I see the point, but I'm also inclined to think it is more complex than white privilege per se. I think it is more that the powerful supporters of this movement invoke that idea of white privilege as a way keeping white people from realizing that they are still the majority or plurality of: people who are unemployed, people who are uninsured, people in poverty, etc. It makes the racial element more powerful than the actual material similarity most white people share with others members of their social class. In this, it is somewhat reasonable to think of the tea party as comprised of people who are a part of that "precariat" (in so far as the precariat can be said to exist) as a class "in itself" though not yet "for itself" (Pretty sure I'm misusing those concepts, but I hope not too much.) Therefore the people who say they are against big government but for medicare or SS (or, more ridiculously, who say things like "keep your big government out of my medicare!") In other words, they are focused so much on keeping African Americans and immigrants from having these services, they are willing to side with people who are advocating the complete annihilation of these programs. There is, of course, a long history of this, cataloged by many people. I used this clip of Tim Wise in class this term and it seemed a useful overview of the political use of race:
http://www.youtube.com/wat
RE: the way those programs initially functioned, the racial and ethnic underpinnings of that are very interesting to hear--especially in terms of the way the policies were written. There was a similar argument about these programs in the Cultural Studies issue on the economic crisis:
http://www.informaworld.co
In any case, maybe I'm reading this article too quickly, but I think saying it is solely about race misses the way that concept--or the concept of whiteness--overlaps significantly with the way class is mis-recognized or completely denied in US culture.
I think the real difference in the US is not just in the Tea Party, but in the culture more generally: how many cutbacks and austerity measures here do you think it would take to have students in the streets marching over Social Security? Over Medicare? Hell, even over tuition hikes and unemployment? There might be pockets of activities, but considering the proportion of students in Chicago, New York, LA and most other major US cities, we have nowhere near the activism in Paris and London even among the most obvious contenders for inclusion in the US "precariat"--the college age students who now enjoy something like double the unemployment rate of the rest of the population. That the Tea Party is similarly disillusioned about its own connection to the welfare state is not, I would say, indicative of anything but its own entrenchment in the mainstream of US culture--where people prefer the Swedish model, and therefore assume we are closer than we are.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs
Tea Partiers are just, reasonably, looking for some explanation of why, if we live in this incredibly prosperous land of social mobility, they are feeling less mobile and prosperous. The two options on the table are blame the 1% that owns 50% of everything (most of whom you never see because they live a mysterious parallel existence) or the people who look different than you. The latter has won out almost every time in US history, in no small part because of campaigns funded by the former.
http://www.youtube.com/wat
RE: the way those programs initially functioned, the racial and ethnic underpinnings of that are very interesting to hear--especially in terms of the way the policies were written. There was a similar argument about these programs in the Cultural Studies issue on the economic crisis:
http://www.informaworld.co
In any case, maybe I'm reading this article too quickly, but I think saying it is solely about race misses the way that concept--or the concept of whiteness--overlaps significantly with the way class is mis-recognized or completely denied in US culture.
I think the real difference in the US is not just in the Tea Party, but in the culture more generally: how many cutbacks and austerity measures here do you think it would take to have students in the streets marching over Social Security? Over Medicare? Hell, even over tuition hikes and unemployment? There might be pockets of activities, but considering the proportion of students in Chicago, New York, LA and most other major US cities, we have nowhere near the activism in Paris and London even among the most obvious contenders for inclusion in the US "precariat"--the college age students who now enjoy something like double the unemployment rate of the rest of the population. That the Tea Party is similarly disillusioned about its own connection to the welfare state is not, I would say, indicative of anything but its own entrenchment in the mainstream of US culture--where people prefer the Swedish model, and therefore assume we are closer than we are.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs
Tea Partiers are just, reasonably, looking for some explanation of why, if we live in this incredibly prosperous land of social mobility, they are feeling less mobile and prosperous. The two options on the table are blame the 1% that owns 50% of everything (most of whom you never see because they live a mysterious parallel existence) or the people who look different than you. The latter has won out almost every time in US history, in no small part because of campaigns funded by the former.
