02 May 2010

What if the Tea Party members were black?

Some excerpts from a very thought-provoking essay:
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government...?

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama...

Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina...

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings...
Much more at the link.

6 comments:

  1. If Rush Limbaugh is a normal American, then there's no hope at all for this country.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have seen this on the blogs this weekend and I don't buy it. If the tea party folks were black, people would be going out of there way to minimize any problems and champion their cause. I find mot Americans to be almost reflexively "anti-racist" (for lack of a better term) because they are very sensitive to their history with respect to slavery and civil rights. I don't think there would be much backlash even if there was a very confrontational or controversial primarily black movement similar to the tea party.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I my self have been to several Tea parties and i would like you to know THERE ARE PLENTY OF BLACK MEMBERS OF THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT! the tea party movement has nothing to do with race.

    The reason you dont hear much about this is due to media manipulation. they only show the worst case scenario in order to sway public support away from this. oh sure the camo clad retard is there, but is far from the majority. yet your more likely to see them than the black guy in a suite with the sign that reads "welfare will go down in history as being equal to or worse than share cropping".

    ReplyDelete
  4. I suppose it depends on what you consider to be "plenty" re black participation.

    The CNN poll (http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/17/rel4b.pdf) cited by Conservative Cabbie (http://www.conservativecabbie.com/2010/02/17/tea-party-demographics/) showed that 80% of Tea Party activists were white, 10% Latino, and only 2% African-American.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Somebody should really ask why political activism is considered so radical when it's primarily non-minority. Does that make it more dangerous to public well-being? No... Does it make it inherently racist? No...

    Personally, I am a little tired of the non-minority race card being played on the tea-party movement. Especially when it's used to emphasize the "worst case scenario" (as Keith said).

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...