Joan Walsh has argued that the Tea Party Movement must be understood as a fundamentally racist movement. What do you think? Is she right? Why or why not?
Too much tea party racism - Healthcare Reform | Obama Health Care Plan - Salon.com
I think that the tea party movement, characterized as it is by irrational fears, openly contemptuous speech, tribalism, reactionary politics, ignorance and vitriol will naturally attract most of the racists in any given town, but it may also attract other sorts of people who are not racists because the US is really up **** creek, economically speaking, (and was long before Obama came onto the scene.) Doubtless there are many people who are drawn to tea parties to express honest anxieties about the mishandling of the public purse (although the fact they weren't drawn out until now despite decades of outrageous military extravagance and corporate welfare by white presidents in both parties is rather suspect).
What I think is that the creators of the astroturf movement are the sort of people who, whether or not they themselves are racists, are perfectly willing to
use racism to advance their agenda if they think it will help. This is why the GOP racist fearmongering coming straight from candidates is rather subtle (and suspiciously uniform in character and language). Planting whispered suggestions of a radical socialist minority overthrow of white Christian power gives the wing-nuts permission to spit on black congresspeople and yell the n-word at them. And where better to do so than on a sunny afternoon of tea-bagging? That kind of camera-friendly drama lends credibility to the oft-repeated GOP claim that the people have had enough of the government trying to actually do something to help rectify America's horrendous social problems, and that the whole country is a powder-keg ready to go off at the slightest hint of meaningful corporate regulation.
I believe that to the tea party puppeteers it is about maintaining the status quo with regard to the current concentration of money and power and has little to do with race. (How could it when Dubya openly goes out and kisses Saudi Arabian men on the lips?) But, these people being unscrupulous ********, if the intentional provocation of racial fear and violence can help them do it, they're more than willing to include it in their repertoire of dirty tricks.
