Tim Wise has penned a useful thought experiment: "Imagine if the Tea Party was Black". From the piece:
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC . . . 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? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic?
Wise continues to imagine what would happen if black protesters surrounded and intimidated white Congresspersons. He imagines if a famous (black) hip hop artist said of a white president, "He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun." Would Sean Hannity invite that performer onto his show and call him a "friend and frequent guest of the program"?
Wise continues:
Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough—“living fossils” as he called them—“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.
Marc Ambinder noted (both new and old media's) growing-consensus adjective for the conservative base in America today (i.e., "epistemic closure"):
It is absolutely a condition of the age of the triumph of conservative personality politics, where entertainers shouting slogans are taken seriously as political actors, and where the incentive structures exist to stomp on dissent and nuance, causing experimental voices to retrench and allowing a lot of people to pretend that the world around them is not changing. The obsession with ACORN, Climategate, death panels, the militarization of rhetoric, Saul Alinsky, Chicago-style politics, that TAXPAYERS will fund the bailout of banks -- these aren't meaningful or interesting or even relevant things to focus on. (The banks will fund their own bailouts.)
I think that Tim Wise's piece more eloquently explains the reason for this "epistemic closure" -- many whites' vision of their race's superiority is severely threatened. Facts will always give way to such deep-seated and long standing racism. Would that members of the media unapologetically call much of the Tea Party what it is: racist. Of course, then they would have to analyze their double-standard when it comes to protests. For example, just recently thousands of people right here in Seattle rallied for immigration reform, but from my perusal of the tradmed it's as if it never happened. How would CNN cover thousands of white people gathering to protest "socialism"?
I hope some of tradmed's journalists and producers consider Mr. Wise's thought experiment regarding what if the Tea Party were black...
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.
This is the heart of the matter -- as portrayed in the media, dissent from conservative middle-aged or elderly white people is somehow a part of the American tradition that deserves constant coverage, while any other form of protest is portrayed (if at all) as subtly a threat to the status quo.
Would that the Iraq War protests of which I was a part prior to the invasion have had the same coverage...
In any event, thank you Tim Wise, for pointing out the inherent racism in the media's coverage of protest in 2010. Would like to think that sometime in the future when hundreds or thousands of people who don't spout racist conservative views gather to protest or demand action from the government, it might get some coverage in the media (from Seattle's immigration reform rally):
