatred of Bush?
Wow – talk about making up your own reality…
April 16th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Yeah, you’re right Andy, MSNBC plays it right down the middle. Sheeesh. That hard-core right wing pundit Matthews who worked for Tip O’neil, really skews their coverage to the right.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Judd is so confused that he thinks of Tip O’Neil as a hardcore leftist. Wow.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Although I don’t necessarily agree with that, if it’s true, so what? I can love or hate anyone I want, including politicians, that’s what makes this a great country.
Sure–no one is question the right of these people to hold such rallies.
But we were talking about why for the most part these rallies ended up appealing to only a fringe element. And I think a key part of the explanation is that mostly only a fringe element is interested in attending an anti-Obama rally, so once Fox News started marketing the teabaggings as anti-Obama rallies, they became fringe events.
And again, no one is saying Fox News doesn’t have the right to promote anti-Obama rallies. We’re just noting that Fox News’s decision to promote them as anti-Obama rallies explains who showed up.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Is that rainbow from very pasty white to slightly olive-y? Maybe with a little red in the neck added here and there?
April 16th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
That hard-core right wing pundit Matthews who worked for Tip O’neil, really skews their coverage to the right.
That is a false equivalence. One can debate whether Matthews typically adopts a left, liberal, or Democratic viewpoints on the news, or not. But regardless of whether he does that, that is not the same thing as promoting, and starring at, anti-Bush rallies.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I don’t know that I would call this sign racist. Race-baiting certainly. Don’t get me wrong. these tea-baggers are, er, uh, nuts.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
It was a strategic error by FOX and the Right to run with this Tea Bag nonsense so early in the Obama administration. There is nothing really to protest yet, and it was inevitable that these staged “rallies” would look lame and lack enthusiasm.
You need anger to protest, you can just manufacture a general malaise and expect the Base to “spontaneously” turn out.
You need cops in anti-riot gear. You need police dogs. You need some tear gas canisters sliding and smoking. You need protesters fleeing.
Hell, Obama could have give a speech at one of things. He could have held a fairly friendly town hall meeting.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
As for MY’s larger point that the right is anti-anti-racist, that does seem to be true, but I don’t really see much of that in either of these comments threads. Surely he’s not talking about me–I’m neither on the right nor anti-anti-racist. In fact, I called out William Salaten as a racist in a comments thread just before the one Matt linked to.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
DTM,re: Matthews, I was responding to Andy, it had nothing to do with the protests.
I think the bottom line is the definition of fringe. Indeed, protests on all sides attract the most extreme of any movement, but there were also many middle of the road people who don’t like the direction this administration is going, I would bet, that you see these people as fringe, I don’t.
A handful of people with stupid signs does not a radical protest make. Although it seems the right needs to work on there paper mache head talent, I didn’t see any of those.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
but there were also many middle of the road people who don’t like the direction this administration is going
Were there? And if so, why didn’t they clearly outnumber the fringe?
The thing is, I completely understand that there are in fact many middle-of-the-road people who oppose or are at least skeptical about one or more things Obama is promoting. But I also think that those people haven’t translated any such policy differences into hatred of Obama the person. Hence, those people just aren’t interested in standing shoulder to shoulder with the fringe people calling Obama a fascist, a communist, and so on.
And so once it became clear what these rallies were going to be all about–thanks to Fox News–those middle-of-the-road people, as far as I can tell, didn’t show up.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Were there? And if so, why didn’t they clearly outnumber the fringe?
So you’re telling me that out of say, 100,000 est.(made up number) nationwide, everyone of them had a racist, radical message they were trying to convey? I don’t buy it, I know many people that showed up around the country, they are far from the fringe. Again, you define fringe differently than I do. Many, including I, do not hate Obama the person, they fear he is taking this country to a place that is unrecognizeable to them. Legitimate or not, it is the American way to speak up when you see something you disagree with.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Judd, your response clearly made no sense. Apparently in your world (with it’s clear green skies) Tip O’Neil was such a hardcore leftist that anyone who worked for him would still be a hardcore leftist 20 years later and even while saying “Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left.”
For Judd, facts and data mean nothing in light of 20 year old job history.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
But as anon rightly pointed out, in truth these were not big rallies, they were small rallies, and the fringe element was dominant, not merely present.
Big rally, small rally, whatever. The fringe element was dominant in 2004 as well! That’s what protests always look like — they’re nuts!
April 16th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
ET,
Can you point out where I said Tip O’neil was a hard-core leftist?
Was Matthews considering running for Senate on the Republican ticket?
Matthews is on the left, period. You know it. Just because he stated that Bush is a likeable guy, in person, not having anything to do with his politics and you immediately label him a right-wing flak says much more about you than it does about me. live with it.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Judd, you demand proof that you said O’Neil was a hardcore leftist in the same post that you insist that I have called Matthews a right-wing flack means you don’t really get irony either. That’s okay, it takes intelligence to understand sophisticated concepts.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
The fringe element was dominant in 2004 as well!
Unless by fringe element you mean anyone who opposed the Iraq war, then this just isn’t true.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
So you’re telling me that out of say, 100,000 est.(made up number) nationwide, everyone of them had a racist, radical message they were trying to convey?
Very made up. Anyway, I’m telling you that at the rallies I saw, if there any normal, middle-of-the-road people around, they were hard to see for all the fringe people around.
Many, including I, do not hate Obama the person, they fear he is taking this country to a place that is unrecognizeable to them.
Whether you style it as hate of the man or fear of the man doesn’t make much difference with respect to the point I am making.
Legitimate or not, it is the American way to speak up when you see something you disagree with.
And once again, I’m not questioning your right to peacefully protest whatever you see fit. I’m just noting that we-hate-Obama rallies (or, if you prefer, we-fear-Obama rallies) are bound to be dominated by fringe elements.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
The fringe element was dominant in 2004 as well!
Were they? They were present at the big rallies, but I wouldn’t say dominant. But maybe you can show me what you have in mind.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/tea-parties-appear-to-draw-at-least.html
Your numbers hero came up with 262,000. So I undershot it.
Whether you style it as hate of the man or fear of the man doesn’t make much difference with respect to the point I am making.
This is where I see the difference between the right and left. You(the left) also feared where Bush was taking the country, which then translated to personal hate of the man.
I (the right) disagree with his policies and fear what may happen to the country, but I don’t hate the man, I just think he is wrong.
ET, touche.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Re: Shooter242 @10:55
I ventured over to the protest in Denver during lunch yesterday and saw a sing that said something to the effect of “Stop Using Our Tax Dollars to Murder”. I assumed that her sign was in reference to the new rules concerning stem cell research but was mistaken. She explained that buried in Nancy Pelosi’s stimulus bill, there was a bunch of funding for abortion. Now had she actually been concerned about government funded stem cell research, I would have considered her less fringy (See: Douthat, Ross). But she was concerned about Nancy’s abortion mandate and could probably be considered the fringe of the pro-life movement.
I had one other observation concerning the racial subtext of these protests. While I didn’t notice blatantly racist signs, the location of the Denver protest struck me as rather, um, ironic. The anti-tax protest was held in front of the capital building in what is commonly referred to as Civic Center Park. On any given day, yesterday included, the park is populated with a number of homeless people, many of them minorities. Despite not actually counting the number of non-white protesters, I’m confident in positing that most of them were white, non-urban dwellers (I had heard several complain about parking downtown). So the juxtaposition of a bunch of anti-government white people and minorities who could stand to benefit from government services was quite striking.
I’ll make one final note on the lack of message cohesion of the protest. There was A LOT of talk about supporting our troops, increasing military funding, not turning our back on Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. A speaker lamented Obama’s budget cuts to the military. I only find this interesting because I felt as though the Denver protest seemed more like a rally for the Republican platform and less tax protest.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I (the right) disagree with his policies and fear what may happen to the country, but I don’t hate the man, I just think he is wrong.
That is nice for you, but many, many of the people who showed up at the rallies felt differently.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
We’ll never know.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Why do I have a feeling that most who are complaining about this sign being racist had no problem with the ad that had Bush morphing into Hitler?
BOTH extremes are whacked, and the real problem is, BOTH of our major parties are controlled by these whackos. A true moderate has NO way fo being represented.
RAP
April 16th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I had one other observation concerning the racial subtext of these protests. While I didn’t notice blatantly racist signs, the location of the Denver protest struck me as rather, um, ironic.
Wow, white people can’t go to Civic Center Park now? So even though there was no overt racism, you just know, in your heart, racism was the underlying theme. This is as clear a case of projection as I’ve seen in awhile.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
We’ll never know.
Dude, I can read a sign.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
San Francisco was about 50% women.
Images from the event:
Gallery
Slideshow>
April 16th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Dude, I can read a sign.
They were all Mobys.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
In total weenie mode, Matt complains about:
“A ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ reference”
The horror, the horror.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
I can’t believe people are even discussing the ‘tea parties.’
April 17th, 2009 at 9:09 am
It isn’t possible to make a reference to a show featuring black people that is racist.
I know, because the guy who always writes racists posts told me.