A Poll Arising Debate, Part 3

As a follow up to this week's CBS/NY Times poll on Tea Party supporters (which itself sparked a hell of a debate here) NY Times columnist Charles Blow reports on his experience at a Dallas Tea Party rally as an African-American.

I had specifically come to this rally because it was supposed to be especially diverse. And, on the stage at least, it was. The speakers included a black doctor who bashed Democrats for crying racism, a Hispanic immigrant who said that she had never received a single government entitlement and a Vietnamese immigrant who said that the Tea Party leader was God. It felt like a bizarre spoof of a 1980s Benetton ad.

The juxtaposition was striking: an abundance of diversity on the stage and a dearth of it in the crowd, with the exception of a few minorities like the young black man who carried a sign that read “Quit calling me a racist.”

They saved the best for last, however: Alfonzo “Zo” Rachel. According to his Web site, Zo, who is black and performs skits as “Zo-bama,” allowed drugs to cost him “his graduation.” Before ripping into the president for unconstitutional behavior, he cautioned, “I don’t have the education that our president has, so if I misinterpret some things in the founding documents I kind of have an excuse.” That was the understatement of the evening.

I found the imagery surreal and a bit sad: the minorities trying desperately to prove that they were “one of the good ones”; the organizers trying desperately to resolve any racial guilt among the crowd. The message was clear: How could we be intolerant if these multicolored faces feel the same way we do?

That phrase, "one of the good ones."   To help some of you understand what Blow means by that (and some of you already do) he means "a member of a minority group that does not foster negative stereotypes that people have about minorities."  Conservative, Democratic party-bashing, Obama-disliking, Republican-voting African-Americans, for example.

I've been there myself in both educational and work environments, as well as social ones.  It's a very curious feeling, going into a place where you don't look like much of anyone else who is there and then you forget that you don't.  And so does everyone else.

Until you're reminded of it by a stark realization, by what someone says or does.  It's shocking.  Just a little bit different from everyone else...and the people there sometime slip and say something about minorities...and forget you're in earshot.  Sometimes they look over sheepishly when that happens.  Other times they go right on through the point and keep going down that road.

It's always kind of strange when it happens. But it does happen.  And you're reminded that people don't consider you "one of those people."  You're "one of the good ones" instead.

I've been there.  I know what Blow means.  It's there, just under the surface.  And it always will be.

Because like it or not, the more the Tea Party tries to prove that they're not a radical fringe group, the more they show everyone that they are.