Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black

[Simon_Jester]

At this point, making the soldiers black wouldn't change much; racial integration in the US Army is pretty much accepted (after only sixty years! Wow!). What would probably have an effect is making the swarm of berserk Third World militia white. I can't predict how much that would change.

[wautd]

Talk about hitting the nail on its head. Thanks for sharing.

[spartasman]

From what I understand, the Tea Party is not exclusively white, so I am not exactly sure what has been suggested here is quite as near a parallel to the present situation as you all seem to think it is. Also "a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country", from what I understand, the Tea Party has not been calling for a "white" revolution, so I again have to say that the parallels are not quite true. Beside from that, it is a magnificent post, and I have to agree that the idea brings up some very heavy points. This seems like to be along the same lines of "White Man's Burden", or does that movie have nothing to do with it?

[Illuminatus Primus]

[snip]

You have to understand people really believe we were there to stop the starvation and civil war, even though Task Force RANGER was put down after the worst of it was over, and ended up just completely fucking the humanitarian mission.

[eion]

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition.

Wait a damn minute. Perhaps I've not been paying enough attention to the news lately, but has the Tea Party been marching around with firearms? Disregarding the hyperbole about AK-47's, because of course scary black assault rifles always grab peoples' attention regardless of whether they're really assault rifles. Or even black.

Yeah, you need to watch more news. On April 19th, now why is that date familiar?

They're protest inside the district wasn't armed (But not for lack of trying), so they set up another one in a park about 10 minutes from me where they could walk around with what-look-like (or are meant to look like) assault rifles. Just a bunch of white guys standing around with guns propped on their knees, nothing provocative or inciting about that.

Oh, and the only reason they could actually be armed within the park is because it was a national park, and guess who signed the law allowing the carrying of firearms within all national parks, that's right it was President Bush Obama.

For a fun activity, try to count the number of black people (or any visible miniority) in the video. Bet you don't need more than one hand.

P.S. Maddow's been talking about this planned rally since at least the Hutare arrests.

[bobalot]

From what I understand, the Tea Party is not exclusively white, so I am not exactly sure what has been suggested here is quite as near a parallel to the present situation as you all seem to think it is. Also "a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country", from what I understand, the Tea Party has not been calling for a "white" revolution, so I again have to say that the parallels are not quite true. Beside from that, it is a magnificent post, and I have to agree that the idea brings up some very heavy points. This seems like to be along the same lines of "White Man's Burden", or does that movie have nothing to do with it?

No said the tea-partiers are exclusively white. However, they are overwhelming white.

[spartasman]

No said the tea-partiers are exclusively white. However, they are overwhelming white.

yes, I understand this. The point was that the Tea Party is not operating along strictly racial lines (thought the distinctions do fall most heavily on them). The prevalence of whites over minorities in the Tea Party and calling it a white organizations is like saying that wall street is run by Jews simply because there is a prevalence of Jewish bankers.

[Duckie]

This doesn't really follow- Jewish bankers aren't 80%+ of all bankers, nor is there a Wall Street Party actively hostile and afraid because a gentile is in office. Jewish bankers aren't statistically likely to carry significantly more anti-nonsemite views than the average person, nor does a large percentage of Jewish bankers think that the president is favouring non-Jews with his policies. These are all very cogent facts for divining the nature of a movement.

By the logic of this, if there were some jewish or gay Nazis, then the Nazis can't have been racist or homophobic or even, by your logic, a German-dominated party.

The Tea Partiers are predominantly and overwhelmingly white, and statistically more likely to be racist and homophobic whites at that. Just because they all aren't white or racist doesn't mean you can dismiss the ones who are, especially since there's vastly more who are than aren't. It's just how it is, because that's how statistics works.

[spartasman]

I said nothing about the Tea Party not being dominated by whites, only that it is not exclusively defined by race. I find it a tad bit discouraging that people constantly have to define things over interracial differences. I do recognize that the Tea Party is a mostly white, Christian, homophobic ect... organization, but then again they are not preaching about white supremacy or separatism, whereas groups like the Black Panthers do preach about black supremacy & separatism, or at least they did.

[Duckie]

I said nothing about the Tea Party not being dominated by whites, only that it is not exclusively defined by race.

Nonsense- by your criteria, if an organisation has at least one non-white member, you can't define it? There's 2 things you can mean by this:

A) You can't say they're universally white, so you can't call the tea party "racist whites". If this is true, I ask again, does this not mean you cannot make any statements about any group, as short of tautology by defining a group as being composed entirely of non-exceptions you will always be able to find an exceptional member of a category.

B) If you aren't being nitpicky like that, what's the point? I'm honestly confused why you think this is a useful distinction. Yes, there are non-white teapartiers and non-racist teapartiers. The fact that they don't have a specific "no negroes allowed" rule rather than just being inherently a white organisation is absolutely immaterial, unless you're getting at something I clearly am not.

[CmdrWilkens]

Have they done even half the things the article talks about?

They marched carrying rifles through Sacramento, actually killed police officer in shootouts with them, and had some very violent extremists. That said, they apparently have reformed to a non-violent organization, but they went much further than the Tea Party idiots did. After all, they have not bombed a courthouse (yet).

....ummm but they (Tea Party adherents) have crashed a plane in to a building killing federal employees.

[Mayabird]

In point of fact, there actually were Jewish Nazis, and not all of them were in denial or unaware of it. Found a review of a book about them where the author estimated there up to 150,000 Jewish or part-Jewish people in the German military. Another review of that same book mentioned a couple higher ranking Jewish Nazis that were even considered war criminals.

Anyway, back to the previous debate Thanas please don't hit me.

[Ritterin Sophia]

racial integration in the US Army is pretty much accepted

Boy are you in for a surprise.

[Liberty]

racial integration in the US Army is pretty much accepted

Boy are you in for a surprise.

Wait, it's not? If you have first hand knowledge, I'm curious, could you say more?

[Ritterin Sophia]

Wait, it's not? If you have first hand knowledge, I'm curious, could you say more?

I'm not saying integration isn't accepted, but sadly not uncommonly it's grudgingly so. You're taking people across fifty states from completely dissparate backgrounds together. I can't tell you how many times just because I'm from West Virginia someone assumes it's safe to refer to someone of another race with a term I don't take too kindly to in my presence (especially because it brings to mind why I still harbor ill will towards my father for which there's no chance at forgiveness for until he apologizes to his sister, her husband, and my cousins for the shit he and my great grandfather put them through), which followed with a quick trip to talk to the EO. It's not just white though, there certainly is a great deal of tribalism as well with the people who identify with the 'gangsta' subculture, but it's certainly not to the same degree as the 'Southern Pride' diehards.

TL;DR: The military is integrated, but not as much as you probably wish it were. Otherwise Equal Opportunity Advisors wouldn't be necessary.

[Simon_Jester]

You kind of misunderstood my point, Schatten. I mean that the general culture accepts that an American soldier can be a black man. You can make a US military in a modern-setting war movie heavily black or Hispanic, and nobody will be shocked except in the depths of darkest Hickistan. Have a movie where a bunch of black US Marines are dropped into some messy situation in Iraq, and everyone would be rooting for the Marines, not the Iraqis, with little confusion about which side is the good guys even though neither side is white.

Now, take that same unit of black US Marines and drop them into the American Midwest, where the Iraqi guerillas are replaced by a similar force of technical pickup-driving, gun-toting Hutaree types... and things get strange.

I do not assert that there are no racists in the military. I assert that the general level of racism in American society has declined to the point where black soldiers are accepted as being soldiers.

[Lonestar]

Wait, it's not? If you have first hand knowledge, I'm curious, could you say more?

Schatten, of course, is talking about the Army. Which is where the absolute dumbest dumbfucks go because they can't get into any of the other services, I might add.

While I would agree that there is racism on an individual basis in the Military, I would strongly disagree that it's as prevalent as Schatten suggests(or rather, that people allow it to get in the way of work). Sexual harrassment is a much bigger problem, but if I may make an appeal to personal authority I don't think the military is the misyognistic rape-fest that some posters on this message board think it is. At least based upon my personal experience.

[Darth Wong]

I do not assert that there are no racists in the military. I assert that the general level of racism in American society has declined to the point where black soldiers are accepted as being soldiers.

The Romans were willing to accept those dirty barbarian Goths as soldiers too, as long as it suited their purposes. That really doesn't say much.

[Simon_Jester]

I do not assert that there are no racists in the military. I assert that the general level of racism in American society has declined to the point where black soldiers are accepted as being soldiers.

The Romans were willing to accept those dirty barbarian Goths as soldiers too, as long as it suited their purposes. That really doesn't say much.

Doesn't say much about what?

It doesn't say much about the level of racism in American society... which I wasn't trying to say anything about. It doesn't say America is free of racism... which I wasn't trying to say. It doesn't say the US military is free of racism... which I wasn't trying to say.

The only thing I said anything about is what's really screwing up the results when we take a Mogadishu scenario and reverse the races. The effect comes from making the screaming mob of religious fanatics with technicals and automatic weapons white, not making the soldiers black. That is all I ever meant to say.

[The Dark]

I said nothing about the Tea Party not being dominated by whites, only that it is not exclusively defined by race. I find it a tad bit discouraging that people constantly have to define things over interracial differences. I do recognize that the Tea Party is a mostly white, Christian, homophobic ect... organization, but then again they are not preaching about white supremacy or separatism, whereas groups like the Black Panthers do preach about black supremacy & separatism, or at least they did.

"The White Supremacist group StormFront is encouraging its members to join the tea party."
"Billy Roper, who heads the white supremacist White Revolution group, based in Arkansas, is listed as an organizer on a Tea Party movement Web site."
"the Council of Conservative Citizens (http: //CofCC.org), a "mainstream" White Supremacy organization sponsored, as in paid for, the Mississippi Tea Party."
Keep sticking your head in the sand, ostrich, maybe it'll all go away.

[Count Chocula]

....ummm but they (Tea Party adherents) have crashed a plane in to a building killing federal employees.

ummm no you're completely, totally, 180 degrees wrong on this. This was covered here already. Your attention to detail, this time, was done about as well as this "thought exercise" IMO - not well at all.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Your attention to detail, this time, was done about as well as this "thought exercise" IMO - not well at all.

Nice drive-by post. I'd ask for you to provide your well-thought out rebuttal to the "thought exercise," but something tells me you don't actually have one.