Je Pense, Donc Vous Êtes

posted at 9:55 am on May 8, 2010 by Howard Portnoy
[ Race Hustlers ]   

“Racist. Tea Party. Are those separate concepts or a single one? Depends on whom you ask.” So begins a typically deep and thought-provoking column by New York Times liberal pundit Charles Blow.

OK, before you change channels, you need to understand that this is not Blow’s usual rant that ends with the affirmation that all whites—or at least all white conservatives—hate black people. This time, he comes armed with statistics. That’s right, he offers proof that all whites—or at least all white conservatives (with whom he conflates members of the Tea Party movement)—hate black people.

His evidence is an article accompanying a Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Wednesday, which states “About 61 percent of tea party opponents say racism has a lot to do with the movement, a view held by just 7 percent of tea party supporters.”

That’s one of the funniest pieces of polling data I have seen in years, albeit unintentionally so. Read it again. Roll it around on your tongue; savor it for a moment. Blow’s “proof” that the Tea Party movement is racist is that large number of opponents to the Tea Party think they are racist. Funny how that works only in one direction. The vast majority of conservatives and independents think Barack Obama is doing a lousy job, but Blow would never concede that their view is correct.

Blow is not finished. “This gulf of perception,” he continues in high-blown fashion, “has left Tea Party organizers struggling to scrub the stain of racism from its image, but those efforts may fly in the face of the facts.”

So what are “the facts”? Ever one to probe and dig for the truth, Blow imports more hard, cold data, this time citing an appearance last Thursday on the “The View” (“The View”!) by Amy Kremer, the director of the Tea Party Express. “Prompted to disavow supporters who might be motivated by racism,” Blow tells us, “she looked into the camera and said: ‘This is not a racist movement. We don’t want you here. Go away if that’s what you’re about. We’re about the fiscal issues and about being American.’”

Blow’s reaction? “There’s no reason to doubt her sincerity, but there seems to be a gap between things as they are and things as she would have them.”

A gap between things as they are and things as one would have them seems to be something Charles Blow knows all about.

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