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Contending Views at the Beaver County Court House – Progressives Push Back Tea Party; Carl Davidson and Tina Shannon; Beaver County Blue; September 13, 2009.
4/20/10 - This is an update to the critique below originally published on September 15, 2009. In a recent comment, Tina Shannon (4th CD PDA chairperson) wrote, “You even succeeded in intimidating the only African American who attended your event. She came across the street and gave us her first hand account of your behavior, which consisted of announcing her presence as the only African American in your crowd and proceeding to say that African Americans weren’t in attendance at your rally because they vote on the basis of race alone.” Assuming Mrs. Shannon wasn’t spinning a yarn, her source was mistaken. Though I don’t check crowds to take a census by skin color, a black couple was standing near my location. I believe the man told another couple he was a teacher. At the end of the formal part of the rally when attendees were invited up to the microphone, the man got up and said a few words. Don’t ask me what he said because at this point I don’t recall what anyone said. How many attendees were black? I don’t know. As I noted above, I’m not preoccupied with a person’s skin color.
Though I addressed race in the original critique, let’s play the BCB game and figure out how many attendees “should have been black.” According to the U.S. Census Bureau, blacks are about 6.3% of Beaver County’s population. Using only that number and BCB’s estimate of “some 200 right wing” tea party attendees, there would have been only about 12-13 black attendees. That number needs to be adjusted, however. First, at election time we always hear blacks do not register to vote at as high a rate as whites and, of those who do register, they don’t vote at as high a rate as whites. Therefore, the 6.3% figure is too high, but I can’t plug in a different number because I don’t have local data. Note: I’m working on the assumption that if you’re not engaged enough to vote, you’re not likely to attend a political rally.
We can make an adjustment based on exit polling based on the 2008 election. According to the left’s own Huffington Post, 96% of black voters voted for Mr. Obama. I don’t have a figure for local precincts, so let’s use the 96% national figure. If 96% of local black voters voted for Mr. Obama, then the expected number of black attendees at the tea party rally would have been between none and one. We know, however, there were at least three black attendees, Mrs. Shannon’s alleged source and the couple I mentioned above. That’s nothing to brag about, of course, but my purpose was to show attendance regardless of skin color is a function of population demographics and voting patterns, nothing more. Perhaps Mrs. Shannon can explain the black speakers at last week’s Boston and Pittsburgh tea parties.
Finally, take a close look at the photo of the Peace Links folks in the BCB article. How many non-white faces do you see?
You’ll note the article doesn’t even get to the byline before it gets into name-calling when it refers to tea party attendees as “Tea Bagger[s].” Among the tamer definitions, Wikipedia defines tea bagging as “a slang term for the act of a man placing his scrotum in the mouth or on or around the face (including the top of the head) of another person.”
Admittedly I didn’t focus my attention on the lefties across the street, but I attended the tea party and a good chunk of the subject article appears to be fabrication. For example, if there were only “some 200 right wing” tea party attendees and “over sixty people” supporting the opposition, I can’t count. I didn’t count either group, but the tea party attendees filled the area immediately in front of the courthouse and down the adjacent walkways. If I had to guess the number of lefties I’d say 20 at most. Perhaps the other 40 lefties I didn’t see were wearing camouflage. <g> It’s also possible they were there earlier and left before the tea party, though I was there about 15 minutes early. Finally, do you see anywhere near “sixty people” in the picture accompanying the article?
Here are a couple of other examples. The article claims there was an “appeal for the takeover of public schools for religious instruction.” My hearing is pretty good and I didn’t hear anything close. Also, there was no “assault on the need for health care.” Who would deny the need for healthcare? Anyway, from these examples you get the idea.
My position at the tea party was at the back of the crowd between the bulk of the attendees and my back to the lefties. I neither saw nor heard any tea party attendees engage the lefties, even when one of them strolled through the crowd carrying a sign supporting a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare monopoly. The lefties, on the other hand, heckled tea party speakers when the road noise was low enough. Since the lefties didn’t have amplification their heckling wasn’t disruptive.
Another portion of the article I find difficult to believe is the following: “At one end of our long line of placard holders, two Tea Baggers (Once again note the name-calling.) had come over to argue about the war and health care with two of the labor guys on our side. They went back and forth with no resolution, but still in civil fashion.” My personal experience with members of this group is they cannot carry out a discussion “in civil fashion” if you disagree with them. They sometimes start out civil, but at the first sign of opposition they tend to launch into name-calling, personal attacks, etc. One of those examples is covered in the following paragraph. You can find other examples on their own websites and in comments they make on the Beaver County Times website.
The article mentions Randy and Tina Shannon. For background info about Mr. Shannon, see my notes on his speech of October 16, 2004, in front of the Beaver County Courthouse. As for Mrs. Shannon, several years ago during a discussion about Hurricane Katrina she had no problem telling me on the now-defunct Beaver County Coalition for Social Justice forum that I think it’s OK for babies to die. You can learn more about article co-author Carl Davidson here.
The rest of the article is the usual lefty stuff published on the BCB website, including the accusation tea party attendees were motivated by racism. Never mind that most of the tea party attendees probably voted for Republican Lynn Swann in his 2006 run for governor. Though Mr. Swann lost Beaver County, he lost by a much smaller percentage (55%-45%) than you would expect given Democrat/Republican registration (59%/31%) at the time. Further, that support was much better than Mr. Swann received statewide (40%) as well as in places like Allegheny (40%) and Philadelphia (11%) counties with much larger black populations (13.3% and 45.8%, respectively, vs. Beaver County’s 6.2%). How could that be if we’re the racists lefties claim we are? If you believe Mr. Swann did better here because of his Steelers playing days, shouldn’t our racist tendencies have overridden the positive feelings from over 20 years prior?
Do these lefties really believe racism motivates tea party attendees? Probably not, but who knows? I suspect the accusation is simply a smear tactic to evade an intelligent discussion of the issues. After all, as soon as you deem someone to be a racist, you no longer have to address his positions.
Finally, referring to the tea party attendees, the article says, “But you got the feeling that the truth wouldn’t matter much to many of those here.” Even if it were true, talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You can’t be a lefty and have the truth about economic, political, and social policies matter to you.
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