Tea Party Coverage: From Blackout To Whiteout
During its earliest days it seemed as though there was a media blackout in effect for the Tea Party movement's week by week development. Large events, as on April 15th, or September 12 in DC, couldn't be ignored. But even then, what the media couldn't ignore, or minimize, it has sought to marginalize to a great degree.
That's where the whiteout of the Tea Party movement comes in and why I wanted to re-visit this item by Glenn Reynolds in the WSJ.
While liberal media pundits often cast the movement as a bunch of old, typically Republican, white folks, or purely anti-Obama, even to the point of being racist - the movement may be more post-racial than MSNBC's analyst of the tingly leg, Chris Matthews. Based upon his own comments, he can't even watch Obama without first thinking of him as black. (Angela McGlowan – right)
From Glenn's WSJ item - candidate sites at included links:
One primary challenger is Les Phillip. He is running against Republican Parker Griffith in Alabama's fifth congressional district. Mr. Phillip, a black businessman and Navy veteran who immigrated with his parents from Trinidad in
his youth, got his start in politics speaking at a tea-party protest in Decatur, Ala., last year.
Mr. Phillip isn't the only black tea-party candidate in the deep south—Angela McGlowan, who spoke in Nashville, has entered the Republican primary in Mississippi's first district—and primary challenges aren't the only way activists are exerting influence. Cincinnati tea-party activists are running candidates for Republican precinct executive in every precinct in their area—if elected, these candidates will help set policy platforms within the GOP and have sway over which candidates the party endorses.
In an earlier Tea Party post from Feb 2009, I issued a protest babe alert, linking out to an Instapundit item on Tea Parties taking place in SC and FL. The vivacious looking black woman at right was later identified in comments as Frances Rice, President of the National Black Republican Association.
And reader Miles Wilson says don’t give Rick Santelli too much credit: “Just wanted to remind you that the Rick Santelli ‘rant’ was not the genesis of this movement – in fact, at least four events (Seattle, Denver, Mesa, Overland Park) occurred before the coining of the term ‘tea party’. So credit where credit is due – to the grassroots organizers far from the madding media crowd.”
Coming up on February 27 in Virginia, and available via webcast, as well, is another Leadership Tea Party Class. Based upon previous discussions, I'll likely be attending and serving on a panel there. According to the announcement, so will Katrina Pierson of Dallas.
Are you getting the picture? Because these are only a few of many faces that represent an image of the Tea Party movement the media seems willing, if not determined, to ignore.
Whether it's three young black girls waving American flags in Nashville in June, a black guy sitting next to an "Audit the Fed" sign at the same event, or Antonio Hinton, below, showing up as a Tea Partier protesting a Tea Party event – I'm not sure this story gets played at all by the mainstream media. And it certainly doesn't get played enough.
A TEA PARTY CONVENTION TEA PARTY PROTEST: This is Antonio Hinton, one of the organizers of the Knoxville Tea Party, one of three folks from the Tennessee Tea Party Coalition who showed up to remind people
that there’s more to the Tea Party movement than this convention. The press tried to get him to say something bad about Sarah Palin, but he called her a “breath of fresh air,” instead. It’ll be interesting to see how the story gets played.
If, as TPM did yesterday, the media continues to portray the Tea Party movement inaccurately, then it's our responsibility as members of New Media to not let them get away with it.
The real faces of the Tea Party movement are the faces of America as a whole. And I'd bet it's a more accurate portrait of America than the media, or even the Obama administration, too often seeks to portray for political gain. And it's the contributions of all those faces, white, black, brown, red, yellow, or whatever, that are going to lead the way to taking America back for We the people beginning in 2010.
Again, the full WSJ item here.
If 2009 was the year of taking it to the streets, 2010 is the year of taking it to the polls. With ordinary Americans setting out to reclaim the political process, it's likely to be a bumpy ride for incumbents of both parties. I suspect the Founding Fathers would approve.
I just have to say, Angela McGlowan is a beautiful woman. In a different life, she could’ve been a statuesque model like Iman. Instead, she’s helping the Right kick butt. I’d say conservatives made out on the deal.
And don’t forget to add Charles Lollar to your gallery.
When my wife and I attended our first Tea Party event, he was one of the featured speakers. He was so impressive in his defense of our constitution that we sought him out and encouraged him to run for office. He’s a Marine vet, husband and father, and he has now announced that he will be running against Steny Hoyer in the fall.
Don’t forget to stop by his site and drop a few dollars in the bucket for him. He’s got an uphill climb, bis presence in Congress would be a daily reminder to the MSM that the Tea Party doesn’t belong to any ethnicity or religion: it’s about Americans who are sick and tired of our elected representatives thinking they are our feudal lords.
Very well researched, reasoned, intelligent article like Instapundit’s @ WSJ. Just another example why MSM has no clue about the current state.
Great post, Mr. Riehl! I hope it gets lotsa linkage today.
What if 99% of the tea party was white? What if it was 88% white and 12% black? Why does it matter?
The MSM is pretty ridiculous in trying to cast the Tea Party as racists. And, unfortunately bloggers (including Instapundit) have put up a pretty ridiculous “Hey, look, here’s some black people!” defense.
Every time I hear some loony left wing pundit bring up the racial makeup of the TP movement as their implication of racism, I ask why doesn’t someone ask minorities why they aren’t in favor of smaller government, reasonable taxes, and responsive representatives in DC.
You might want to google up one of the Democrat candidates for Governor in Texas. Faroouk something or another, He hates whites, wont hire them in his factory by admission and has his concerns about the government’s involvement in 9/11. Racists these days, make a living in the bowels of the Democrat Party, just like they did in the 50s and 60s. They should be called on it every chance we get.
If you really think the Teabaggers represent a true cross section of America you need to share that incredible stuff you are smoking. Step out of that right-wing cocoon for a look around dude.
“If you really think the Teabaggers represent a true cross section of America you need to share that incredible stuff you are smoking”
What drug that you can smoke has that effect Ted? Do tell. When people say stuff, I presume they mean weed. Does weed make you see a rally with a diverse crowd of people as non diverse? Is that the high that all of you left wing loons are screaming to legalize?
Or are you saying that all of the black folks in the article are mere hallucinations, because they don’t fit your definition of “tea bagger” they simply mustn’t exist? That would mean that you’re the one on drugs by the way. Unless you’re trying to say that all of the readers of the Wall street journal took the same exact drugs that have that exact effect, at the same exact time and had the exact same hallucination. Is that what you’re trying to say?
i think in many ways the msm is catching up with the the tea party. while the libs have waged a war, the media view is evolving, and in some ways coopting the tea party movement to express their own doubt about our current economic course.
the collapse of greece and its root causes are inescapable. there is a growing doubt about the long term sustainability of the euro. as europe criticizes the greeks for lavish social spending, the us media in their classic europhilic fashion, are just now finding their voice, or ‘surrogates’ for that voice, thru the tea party.
could the tea party go global?
if they could come up with a simple set of standards for the economic decisions a country needs to make, with a certain universal application, they could become a tremendous force to reckoned with.
@Gary Maxwell, the exact quote goes as such:
” “A majority of the people are going to be Hispanic and African-American,” he said. “You don’t find white people who are willing to work in factories. And our history proves lots of time when … the white people come to work in a factory they either want to be supervisors or they want to be paid more than the average person. And unfortunately they exit.”
So not only is he perfectly comfortable making racist stereotypes about the majority of Americans, he’s clearly anti labor to boot. How much does the “average person” in his hair product factory make? How much more do legal Hispanics make over the illegal ones? You know what I’d love to see? Somebody should go down to his factory and force it to unionize.
I recall watching CNN’s anchor Don Lemon, himself black, interview people after Palin’s Tea Party convention speech. Two attended (both white) and one was at a CNN studio, Lloyd Marcus, the singer who rode on the Tea Party Express who happens to be black. Lemon kept stating that Marcus “chose to sit this one out” imply he had a problem with the Tea Party movement. After setting his appearance up in his way several times, then there were audio difficulties and Marcus was not allowed to speak. It all seemed rather staged in a biased way. A whiteout as you say.
Thanks for mentioning Charles Lollar in a comment, too bad the author missed him. Charles possesses a lot of talent and is truly inspiring. With guys like him trying to help make our country right, there is real hope for us. Charles is trying to defeat the House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. This would be an loud and strong message if he could beat Hoyer. In a hopeful manner, and taking from Sen. Scott Brown, they are already referring to him as Charles Lollar — the Maryland Miracle.
Charles Lollar firmly believes in limited government. We need him in our Congress, regardless of whether you live in his district or not (I don’t). All of us should support him financially, because every congressman can impact all of us, regardless of the district that elected him.
Check out thsese two sites — http://www.lollarforcongress.com and http://www.dumpsteny.com.
The Tea Baggers deserve all the derision they get. The party of Palin, Joe the Not Plumber, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Limbaugh. They are all white. The attendees are all – or mostly white. The attendees obviously have no jobs so they can chase the circus tent around the country. That tells me they are all railing against the very same ‘socialist’ benefits they themselves take advantage of: Social Sec, Medicare, Disability, pensions, etc…
I wrote about this here yesterday and nobody could counter the argument for the over-reach of the corporate sponsors (astroturf) and the fact that the Tea Baggers use the socialist programs they say they hate. That allows all thinking people to come to the conclusion that the tea baggers have been usurped by their corporate masters and the movement has been hijacked.
Make no mistake: the tea baggers are racist – they only came out after Obama was elected. They didn’t make a peep when Bush was running up the trillion dollar debt. They didn’t peep when Bush was launching two illegal invasions. They didn’t peep when Bush let Bin Laden attack America. They didn’t make a sound – until a black man won the election. Remember their war cry? ‘We want our country back’. You know what that means.
“Make no mistake: the tea baggers are racist – they only came out after Obama was elected.”
sweet lord, you are f*****g retarded.
Jimbo is doing parody, folks. The best parody is so real you can’t tell until you notice that no one, even the moron being parodied, is quite that stupid. Hat’s off to you, Jimbo. You’re good.
But Mark has nothing of substance to counter the statement. Not a word about my claim. The angst started when a black man won the election, not before. Show me where I am wrong about this.
And also note Mark’s flippant use of the ‘retarded’ remark. I thought Caribou Barbie made that word off limits to all but herself and Limbaugh.
And also note Mark’s taking the Lord’s name in vain – that is not allowed either.
That is the thing about the tea baggers and their followers (groupies?). The rules they set down for us do not apply to themselves. They are the perfect examples of the ok for me, not for thee attitude of authoritarians. Your movement has been hijacked mark. That is a fact, whether you like it or not.
Jimbo, the first incarnation of the Tea Party was Porkbusters… and they were around in Bush’s term. As for “The rules they set down for us do not apply to themselves.”, look up projection. You haz it.
“The Tea Baggers deserve all the derision they get.”
I don’t want to start name calling, so I won’t, but you do get the point that now the MSM is comming around and not bashing them, in fact they’re starting to co opt the message themselves, but they’re simply slow to admit that there are more blacks involved then they’d like to admit?
“The party of Palin, Joe the Not Plumber, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Limbaugh. They are all white.”
What about all of the people from the article that Dan posted, dumb dumb? The party of Clinton, Pelosi, Reid, Gore, they’re all white.
“The attendees are all – or mostly white.”
Except the somewhat significant number who aren’t.
“The attendees obviously have no jobs so they can chase the circus tent around the country. That tells me they are all railing against the very same ‘socialist’ benefits they themselves take advantage of: Social Sec, Medicare, Disability, pensions, etc…”
It’s called vacation time. Or perhaps they’re collecting unemployment, or perhaps they’ve retired and are living off of their savings. On the other hand please explain all of the people who show up to any move on.org protest, all carrying the same exact signs? Has their protest been hijacked by some moneyed interest as well? It would seem so. In fact it would seem like the same thing but 100x worse.
“I wrote about this here yesterday and nobody could counter the argument for the over-reach of the corporate sponsors (astroturf) and the fact that the Tea Baggers use the socialist programs they say they hate. That allows all thinking people to come to the conclusion that the tea baggers have been usurped by their corporate masters and the movement has been hijacked.”
Let’s be clear. Republicans, or conservatives who don’t want the government to die, they just don’t want it to get so bloated that it strangles our way of life. You can’t even make one half decent point.
“Make no mistake: the tea baggers are racist – they only came out after Obama was elected.”
Make no mistake, this was the plan with Obama all they way through: elect a black president and write off anyone who disagrees with him as being a racist, no matter how muddled and unintelligible his ideas happen to be. It’s scary that so many people continue to do this, it’s anti democratic and it’s dangerous. It’s strange to me that even such uneducated people can’t see through it.
“They didn’t make a peep when Bush was running up the trillion dollar debt.”
Some did. But you have to realize, Bush didn’t have plans to replace our health care system in an attempt to remake the economy. When Bush started with the bailouts, his own party turned on him, big time.
“They didn’t peep when Bush was launching two illegal invasions”
You have a problem with Afghanistan? Let’s assume that your brain works enough not to, read Christopher Hitchens article “the war in Iraq wasn’t for oil” in slate, and see how Bush in the longer run has done a good thing in Iraq. Also, just to let you know, Biden recently said “I am very optimistic about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this (Obama) administration.”
So, the democrats start Vietnam, and somehow it gets called “Nixons war” and then the democrats oppose the surge in Iraq saying that it will make things much much worse, and when it doesn’t, they somehow try to take credit for it’s success. The gall. It’s staggering. But Jimbo, at the very least, try to know what’s what. Stay on message. Listen to what Biden is saying and try to keep up. The Iraq quagmire line is dead.
“They didn’t peep when Bush let Bin Laden attack America.”
And the left wing moon bats didn’t try to make the case when Clinton “let” the world trade centers get bombed the first time that it was an “inside job”. Dimwit.
“They didn’t make a sound – until a black man won the election. Remember their war cry? ‘We want our country back’. You know what that means.”
It means that a self avowed marxist is in the white house. Please re read the first article to see how other black folks feel about it. Retard.
And so Bimbo gets his @$$ handed to him on a silver platter yet again. Just like last night.
Whatcha gonna do now, Bimbo? Gonna slink off with your swishy tail between your legs again, skank boy? BWAH-HAHAHAHAHA…!!!1!!ONE!!!1!!
I must say that Mr. Les Phillip is lookin’ mighty fine himself!
And I’d also like to point out that black folks are not the only people of color in our movement…my local party is mostly Hispanic and Asian.
So what? Why does it matter how many people of color in your local party? What does race have anything to do with the message of limited government?
“my local party is mostly Hispanic and Asian”
….and the cow jumped over the moon.
You people are hilarious!
“Your movement has been hijacked mark.”
but, they gave me a brown shirt, and an elephant shaped rape whistle.
Y’know, I really hope that the jimbos keep it up.
Why?
Because I detest the Press, and have since I was a teenager. (long story) Oh, I know, and I agree that freedom of the press is important. But the Press we’ve got is careless at best, in-your-face liars at worst.
And every time there’s a Tea Party rally, and the participants go home and turn on the teevee, there’s another fifty to a thousand, sometimes more, people who know from personal experience that the jerks who call themselves “journalists” are a pack of liars and jimbos.
To me, that’s a more important and useful result than anything having to do specifically with the Government.
Regards,
Ric
Anyone else notice that, once I challenge and/or berate li’l Bimbo, he disappears?
Roberta? Is that you?
“my local party is mostly Hispanic and Asian”
….and the cow jumped over the moon.
You people are hilarious!”
Her tea party. Her’s. Go prove otherwise.
@Ted: [sarcasm]You have to understand that the Tea Partiers are the REAL Americans. The rest of us are merely Fake Americans, and need to be grateful that they’re allowing us to live in THEIR country…. for the moment.
But that will change VERY soon.[/sarcasm]
—-
Kentucky Colonel: “Every time I hear some loony left wing pundit bring up the racial makeup of the TP movement as their implication of racism, I ask why doesn’t someone ask minorities why they aren’t in favor of smaller government, reasonable taxes, and responsive representatives in DC.”
I don’t know ANYONE who doesn’t want congresscritters who aren’t corporate whores…except for the corporations.
For you guys, “Reasonable” taxes seems to be defined as ZERO. Our government can’t run on Libertarian Magic Pixie Dust, and I’d like to remind you that back in the 1950s, the top income tax rate was over 70%, yet millionares oddly _DIDN’T_ flee the country en masse, taking their factories with them. Guess rich folks were just more patriotic back then….
Last but not least, NOBODY in either party is in favor of “smaller government”. It’s just that the GOP wants more bombs and jails and less FDA and SEC, Liberals have (more or less) the opposite priorities.
Also, brown people tend to come from lower socioeconomic castes, and thus have a keener appreciation of WHY we need a social safety net.
Plus, all that “Barry Soetoro” nonsense isn’t doing you all ANY favors if you’re genuinely trying not to act racist in public.