So I admit I’ve gotten a little caught up emotionally in this whole health care debate. Part of it is, my boyfriend is Type 1 diabetic, and if he were ever denied access to insulin or other medical care, I would probably kill someone. (That’s right, folks, health care won’t do you much good when you’re lying dead on the pavement). Anyhow, I was in yet another argument about the whole thing tonight on Facebook, when I suggested to someone that the Tea Party is pretty much a racist movement, and that those who oppose health care reform are mostly rich white people who think the only people who should have health care are rich white people. When I made the statement, I had little evidence to back it up, other than the fact that they’re mostly Republicans, and some like to shout racial slurs. But then someone called me on it, so I started looking around to see whether there’s any current polling data. Turns out, there is. And guess what? I was right — well, at least about the race part. According to Public Policy Polling, 65 percent of Hispanics and 77 percent of blacks support health care reform. Only 36 percent of whites support it. You can find the data here. But here’s my question: Why hasn’t this been more widely reported? Everyone’s been talking about the slurs used by Tea Party protesters, but no one’s been putting them in the context of this polling data. The slurs are easy for the Tea Party to dismiss as just a few people who don’t represent their views. But to me, this data indicates that the Tea Party is, by and large, a racist movement.
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No the tea party is not racist. Obama is racist because he cut NASA’s funding, so he doesn’t want to see the first black man on the moon. Chicago liberal democrats are racist because they banned hand guns because they don’t want black people to have guns. Us true patriots are not racist, but the filthy liberal dogs are racists.
Tea Party is not racist? Drinking more kool-aid? They are the new KKK of our time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI
That is your proof of racism. That 36 percent of white people are for the health Care bill. You are serious about that.
You’re are a brain washed cry baby liberal piece of shit! Who’s the kool-aid drinking propagandised waste of space? You are, you’d be a perfect sand bag, useless good for nothing sit on my ass liberal like you.
The Tea Party is the new American NAZI Party.
Dear John, where to begin. Your analysis of the Tea Party is interesting but like all liberals, you don’t quite have all the facts. The Tea Party movement is about liberty from over reaching government. The main concern of the movement is that the government is getting too big, too intrusive and quite frankly, is spitting on the constitution. I hate to break it to you, health insurance is NOT A RIGHT under the constitution. In a perfect world, we would have everything we need. The liberal utopia mantra sounds good on paper but that’s where it ends. Who exactly is going to pay for this Utopia you say people deserve? Who are you to say that one group of people have to pay for other groups of people? How much taxation is fair in your view? 50%, 60%, 70%? 10% of the population pay 75% of the taxes in this country and guess who is being asked to foot the bill for this massive new social government program? Yes, that same 10%. That is what the Tea Party movement is protesting. It’s not about health care reform, it’s about control. If Obama and the rest of those clowns REALLY wanted to truly fix healthcare, there are many other things that could be done, and for cheaper. We all know it, but he wants control. All this will do is create more of a welfare state and add another failed government program to the tax payer burden (does Social Security and Medicare ring a bell). They are failing and will be bankrupt before our generation will ever use it. THAT is what people are pissed about! Playing the race card is classic ignorant liberal playbook. When all else fails, pull it out. This too will fail, and will put us in the kind of debt that generations to come will have to bear. Obama has increased the deficit like no other president has ever done and he is not even done. Again I ask you, Who exactly is going too pay for this new UTOPIA? That is what this is about. I ask you to look up another stat. The groups you mention that support vs. those that don’t, who pays most of the taxes? Therein lies the cold hard facts about why one group supports vs. who doesn’t. I love it that liberals can’t stomach the Tea Party movement. We were told for years the protest is the American way and it is our right as citizens. That was good as long as Bush was President and it was liberals protesting. Now that it’s reversed, all of a sudden the protesters are racists because the oppose a left wing, liberal President? The silent majority is waking up (finally) and it’s time to get our country back. That is why you detest the Tea Party movement. Sorry, the truth hurts sometimes. Thanks.
“According to Public Policy Polling, 65 percent of Hispanics and 77 percent of blacks support health care reform. Only 36 percent of whites support it.”
Of course, you fucking MORON. That’s because THEY’RE the ones who will have to support it! And then add the attempts at amnesty, and inflate it by another 12 MILLION. Not to mention might as well throw the law out the fucking window. And if THAT’S the case, well then anything goes NOW.
But that’s OK with you, obviously. To those PUNKS posting shit like thomas above, any day you want to bring motherfucker, we’ll be waiting…
I don’t know who you are, John Wright. But you need a crash course in logic and reasoned analysis. Just because 36% of whites are in favor of healthcare compared to a much higher number of Hispanics or Blacks is your proof of racism? So if very few scientists (among them, Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler) believed in geocentric view of the universe, they are necessarily wrong? This fallacy is called verecundiam, “fallacy of appeal to authority” (in this case, sheer number). Incidentally, I’m not white (but it’s liberals like you who bring up the issue of race) and I believe in individual responsibility and limited government, which is what the Tea Party movement all about. These ideas are not the prerogative of any race.
Have you ever wondered who those people are who are on the underside of the average on the IQ test? Brad if you raised your hand you are smarter than I thought.
I’m surprised such ridiculous extrapolations are allowed to appear on this blog. The slurs are from isolated and marginal characters who invariably show up to protests (on the right and left) and do not represent most protesters.
The fact of the matter is that supporters of health care reform tend to be poorer than those who don’t, because wealthier people don’t want their taxes to increase — the wealthy don’t want to pay for the health care of the poor. However, the poor tend to be blacker and browner than the rich, and there’s a disturbing and hard-to-ignore racial element to class divisions in the United States; but that does not mean opponents of health care reform are necessarily racists.
Ice hockey, for example, is an overwhelmingly white sport with white audiences. In Dallas, of all places, Stars fandom is typically white and elite. Doesn’t mean those fans are a bunch of racists.
Many tea partiers are motivated by self-interest, looking after their piles of money, and little else. Others are concerned about expansive government, of which there is a long tradition dating back to the anti-Federalists. Many are simply pissed off at government across the board, at both the Democrats and the Republicans (who, during the Bush administration, sparked the stimulus — prompting the establishment of the tea party movement). There’s a strong libertarian element to many, who are also often explicitly anti-racist. Many have reasonable and rational arguments for why they believe these things, and you would be well served to listen and respond to the arguments. And yes, some of them, a few of them, but certainly none who I’ve ever met, are motivated by racism.
The world’s a complicated place! And political movements are complicated too. They have different strands and tendencies fighting with each other and struggling to develop a cohesive platform. Some of these tendencies are noble, others reprehensible. You can understand this, and try to understand them, while disagreeing with their political priorities. You would be fortunate to realize this, and to grasp the nature of something you know nothing about, rather than spouting off this lazy barrage of ad hominem attacks and wild innuendo.
It’s funny how they were never able to produce audio of someone yelling “Kill Him” at a Sarah Pallin rally in October 2009 and they aren’t able to produce video or audio of the incidents yesterday. Know why? Because they didn’t happen, that’s why.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” ( Exodus 20:16)
Where were these teabaggers when there were no WMD’s found in Iraq? Were were they when the deficit starting shooting up under the past republican administration. Concerned about government intrusion?..where were they when Bush wanted to listen in on the calls of private citizens without a warrant? Immigration??..where were they when Reagan’s republican adminstration granted amnesty to illegals in ’86 and did almost nothing to control the borders since? I’m not questioning their beliefs, but I am questioning their timing.
Rich (mostly white) people have been against civil rights, social security, medicare, medicaid, women’s suffrage, affiirmative action, gay rights etc…basically anything that helped anyone. And everytime they scream the country is ruined and will never be the same. For lots of people these changes have made america better and they’re glad the country “will never be the same” . Healthcare is just another change and the same people are going to rant and scream. And Obama represents the changing america that they’ve been terrifed of. Finally, I can tell them what they’ve told people like me for years…You don’t like it here in America…leave!!!!
@Xtabentun. I agree that just b/c it’s a predominantly white movement does not automatically signal racism. But then again, I’ve never been called a n*gger or f*ggot at a Stars game. Don’t try to sugar-coat this crap. You teabaggers have been caught with your pants down and the true ugliness of your movement has been revealed. I just hope that you will embrace the true meaning of a “teabagger”. Put a pair in your mouth and shut da hell up!
I’m not a conservative, libertarian or tea bagger. I’m a leftist Obama voter who supports health reform. It’s just the attacks on them from others of my political persuasion are ill-conceived and idiotic. Yes, it’s true someone shouted “homo” at Barney Frank the other day, and was then quickly admonished by others in the crowd. There is the occasional racist. But it’s not representative of the protesters as a whole, and a cursory visit to one of their rallies would show that to be true, if you’ve ever been to one.
It’s just that the marginal crazy people, who invariably show up to EVERY protest, regardless of political persuasion, get their photos taken by the opposition and plastered all over the internet in a crude propaganda trick to discredit everyone. It’s the oldest trick in the book.
In any case, the comment by Tisha sums up this creepy and authoritarian mentality. If you disagree with me on political matters, you’re a racist and a homophobe and need to “shut up” — if you disagree with me you should be silenced, suppressed and run off the planet — if you don’t think teabaggers should be destroyed, crushed and silenced, then you must be one of them too!
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman writes: “… the emotional core of opposition to reform was blatant fear-mongering, unconstrained either by the facts or by any sense of decency.
“It wasn’t just the death panel smear. It was racial hate-mongering, like a piece in Investor’s Business Daily declaring that health reform is “affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color.”
If you don’t believe that the Tea Partiers and other health care reform objectors are racist, you are either lying to yourself or you are not paying attention.
Here’s a very well-written article that pretty much pegs it. Check this out:
https://www.truthout.org/republicans-and-tea-party-no59519
The only three colors the Tea Party cares about, ironically, are the three colors of the black liberation flag: black (in the black) is beautiful; red (in the red) is rotten; green (money) is good. Anyone else who disagrees with this and thinks the Tea Party is inherently racist is stupid, stupid, stupid.