The Wall Street Journal, known for it’s…ahem…unbiased reporting recently released a Fox…ahem…News video about a PhD candidate from UCLA who conducted a study on the Tea Party. Her conclusion? The Tea Party is only 6% racist.
One could contend that 6% in and of itself discredits the “Not Racist” headline, but since the journalistic integrity of the WSJ isn’t in question, because they have none, my focus was on the study itself and the “scientific method.”
The study, which is part of the candidates dissertation, is fairly simple. Far too simple. She went to a Tea Party rally and took pictures of roughly 250 signs, categorized them, separated what she considered controversial, coming to the conclusion that a mere 6% of Tea Partiers are racists.
I’m no Ph.D candidate, surely, but I figured there may be a way to confirm these findings. Is it possible that people might be a little leery of overtly racist signs in public where they know they’ll be scrutinized? What are the chances that there were people there without signs, was their opinion included in the study? If only there were a public forum you could go to and read comments by actual people and not just the signs of the few who were brave enough to try to spell “constitution.”
In under four minutes I had my answer. I went to that thing Ph.D candidates apparently haven’t heard of yet called ‘Google’ and searched “Tea Party Ferguson.” Some might argue it’s unfair to be so specific, but I figured if you’re going to ascertain the general racism or lack thereof of a particular demographic, it would probably be conducive to the cause to see how they respond when race is actually the issue.
Color me silly, I know.
I was directed to the Facebook page “Tea Party”, which has more than 388,000 likes. The post I studied was a link to a story titled “Civil Rights Movement Heralds a Thug.” In case you haven’t been paying attention lately, “thug” is what right-wingers have chosen as their non-reportable politically incorrect replacement for the “n” word.
That was only the beginning. The comments are where the action happens. Of the 207 comments I found fourteen to be from liberals with a “shame on you” theme, fifty-seven to be innocuous enough, in support of police without mention of anything else, and the rest, one hundred and thirty-six, to be what I would consider controversial. Of those, sixty-four were blatantly racist.
My conclusions were slightly different. Nearly 66% of Tea Partiers can be considered racist. Almost 40% so incredibly obvious about it there can be no question.
Hopefully the dissertation itself that presents these facts laughable observations offers some other form of empirical data to support the claim. Those of us who have spent any amount of time in the underbelly of Facebook offering our opinions only to be ridiculed as unpatriotic commies by people who truly love their country to hate know better.
The video that reported the findings included a slide show of the not-so-racist Tea Party signs in question. In keeping with that tradition I’ve included some screencaps of my own findings for reasonable people to be disgusted by.
Featured image: Screengrab from the Facebook page Tea Party - https://www.facebook.com/teapartyorg
Wow… this is what we have become when we can’t have any sort of common sense. We are in trouble as a society. Went to a rally and then separated what were subjectively more racist signs rather than a controlled objective view.
OH man… oh man oh man we are doomed.
Who dumbed us down?
FOR THIS SURVEY TO BE ANY PORTION OF A DOCTORAL DISSERTATION IT COULD ONLY BE INCLUDED IN A SECTION OF HOW NOT TO CONDUCT AN ACCURATE, VALID SURVEY.
I hope that this “survey” was not the sum of her dissertation research. if it was, then PhDs have a lot less meaning than they used to.
Dear author, while I am sure you are correct that Tea Party members are more than 6% racists, you methodology might actually be worse that theirs.
The Teaparty is NOT based on a racist ideology. Unfortunately a few racist assholes do show up at rallies. We do not welcome them and we disinvite them when they are found out. We have done this… and will continue to do so. This is in Minnesota.. so note to all racist jerks… go #*&# yourselves!
Not racists? … right. Not Ayn Rand worshipers, not John Birchers, not KKK members, not anti-government militia members, not neo nazis either. Apparently, your little tin-foil hat is on too tight, “jba”, or you’re just stupid.
Well you aren’t doing a very good job.
“Go back to Africa and build your own country. Assholes”
Yeah, since they built the foundations and basic infrastructure that made this country, now they’re kicked to the curb.
First sentence should be “its” not “it’s” because “its” is possessive. C’mon, man! I hate to be a grammar Nazi, but that’s your FIRST sentence! We’ve already been dumbed down by the masses, i.e. Tea partiers — let’s hold ourselves to a higher standard.
You didn’t debunk anything. Brown was a thug, or do you consider robbery and assault to be okay, Topher? When commenters throw out posts calling blacks “apes” how is that reflective of the Tea Party? I could make a similar assertion about you and IYON based on the comments people write here, such as:
Tim Grenz: “Not racists? … right. Not Ayn Rand worshipers, not John Birchers, not KKK members, not anti-government militia members, not neo nazis either. Apparently, your little tin-foil hat is on too tight, “jba”, or you’re just stupid.”
This guy doesn’t even know that the KKK was a DEMOCRAT group! Look it up! And Nazis were Socialists! Good Lord, he doesn’t know anything, it seems.
Robbery and assault do not give a cop the right to shoot someone to death. And those comments are reflective of the Tea Party because they were made by MEMBERS of the Tea party. When the majority of comments on a Tea Party post are racist it is pretty fair to assume that the Tea Party is full of racists.
The KKK was a Democrat group when the Democratic party was the conservative party. You know, the racist Dixie-crats. Look up “Southern Strategy.” Look up how today’s klan members vote. It is a FACT that the KKK and the Nazis/Neo-Nazis are FAR RIGHT organizations.
“The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” - Ronald Reagan
Do some more research on Reagan. He felt we should not forget those with less opportunity then coined the term welfare queen. He allowed 241 military personel on Oct. 23, 1983 in Beirut to be murdered in their sleep. He had months of intel to prevent this massacre. As a diversion from this admin failing, he sent a SEAL team in to Grenada during their civil war, to “rescue” 11 wealthy medical students that couldn’t make it through a US medical school. We lost a SEAL in that action.
So “thug” is the new conservative code word for “n*gger,” huh Topher? Does that mean that we can’t call white or Hispanic thugs “thug” now? Honestly, you make this shiite up and your “readers” lap it up. No wonder this site has so few followers. I think I’ll let all my conservative friends know about it so that that they can come and “poison” your comments section with some sanity.