When you ask Tea Party supporters if they are racist, of course they say no.
When you ask Tea Party supporters what makes them mad at Obama, of course they are going to deny their own racism is one of the factors.
If you sit down with Tea Party supporters and spend 30-40 minutes with an in-depth social science survey, their racism leaps out.
There is a difference between pop polling for ABC news and actual social science instruments like the one used by Parker in his study.
-Chip
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
> [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of SA
> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 1:24 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Tea Party: less than meets the eye
>
> On 11/5/2010 1:03 PM, Chip Berlet wrote:
>
>
> > Forget social science, it is the correct political line
> that matters!
> >
> >
> > Survey research of Christopher Parker of the University of
> Washington.
> >
> > (This chart uses different category language for clarity and omits
> > additional data, see the original full chart at
> > http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/mssrp_table.pdf
> >
> > Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame
> prejudice
> > and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without
> special favors.
> > (Agree):
> >
> > Tea Party Loyalists = 88% - Neither Loyalist nor Skeptic = 56% -
> > Difference = +21%
>
>
> Why the focus on race? In this country, poverty is a
> racialized issue - among everyone, not just the TP. Example:
> The average American is much more sympathetic to "aid to the
> poor" than to "welfare" because the latter is coded as
> "black." If anything, the TP are *less* racist in this sense
> because they're purists. They're against aid to the poor
> whether the recipient is white *or* black. So polls showing
> that the TP thinks blacks should pull themselves up by their
> bootstraps don't prove anything about the TP's views on race
> per se. They think *everyone* who's poor should pull
> themselves up by their bootstraps.
>
> Since you're into social science, you'll be happy to know
> that the ABC News polling unit tried to disentangle these
> various effects. Here's what they found:
>
> http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2010/07/the-naacp-the-tea-
> party-and-the-question-of-racism.html
>
> > Certainly views on race differ among groups, and as we noted at the
> > time, Tea Party supporters are less apt than other Americans to see
> > racism as a major problem. But that view also is associated with
> > attributes other than being a Tea Party supporter - being very
> > conservative, for example, and being white.
> >
> > We tried to disentangle these by producing a regression analysis
> > predicting independent elements of support for the Tea
> Party movement,
> > using views of the extent of racism in society and of
> Obama's efforts
> > on behalf of African-Americans as measures of racial sentiment.
> >
> > As we reported: "A statistical analysis indicates that the
> strongest
> > predictors of supporting the Tea Party are views of Obama,
> ideology,
> > partisanship and anger at the way the government is
> operating. Views
> > on the extent of racism as a problem, and views on Obama's
> efforts on
> > behalf of African-Americans, are not significant predictors
> of support
> > for the Tea Party movement."
>
> It's amazing to me that you look at a movement that almost
> never talks about affirmative action, civil rights,
> anti-discrimination laws, etc.
> -- that talks 95% of the time about government spending,
> taxes, and the free market -- and the one thing you focus on
> is race. You may have good reasons for it, but I have to say
> it *sounds* like it's because you lack (or you don't think
> your constituency would be open to) a critique of the TP
> based on its actually expressed ideology of small government
> and personal responsibility. It's easier to focus on racism
> because there's no need for a critique.
>
> SA
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>