I happen to think that some degree of racism is involved in the teabagger movement, but it's not so much "I hate black people" racism as it is people who are really disturbed by a black guy all of a sudden being the boss. 'It was ok for them to hang out as long as they knew their place' type of thing. Motorcycle guy nailed it here.
But the recent survey of tea party attitudes towards race, purported to prove that the tea partiers are all racist, is total bunk. The article describing the survey, of course, provides a skim over some of the presumably more eye-popping figures without breaking out any further descriptions. Excepts follow.
Indeed, strong support for the tea party movement results in a 45 percent decline in support for health care reform compared with those who oppose the tea party. "While it's clear that the tea party in one sense is about limited government, it's also clear from the data that people who want limited government don't want certain services for certain kinds of people. Those services include health care,"Parker said.
Huh? This is probably even true but the question, as presumably phrased since they didn't provide the wording, doesn't prove that. Maybe they really believed the death panels stuff. Possibly they believed the overhaul would benefit poor (black) people at public expense. Probably they were infected with the desire to create a waterloo for Obama. But you can't conclude any of that from the one poorly qualified data point they give us.
Among whites who approved, 35 percent said they believe blacks to be hardworking, 45 percent said they believe them intelligent and 41 percent said they believe them trustworthy.
What? You asked a bunch of people "Do you consider 'blacks' to be hardworking"?? In other words "here's a stereotype, binary answer, agree or disagree in total"? Compared to who? The same survey could have found that the world's convinced that arabs are only employed in delis, indians only work at subways and asians are racially compelled to start studying for the SATs from age 8. And what about whites who disapprove of the tea party? They don't even give that number. Was it different? I'd just outright refuse to answer that question, but if they insisted on my answer about stereotypical black people in aggregate, given the number of unemployed, I'd have to answer along the lines of "No, but I wouldn't be either if I didn't have a job to start with", not to mention everything else that goes into that answer. What does that prove?
Whites who disapprove of President Barack Obama, the survey found, are 55 percent more likely to support the tea party than those who say they approve of him.
"Are we in a post-racial society? Our survey indicates a resounding no,"Parker said.
I, just.. I mean did they ask "Do you like/dislike Obama" or "Do you like/dislike Obama because he's black"? It seems that they asked the former and that says nothing about race, once again, even if the people in question were racist as hell.
This concludes your obligatory own-side callout. We've already got one movement that prides itself on ignorance and self-supporting platitudes, we have to be better than that while opposing it.