No Minstrel Show Here!

Charles Blow recently deplored the lack of authentic diversity at a Dallas Tea Party, describing it as a "minstrel show".  Conor Friedersdorf notes the heads they lose problem being faced by the Tea Party:

It’s this kind of piece that causes people on the right to think that on matters of race, they’re damned if they do, and they’re damned if they don’t — if they don’t make efforts to include non-whites they’re unenlightened propagators of privilege, and if they do make those efforts they’re the cynical managers of a minstrel show, but either way, race is used as a cudgel to discredit them in a way that would never be applied to a political movement on the left.

Jut so.  Meanwhile, I am eagerly awaiting a correction on this from Mr. Blow:

A New York Times/CBS News poll released on Wednesday found that only 1 percent of Tea Party supporters are black and only 1 percent are Hispanic. It’s almost all white.

It's almost all white and he has the pictures to prove it.  Ooops, my bad - that was a link to the NY Times Board of Directors, which seems to be utterly free of any Hispanic, black or Asian presence. 

Anyway, the NY Times poll reported the Tea Party as 89% white, which makes them a lot more diverse than the Times Board.  And contra Mr. Blow, the Tea Party is reported to be 3% Hispanics.  That won't change his point (as if anything would) but it would be nice to see the Times present the correct figures.

Comments

[Terry Gain]

89% white. 100% correct.

[20minutesmyass]

2012 is like Heaven. It is going to be beautiful. O and the dems defeated being what they are known to all on the planet. I can't wait and even am running for stuff myself and actually believe I stand a chance against them.

[Buford Gooch says GS sucks]

Racist, government hating, teabagging operators of minstrel shows. Probably Stalinist, Nazi, kitten eating, homophobic, doodoo heads as well.

I'm thinking the bloom is coming off the rose with these scurrilous attacks. The response to the "racist" attack is becoming, more and more often, "Whatever."

When the Tea Party group was small, they could make some of this stick with some of the people other than the died in the wool haters of all things right of Che. With 24% of Americans claiming membership, pretty much everyone else is either in the Tea Party movement, or is close to people who are.

[nathan hale]

The stupid is thick over there, at CF's place,
there's a strong whiff of 'that word you are
using,. . ."

[jimmyk]

Fake but accurate.

[Buford Gooch says GS sucks]

Oops. "Dyed".

[Neo]

Beldar takes Obama to the woodshed

[Clarice]

Racist, homophobic, meat eating, mink wearing..

[matt]

bitterly clinging to Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas,Hayek,Friedman,the Constitution, and oh yeah, most of the money and means of production.

[fdcol63]

The Left is getting more desperate and shriller every day.

Keep it up.

They're losing what little credibility they still have everytime they make these ludicrous claims.

[Comanche Voter]

Don't bother Blow(hard) with facts. They'll just confuse him.

[MikeS]

So, Charly Blow attended a Tea Party in Texas. Nobody spit on him or called him names? Did they make him wear a white sheet and burn a cross? Nope.

You might ask just what these folks did to earn the title of racists. Well Charly Blow explains it. They were 89% white.

[PD]

It's not my fault I was born white, Mr. Blow. What do you suggest that I do about it?

[nathan hale]

You know when they had Anthony Lewis I thought
they were crazy, then Rich, Herbert, and now
Blow, how out of it, can they get?

[ads]

Singapore.

When it's 2012 and the evil is gone, maybe I'll visit.

[PD]

It's not my fault I was born white, Mr. Blow. What do you suggest that I do about it?

I hope everyone understands that I'm claiming victim status there. And I'd like to know where I go for my reparations cash.

[Antimedia]

The Times, of course, is such a reliable authority for polling numbers - as opposed to Gallup, which does polling for a living and found that tea party members were 6% black and 79% non-hispanic white (which I take to mean 15% hispanic.)

Of course the Times would never lie, or slant a poll to get the outcome they want, so it must be Gallup that is wrong.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

Great article, Neo. Another example of a cosmetic change of subject from the Once.

[Mike O]

We have 3 Latinos on our steering committee alone, making it 30% Hispanic. However, they prefer to be called Americans of Latino descent.

[mrdiversity]

I was under the impression that the all-white board is just a fake Hollywood-lot style front for a Mexican monopolist ..

[Dentists]

Five year budgets like PEPFAR. It's really for the MIDDLE CLASS.

$12.5 billion over the next five years to help expand the access they offer to basic medical care from 20 million Americans to 40 million. There also is $1.5 billion in new funding for the National Health Service Corps .........

Recruit, retain and alumni funding snuck in too.

[MarkO]

I found this really odd: "the cynical managers of a minstrel show."

Maybe it is because I am either old enough or care enough about history to know that in a minstrel show, white folk (nice touch, no?) wore blackface to gie the impression that the characters were black.

When nothing gets in the way of hateful polemic, those things don't matter. Somehow the phrase "minstrel show" meant racist, expolitive, unrepentent Confederate slave holder and so he just used it.

These are the real racists. Like Nifong, they use black folk for their own, personal advancement. And, they lie.

[Jay Guevara]

The NYT is bleating about "diversity" when its Board of Directors is 100% white, about 50% Jewish, and 100% liberal? WTF??

[Charlie (Colorado)]

"Authentic" is simply code for "reliably Democrat."

[nits]

Maybe we should declare this an emergency and deficit neutral.

[Frau Edith Steingehirn]

Mark O, do *not* read Frank Rich's latest besmirching of a)Tea Party people b)Southerners c)"macaca" users d)long dead Confederate soldiers and their descendants; and e)all Republicans of any age, gender, background and color.

Do you think someone on the left will get around to banning much of Stephen Foster's music as offensive?

[nit]

Its all about reconciliation after the period of violence. Maybe we should use conflict resolution here to change the laws.

[t]

'...purchase health insurance across state lines on THEIR terms, for lower costs.'

Section 5207: “Funding for a National Health Service Corps”
Section 5210: “Establishing a Ready Reserve Corps”

1.5 billion is what all of CNCS gets for 70,000 plus.

“Prohibition against discrimination on assisted suicide”

[JorgXMcKie]

Well, the French Aristocracy, er, uh, Political Class evidently doesn't see anything it doesn't want to. Surely I'm not the only one who thinks of that piece in "The History of the World, Part I" where Count d'Monet says to Obama,ah, King Louis XVI, "Sire, the people are revolting!" and Obama, uh, I mean King Louis replies, "You're telling me. They stink on ice."

Obdurate, deliberate ignorance is so twentieth century, don't you think?

[motionview]

Because the only thing more important than diversity to a liberal is the ability to run Daddy's business into the ground without interference. You go Patches Punch Pinch.

[Mike O]

http://datatroll.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/some-of-what-blow-missed/

[sherlock]

"Just Vote Them All Out" - Tea Party slogan

Yeah, that sure sounds racist and violent to me, except for a couple of little technicalities:

1. It doesn't include reference to anything even remotely racist, and
2. It makes explicit reference to achieving its goals through the legal and non-violent electoral process.

Seriously, how can people make such baseless arguments unless they are acting in bad faith, and how come nobody has pointed this out in the media, not even the conservatives?

[Tex Taylor]

Well, I don't think we should single out the NYT for its "pinky" culture.

If anybody has been ahead of the NYT on the pejorative curve in describing the Tea party and respective members, complete with accusations of racism and chock full of McVeigh wannabees, you'd be hard pressed to find anything more white than MSNBC's executives and rock stars.

[Toads]

If the 'right' consists of manginas like Conor Friedersdork, I want no part of it.

[Doc Merlin]

I'm a hispanic and I support the tea party. There, said it. This race baiting has got to stop, its idiocy. Also we need to stop kowtowing to race baiters too, just mock them for the power hungry attention seekers they are.

[tommy mc donnell]

the tea party is also more diverse than the racially exclusive black congressional caucus, the sexually exclusive womens congressional caucus and the ethnically exclusive hispanic caucus. all introduced into congress by america's diversity advocate: the democratic party.

[bunkberbuster]

The Pew study out yesterday says more than half of Republicans believe their own party doesn't represent their views.
It also shows that having a college degree or better makes you 30 percent less likely to believe the federal government threatens your freedom, than if you have high school or less. Newsworthy??
An anecdote:
One of my brothers is a founder of his local Tea Party chapter. He was formerly a very devoted fan of George W. Bush, but somewhere along the way, he seems to have lost his taste for the GOP, I guess. Anyway, he has linked me to their blog and the first entry focused on how Obama's race is being used as a tool to oppress white people. The second focused on how wonderfully appropriate is that the chapter's founders are "direct descendents'' of Patrick Henry.
Most of what I've read by Tea Partiers themselves does not appear to be racist per se, and my best estimate is that the ideological profiles of TPers is very similar to the GOP, including as regards the level of racism. However, I think the situation with my brother and other high-profile incidents seem to show that the Tea Party has a real problem in that it is reluctant to identify and reject bigots that are attracted to the parts of its message that have in the past been associated with the nativist and "white power'' agendas.
It's a tough issue for the TP. If they ignore these elements in their midst -- however tiny and insignificant they are numerically -- they will inevitably be tarred by incidents involving these people, eg spitting, epithets, racist emails and so on. If they publically out these elements, they risk both calling attention to them and also dividing their already fractious "movement" between those who see the efforts at moral hygiene as mere "political correctness'' and those who don't.

[tommy mc donnell]

to bunkerbuster what about the racism of the democratic party. since jimmy carter was president, the central plank of the democrat's political strategy has been the selective oppression of whites, better known as affirmative action. the core vote of the democratic party is the non-white vote. that vote is bought and paid for with the rights of white people. that liberal america's dirty little civil rights secret. they selectively screw a few white people and the rest of white america doesn't care or are happy it isn't happening to them.

[Mateo_G]

"It also shows that having a college degree or better makes you 30 percent less likely to believe the federal government threatens your freedom, than if you have high school or less. Newsworthy??"

What is the % of teachers / professors at those universities that think big gov't is a danger to freedom? Show me a liberal and I'll show you someone that hasn't been mugged by reality.

Academia is a fairytale-land of ideas. It doesn't make one smarter, it fills ones head up with nonsense.

[AL]

Unemployment among non-college black youth is over 45%. Classical example of “minorities hit hardest”.

Whatever promise of “hopey and changey” is, it is not working for them.

[bunkberbuster]

Wrong Tommy. Nixon introduced affirmative action. Look it up. Or ask a pinko college professor.
Likewise, Reagan, two Bushes and six Republican-dominated congresses never challenged affirmative action -- even when they had full power to end it.

[Bill45]

"The NYT is bleating about "diversity" when its Board of Directors is 100% white, about 50% Jewish, and 100% liberal? WTF??"

Diversity for thee, but not for me.

I will finally believe they are serious about "diversity" when liberal Democratic professors, university presidents, journalists, or congressmen, resigns in order to create an "opportunity" to improve minority representation in whatever.

Until that ever happens, its only all about keeping African Americans happy and smiling down on the Democratic plantation.

[Bill45]

"...Reagan, two Bushes and six Republican-dominated congresses never challenged affirmative action -- even when they had full power to end it..."

Not exactly correct. If memory serves, the DOJ under Bush 43 at least filed briefs opposing affirmative action in the Supreme Court cases involving University admissions. Elections do matter.

[Timekeeper]

I will finally believe they are serious about "diversity" when liberal Democratic professors, university presidents, journalists, or congressmen, resigns in order to create an "opportunity" to improve minority representation in whatever.

We can start with Bob Filner and Steve Cohen, both white men who represent "minority majority" congressional districts (Filner's California district is majority Hispanic; Cohen's Tennessee district is majority black).

[Terrye]

Charles Blow is a reactionary race baiting cry baby.

[soozer]

http://www.nytco.com/company/executives/index.html

So many white people, so little time.

[Jane]

Politico did a survey at the DC Tea party. I was interested in watching who the person asked to do it, as it seemed she was not being the least bit random but seeking out certain types.

This morning on Morning Joe Politico said their survey showed two types of Tea partyers - either Palin for President types or Ron Paul types.

I really wish I'd seen those questions.

[rse]

OT is a link to "California-The Beholden State" in the LUN.

It's an excellent narrative of precisely how and when CA got into its mess and the implications nationally as the public sector takes more and more.

Also the cartoon with SEIU as a Suma wrestler with an emaciated Taxpayer deserves to get pulled up and shown prominently.

[nathan hale]

It's ironic though, Nixon did introduce affirmative action, under Arthur Fletcher,
and the EPA and wage and price controls, and what was the left's response, Watergate, signaling tp us, that a liberal republican
was not the way. Of course, most liberals still think Nixon was evil incarnate.

It is thereby insincere to reproach the GOP for any failure to move on this point, after
the demagoging of Meese, of Bork, (led by the late Senator Kennedy, but with musical accompaniment by 'constitutional scholar'
Biden,) Thomas, AShcroft, wherewithall

[fdcol63]

Affirmative Action ...... because nothing says "equal opportunity" like insisting on racial preferences and quotas.

/end sarcasm

[Pagar]

The first Article in Google says President Kennedy introduced Affirmative action.

[fdcol63]

Nixon initiated the "Philadelphia Order" in 1970, but Affirmative Action was first spoken of by Kennedy, and then expanded on by LBJ during the Civil Rights Act process and then signed Executive Order 11246 on Sept. 24, 1965, which enforced it for the first time.

[fdcol63]

Equality of Opportunity vs Equality of Outcomes

With equality of opportunity, different people will achieve different results based on their own individual merits, like intelligence, education, ambition, work ethic, etc.

However, equality of outcomes ensures that everyone will end up the same ... usually mediocre, at best, or equally poor, at worst.

[Janet]

two types of Tea partyers - either Palin for President types or Ron Paul types.

I just hate the MSM. What is a Palin "type" or Paul "type"? Small government? Less regulation? Stop spending?

If so, they can list me as a proud one. I am not a Ron Paul fan, but the "Che types" sure needs to define "type".

[Pagar]

Well said, fdcol63!

[jimmyk]

in a minstrel show, white folk (nice touch, no?) wore blackface to gi[v]e the impression that the characters were black.

MarkO, without even subjecting myself to Blow's article, I suspect the subtext here is that the blacks in the tea party movement are not truly "black." Just like, you know, Clarence Thomas is not really "black."

[nathan hale]

It's really concentric levels of stupidity, Blow, Friedersdorf (who is just dripping with
po mo sensibility) then Rich. It's really the hipster ethic promulgated by the late Norman
Mailer back around 1957??, which we are still
dealing with today.

[Janet]

I guess they are "hipster types". They want government to take care of people so the slackers are free to be artists....

[jimmyk]

What is a Palin "type" or Paul "type"?

As you know, a Palin or Paul type is one who may actually still be on a first marriage, may have more than two children, and may belong to a church. Also, this type normally lacks an Ivy League degree, fails to get invited to any of the most chic upper west side cocktail parties, and is never seen sipping lattes at Starbucks while poring over the NY Times.

[Indy Voter]

Hm, guess the NYT would be shocked to learn members of the Tea Party Movement are supporting minority candidates, Bill Randall spoke out recently on race,

http://anotherblackconservative.blogspot.com/2010/04/videos-black-conservatives-bill-randall.html

Lt. Col. Allen West
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/18/quote-of-the-day-588/

[Clarice]

Politico handed out the survey to the Iowans with the skeleton in a wheelchair sitting next to Jane and Caro and me but deliberately avoided us. Wonder why? True we had no hayseeds on us but still.

[Pagar]

We have the perfect example of equality of outcome in Cuba and coming full blast in Venezuela. Since William Ayers has decided that is what America should look like, the Obama administration seeks to implement it on a daily basis. However Obama has added his religious preference to the mix.

[nathan hale]

This little piece, in the LUN does illustrate the yawning double standard of the times, no,
not on race this time but gender, of course
they didn't have a contrast photo

[Janet]

It is nice to know the MSM is all concerned about the Tea Partiers. One of the new memes seems to be...the Tea Party needs to be careful that no "fringe groups" are participating. The MSM is gonna decide who a "fringe group" is.

Well the MSM can go to hell. When the leftists have cleared their ranks of communists, anti-Semites, A.N.S.W.E.R., union thugs,... then they can offer advice to others.

[scott]

The illiteracy needed to think a survey taken in that manner, with the bias of the reporter integral, is of any more than trivial value is quite revealing.

I doubt anyone on morning Joe ever passed even a basic trig course so whatever.

I guess thats why Madoff types do so well among them.

[Janet]

I like to use Palin references on my signs - not because she is my #1 Presidential choice, but because I know it drives the left crazy. God bless Sarah Palin for consistently playing offense and driving the narrative. Glenn Beck too, and Andrew Breitbart, and Michele Bachmann, Levin, Rush,...
These seem to be our offensive players. The old entrenched Rep. party just seems to play defense and react to the MSM/Dems..

[nathan hale]

Well Morning Joe is just a sugary syrup,
better than the rhubarb cocktails that comprise the rest of MSNBC's offerings.

The Okhanitsa, is taking up valuable space in the minds of Klein and Herr Heilemann, I remember when he was an unexceptional writer
for Wired on Media,

[Cecil Turner]

Yeah, let's keep the conversation focused on race. Because everyone knows that's what's important. (Not inconsequential stuff like, say, national debt.)

Gosh, that looks horrible. Somebody ought to do something about it. I've got a great idea . . . let's start a movement to force politicos to have a national conversation about the economic disaster staring us in the face.

Oh no, better not. Because according to Charles Blow, only racist hatemongers could possibly think like that. Persuasive.

[nathan hale]

Don't you know Cecil, the VAT will cure it all, Darn, that chart makes me feel like Cpl
Hudson, 'game over, man'

[Captain Hate]

The NYT and their ideological ilk, with their constant preoccupation with race, are remarkably uninterested in finding out why Odummy's popularity with blacks remains extremely high while it's declined in every other sector.

[fdcol63]

Like Obama said, we should all be thanking him.

[motionview]

Oh Cecil, what a racist graph! Why use red and black, colors historically associated with negative stereo-types of Native Americans and African-Americans, to provide this negative news? I notice in particular that there is no white line.

/sarcasm (because memorandum picked this up and lately lefties seem to be a little humor-challenged)

[Pofarmer]

Joel Klein says Palin being seditious?

"I did a little bit of research just before this show - it's on this little napkin here. I looked up the definition of sedition which is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state. And a lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from people like Glenn Beck and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, rub right up close to being seditious."

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2010/04/18/time-s-klein-beck-palin-potentially-committing-sedition-against-u-s-gover#ixzz0lYK1vqxq

LUN

[Pofarmer]

FWIW

If the Country as a whole is 75% white, and Obama has upwards of 95% approval within the black community, what sorts of numbers would you expect?

[Rick Ballard]

"I notice in particular that there is no white line."

Sure there is. It's labeled 'Tax Receipts' and it's heading in the opposite direction from 'debt'. It's just a little difficult to make out on the chart.

[Captain Hate]

lately lefties seem to be a little humor-challenged

Lately? When is the last time a lefty said or did anything even remotely funny? They provide plenty of unintentional hilarity such as when those idiots put together a website with pictures of their simple mugs apologizing to the rest of the world for the results of the 2004 election.

[nathan hale]

That was the gist of Geithner's comments on MTP too, I know the irony is so thick you have to cut it with a chainsaw

[caro]

Chicago voter since 1922.

They must have brought the skeleton by car from Michigan. Fun.

[Pofarmer]

So, what's wrong with being a Palin type? Stand up and say HELL YEAH!.

Fuck em.

[Danube of Thought]

Minus 11 at Raz today.

[Pofarmer]

Must go plant corn to feed, well, something.

See ya.

[Ignatz]

--I looked up the definition of sedition which is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state.--

He had to look it up? Is Joe the product of one of our Ivy League moron factories?

[caro]

Michigan Iowa.

[jimmyk]

Speaking of racist graphs, this one gives a better idea of the fiscal trainwreck that awaits us, since it projects forward, and doesn't let the WWII aberration (where there was actually a good reason to borrow) distort the scale.

The IMF projection is the one to rely on, since the CBO and OMB have to obey the rules they are given even if it flies in the face of reality.

[jimmyk]

oops, 'preview' didn't show the chart would get cropped. Anyway, the IMF projection is in red.

[Janet]

I think they were from Michigan. Pontiac, Michigan. We talked about their going to a Tea Party in Lansing a few days before.

[Clarice]

I stand corrected, Janet. They were very smart, nice people but Politico and the reporters who talked to them obviously figured they weren't...and were banking on a stupid or provocative response they could fit into a pre-written story/survey.

[Janet]

Yeah, the MSM misreads humor as stupid.

[Cecil Turner]

Oh Cecil, what a racist graph! Why use red and black, colors historically associated with negative stereo-types . . .

Heh. The real problem with the colors is that the black line denotes something that's the antithesis of a profit.

The IMF projection is the one to rely on, since the CBO and OMB have to obey the rules they are given even if it flies in the face of reality.

Even that one looks a little rosy, as it doesn't factor in the next stupid anti-growth spending indulgence the Democrats have up their collective sleeves. (And though I don't know exactly what it is, I have little doubt it's there.)

[nathan hale]

We're having a bit of humor at this, but there are real life consequences as Steven
Hatfill found out. when Meryl Nass, Barbara Rosemberg. Laura Rozen,and Nick Kristof got involved in the LUN

[Captain Hate]

Whoa! Laura Ingraham is interviewing Charles Blow later this morning. He'd better wear a steel cup to this one because she's already in a foul mood at teh Bamster playing golf rather than finding a way to reroute Air Force 1 to attend the memorial service in Poland.

[Janet]

In this LUN Newbuster video, the "95%" counter protester guy says that him and some friends got together on their own to print up the sign. They decided to come out on their lunch to counter protest the Tea Party.

But according to Doug">http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/04/straight-out-of-caracas-white-house.html">Doug Ross this is an organized group.

It doesn't matter, but why do they feel like they need to lie?

[Old Lurker]

Cecil et al...the problem with all three of those graphs is they project cumulative govt borrowings vs their projection of GDP. You can take to the bank the proposition that GDP growth will be nowhere near a status quo curve as govt debt to GDP crosses 50% and heads to 100%+.

Cuba did not become Cuba (insert socialist nirvana of your choosing) simply because spending ran out of other people's money, rather their economy stopped growing. Period. It is not a coincidence that European growth and employment lag behind the US and others. For the moment.

[fdcol63]

" ... but why do they feel like they need to lie?"

Because they're pathological liars.

[centralcal]

Janet - you need to remove the extra http// in your link.

[Janet]

Thanks cc...it was the first time I used the "format text as a link" thingie on the toolbar! FAIL!
LUN is the Doug Ross link...

[centralcal]

LOL - per The Hill, Obama is "swooping" into Los Angeles today to help Babs Boxer at two fundraising events.

Yep. That should really help her.

[centralcal]

I made the same mistake my first time using the tool bar. Just hit delete (removes http//) before pasting in your link, and away you go!

[Danube of Thought]

Nice video of Mickey Kaus on the Red Eye program.

[Jane]

FYI: I've moved You Too to another host so I can get rid of captcha. If you leave a message I can approve you for all times.