"... empirical, survey-based evidence published by several political scientists have documented racialized attitudes, stereotyping or racial hostility among white tea party members" -- Thomas Schaller

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Tea party attitude toward Obama influenced by race, researchers say
By Lauren Loricchio, November 1, 2013

Following the pledge of allegiance, a group of conservative Marylanders take their seats and listen to Delegate Neil Parrott, R-Washington County, who earnestly urges them to vote in the upcoming state elections.

“One thing we know is that elections have consequences and what we’re seeing at a national level is that Barack Obama has a total different worldview than we do here in this room,” Parrott said before the group of nearly 60 attendees of a Hagerstown T.E.A. Party meeting.

“He wants Obamacare - socialism. This is part of his new America,” Parrott said to the group, whose name stands for “Taxed Enough Already.”

President Barack Obama is an unpopular figure among tea party conservatives across the nation.

“He just has socialist ideas. He thinks you and I should give all of our money to the state and then they - the powers that be - are gonna best decide how we’re gonna live,” said Denny Stouffer, vice president of the Hagerstown T.E.A. Party and a licensed gun salesman.

Tea party supporters say the president’s economic  policies are the reason they want him out of the White House, but political scientists argue their dislike of the president goes beyond tangible political issues to his race.

Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science at Emory University, said racial resentment among tea party members is expressed through their hostility toward Obama, the nation’s first black president.

“It goes beyond just the economic issues,” Abramowitz said. “It’s a reaction against the trends the tea party dislikes. And that includes growing racial and ethnic diversity.

“It’s not old-fashioned racism exactly. It’s not like they want to bring back segregation. But there’s no question that there’s an element of hostility there,” he said.

According to survey data collected by American National Election Studies in 2010 and analyzed by Abramowitz, 55 percent of the Republican Party disliked Obama, compared with 90 percent of tea partyers who said they dislike Obama.

Tea party supporters, however, disagree that racial hostility exists within their movement.

Stouffer said, “I think those people are very much ill-informed or they’re just trying to spread a lie to demonize us because they see us as a threat to them and their power.”

And Parrott said: “It just doesn’t exist from what I’ve seen. There’s certainly no evidence of (racism).”

Parrott, who founded the Hagerstown T.E.A. Party in 2009, said he’s been to tea party rallies in Washington, D.C., and has never seen any racist attitudes among supporters.

The group did not use racist language or symbols at their meeting held at Hager Hall on Oct. 10.

However, photos of other tea party activists at rallies across the nation paint a different picture.

During the government shutdown, a protester waved a Confederate flag - a symbol of the pro-slavery South - at a tea party rally in front of the White House.

House Democrats called on Republicans to condemn the gesture of waving the Confederate flag at the rally, where former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, were present. House Republicans have not done so.

In 2010 the NAACP issued a statement condemning extremist elements within the tea party using racist language in their signs and speeches.

According to the organization’s website, members of the Congressional Black Caucus reported racial epithets were hurled at them as they passed by a Washington, D.C., health protest in 2010.

Abramowitz said racial resentment is not universal among tea party supporters, but it is there.

Thomas Schaller, a political science professor at University of Maryland-Baltimore County, agrees.

“Not every tea party member or agenda item is motivated by or related to race, and I’m sure many tea party members have not a racist bone in their bodies. But empirical, survey-based evidence published by several political scientists have documented racialized attitudes, stereotyping or racial hostility among white tea party members,” Schaller wrote recently in an email.

Both Schaller and Abramowitz said tea party supporters are smart enough not to express overtly racist attitudes.

Todd Eberly, an assistant professor of political science at St. Mary’s College, points to an attempt to portray Obama as Muslim during the 2008 election, as an example of racial resentment on the far right.

“To deny there’s some of that in there would just be disingenuous,” Eberly said.
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