The Elephants Tea Party

Why do so many posts seem to be centered on American social and cultural issues?  I live in the UK, I work here and I follow British politics.  Perhaps it is because race is the preverbal elephant in the room in America, while class is the pachyderm of choice in The United Kingdom.

Enough thinking out loud.  Follow me down the rabbit hole, and call me Bagger Vance cuz were talking Tea Party.  The laughable concept of using the Boston Tea Party as a symbolism for protesting high taxes and high costs is historically inaccurate.  In fact,


In 1773 Parliament passed the Tea Act, which gave the English East India Company a chance to avert bankruptcy by granting a monopoly on the importation of tea into the colonies. The new regulations allowed the company to sell tea to the colonists at a low price, lower than the price of smuggled tea, even including the required duty. The British reasoned that the Americans would willingly pay the tax if they were able to pay a low price for the tea.


Ironically the original tea tax protest included a little red-face minstrel show when, 50 men, unconvincingly disguised as Mohawk Indians threw tea into the sea. But much like today, even then the British colonists (they were still English colonists) ignored the fact that costs and the tea tax were at their lowest levels." The Tea Act allowed the East India Company to skirt any middlemen and undersell their competitors, even undercutting smuggled tea. Parliament would not be able to resist such cheaply priced tea.  Today's baggers rant about high taxes are and make hyperbolic claims that subconsciously exploit race in a similar way that British colonists donned red faces in an attempted to scapegoat Mohawk Native Americans.


The Tea Party's blatant fixation with race is a national fixation with race.  There are very few cultural issues, economic and  political issues which encompass Tea Parties that do not subconsciously revolve around the pachyderm in the room.  This week Newsweek asked, Why Doesn't the Media Interrogate Tea Partiers' Beliefs?  Read the article and follow the trail to the University of Washington poll.  The poll authors state that the poll "examines what Americans think about the issues of race, public policy, national politics, and President Obama, one year after the inaugurationof the first African American president."  Do you see it yet, big tusks, floppy ears?  This poll caused quite a stir over at FiveThirtyEight.com.  


The poll results point toward strong racial and cultural bias held by many of the poll responders.  The Newsweek writer asks,


Might it be possible that the Tea Partiers who profess no racial motivation are, let's say, not entirely aware of their own visceral motivations? I'm sure if you asked the Southern voters who switched to Republican voting habits why they did so, many would say race had nothing to do with it. But why should journalists take that at face value?


Might it be possible that everyone subconsiously knows that racial animus is the muse for Tea Party discontent?  Might it be possible that we ignore the racial overtones of British colonists dressed in Mohawk Red-face with the same ease that we ignore the fact that racial bias infects even the poll questions that look to measure racism?  Check out one of the questions from the poll,

Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many  

other minorities overcame  

prejudice and worked their way  

up.  Blacks should do the same  

without special favors.  (Agree) 


Check out the original elephant in the room post for more....


The Elephant in the room