Black Tea, White Tea: Making Sense of the Outrage

Across the country, angry Americans, the overwhelming majority of whom were White, gathered THIS WEEK to protest. What they were protesting is open to some discussion, but at the very least, there was concern about the latest round of deficit spending.

It has been argued that the "parties," instigated by conservative think tanks, supported and sponsored by conservative media and pundits, and with rhetoric aimed disproportionately at the Obama administration, were exercises in hypocrisy and "faux populism." For our part, we took notice of racial message that came forward, though they were relatively few, in part because organizers asked participants to avoid such messages in their signs.

Supporters of the tea parties, pejoratively referred to as "teabaggers" in the blogosphere, have been very defensive with respect to the racist charges, arguing (validly) that one ought to be able to criticize a Black president without being called "a racist." We use this space to attempt to explain how scholarly criticisms of racism differ from playground accusations, and why the former are appropriate to consider and apply to the parties.

First, we point out that folks who study racism and racial discourse by and large do not use the word "racist" as a noun (as in "He is a racist."). This is because the term is used to refer not to individual-level prejudice, but systemic oppression that is rooted in narratives and institutions that perpetuate and reinforce such individual attitudes. Since everyone who is socialized within a system characterized by historic inequality based on race is affected deeply (and subconsciously) by those messages, everyone is racist. (Note that we did not say that everyone is a racist). Colloquially, the term is used to identify persons who are unabashedly prejudiced on the basis of skin color. For that, we use the term "bigot."

The distinction is crucial because conflation of the terms leads to an assumption that there is virtually no racism left. Since there are only a handful of bigots among us, it is comforting to believe that we are not "racist" if we don't use the "n-word" or consciously base judgments on skin color. That's convenient, but it's dangerous because it has led to our collective inability to meaningfully confront the most pressing issues of racism in America.

Second, people who are supportive of the "tea party" messages broadly have tended to try to explain how some of the signs were not "racist" because there were plausible explanations for the designers' intentions that do not involve race. That is, there are cries that Obama supporters are "using race" to discredit otherwise valid opponents of the Administration. It is important to note that we divorce "racism" from intent because, as social scientists, we are primarily concerned with effect. That does not mean that it is not worth considering the intent of those propagating the messages; it just means that it is a task better left to journalist and scholars in the humanities. For us, it is enough to acknowledge that such messages are potentially not "bigoted" in the sense that someone consciously attempted to play on negative racial predispositions. We are all driven to some extent by our racism (as defined above), so arguments about whether there was consciousness involved in the design of the message is irrelevant to our point that such messages are rooted in and subsequently prime subconscious racist sentiments.

Actor and activist Janeane Garofolo drew a lot of criticism for saying that the "parties" were essentially exercises in racism by "rednecks." Her language is not helpful in the sense that while it drew attention, it undermined more thoughtful and clearly articulated points about the racial nature of the discourse at work at these events.



Huffington Post covered the events and posted pictures of some of the "most offensive" signs, some of which had racial undertones. We took the liberty to lift some of these and post them below with annotations that we hope will make it easier to understand why these messages can be considered to be racially insensitive.

This image depicts a Black man (ostensibly Obama) slitting the throat of Uncle Sam from behind. While the violence is offensive, it also works to prime racist fears of Black violence. If the president was White and a similar poster were made with the White president, there would be no issue. For some, that is the rationale for why there accusations of racism here are unfounded. That relies, of course, on what we (and others) have referred to (in this space and elsewhere) as the "false reciprocity" fallacy. In other words, just because a similar message could easily be made about a White person does not mitigate the racist nature of the message. If there were no history of racism and, thus, no negative stereotypes about people of color, then reciprocal arguments would be valid. But there are no myths about "White violent criminals," so messages like these are more effective as a result of racist predispositions.

This image is racist because it wouldn't make very much sense if the president were not African American. The phrase was made popular by the character Arnold Jackson, played by the actor Gary Coleman, in the 1970s/1980s sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes." If it were a contemporary common phrase, we might not be as concerned, but given the history, it is impossible for anyone to hear (or read) the phrase without an image of little (Black) Arnold Jackson's face, screwed up in a combination of confusion and contempt, rhetorically "asking" his brother, Willis, what he was "talkin' about." The degree of "offense" is lower in this image than in the above image because Arnold was a beloved figure, but the unnecessary connection to race is troublesome because it prompts us to think about Obama's race, thus activating our racial schemata and making accessible other information about African Americans -- most of which is negative -- as we evaluate Obama.

The level of ethnic insensitivity here does not need much explanation. Analogies to Nazis or Hitler are all too common in our contemporary discourse, and this is merely another example. It is clear that a number of people are upset about governmental spending, but suggestions that paying taxes -- even more than one believes is appropriate -- is on par with the attempted systematic extermination of an entire ethnic group are not only unfounded, but profoundly offensive.






Reminiscent of the "little girl monkey" imitation we saw at a McCain/Palin rally during the campaign, this youngster displays a sign that plays on stereotypes of Black folks as "not quite human." Such messages were important during the dehumanization of Africans during slave times and the continual denial of rights to African Americans during Jim Crow. As we have seen recently with the Washington Times editorial cartoon, such imagery still evokes powerful emotions and criticism.


This message references the 1990s-era In Living Color skit that featured African American comedian Damon Wayans as a parolee who does his community service by playing a clown named "Homey." According to a Wikipedia entry, "His goal in life is to get even with 'The Man,' a personification of the white males he thinks are "holding him down." There would be concern about the sign even if it were held by a person of color because it references a character that is criminal and suggests that Obama is motivated by a desire to harm Whites (as was suggested throughout the campaign in a variety of ways). As always, it is even more unnerving to see a White person use Black cultural images to criticize an African American.



ACORN has been criticized for the corrupt practices that have been uncovered in some of their work. The organization is designed to empower poor persons, particularly those in urban settings, by advocating for housing fairness, in part through registering people to vote. The corruption was a result of the organization paying persons for registering voters on a "price-per-registration" system, which led to some folks falsifying registration forms. Republicans and conservatives alleged that Obama's supporters were trying to "steal" the elections (imagery that plays on predispositions about African Americans and crime), even though votes could never be cast by folks who did not exist. While criticism of ACORN's practices are valid, the organization had nothing to do with the ostensible purpose of the "tea parties" last week, unless one buys into the conspiracy theories about Obama's election being a result of corrupt practices.

This sign addresses the non-issue about Obama's birth certificate, where opponents have tried to argue that he is not really a natural born citizen. While the question may have been valid when it was first raised, it has been addressed a number of times, culminating with the U.S. Supreme Court weighing in on the issue. See this video of a "tea party" in Cleveland in February where protesters claim with some confidence that Obama is lying about his citizenship status, some noting that he is Kenyan. This plays into racist notions of Black folks as untrustworthy and "other" that are pervasive subconscious beliefs among Americans.




This last image speaks for itself.

In short, what we hope readers will recognize is that while there are "wingnuts" from all parts of the political spectrum, thoughful analysts who are concerned about racism at these assemblies are neither claiming that all criticisms of Obama are racist in nature nor arguing that even the folks holding these signs are themselves bigots. If we are to make progress with respect to race relations, though, we must be diligent about pointing out where these messages appear, how they work, and why they are effective.