No Black Tea 0

Facing South analyzes several polls of teabaggers. It’s conclusions are no surprise. Put bluntly, it’s all about the Scary Black Man:

. . . it’s also their racial attitudes. While racist antics among tea party protesters have made this an article of faith for many on the left already, the racial character of the tea party got some scholarly backing from a multi-state survey released this week by Christopher Parker at the University of Washington.

(snip)

But this body of evidence suggests a few things: While the tea party may be able to make some media noise and influence a few Republican primaries in the short-term, the movement’s narrow and shrinking core base puts it on the wrong side of our country’s demographic trajectory.

What’s more, the tea party movement clearly draws strength from whites who fear and resent their loss of social position (both real and imagined). That’s given rise to a politics of racial resentment which will not only further drive them away from African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos and other people of color, but also whites (especially younger and urban) who don’t share such racial hostilities.

Billmon has more at the Great Orange Satan (Via John Cole). So does Jamelle.

Underlying it all is the idea that, by devaluing others, we somehow increase our own value (Richard Hofstadter and Daniel Bell showed that to be at the heart of prejudice, bigotry, and nativism when they studied the radical right in the 1950s–they called it “status anxiety.” See also Eric Berne.) As long as you have someone to look down on, it seems, you must be doing okay.

Over the years, the list of those looked down on has included variously Catholics, Jews, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, and Poles, among other, but has always included blacks.

Nevertheless, by devaluing others, we do not increase our own value.

We devalue everyone, including ourselves.

Also at Balloon Juice, Dennis G. looks at the economics of slavery and concludes that, in the largest sense, slavery, apartheid, and Jim Crow were all devices for stealing labor, for taking value from others without fair compensation. A nugget:

Back in the day, slavery was a great deal for the owners, a bad deal for the slave and a real problem for the average working man or women of the South. Having a way that the elites can steal the labor of some always hurts the wages of most working people—especially if this theft of labor is protected by the State.