Washington (CNSNews.com) – A new survey on the tea party movement says tea party supporters are “more comfortable with white privilege,” according to a panel member who helped analyze the data. The survey, which analyzes the movement and its ties to the “religious right,” was conducted between Sept. 1 and Sept. 15, 2010 from among 3,013 randomly selected people contacted by telephone. The survey shows that 80 percent of respondents who said they considered themselves supporters of the tea party are non-Hispanic or white.
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, an ordained minister, theology professor and senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, said the data indicates anxiety about the changing racial landscape in America, where white people are projected to be a minority by 2050. She said that is part of the appeal of TV and radio personality Glenn Beck, who is trying to “redefine whiteness” by making this group victims of discrimination.
“I can generalize and say those attracted to the tea party are more comfortable with white privilege as a value and believe that leveling the playing field for minorities is not the business of government,” Thistlethwaite said Tuesday at the Brookings Institution.
Thistlethwaite, who said she talked to a number of people at a tea party event in Chicago, said this value is in conflict with those of charitable Evangelical Christians who work in the U.S. and abroad to help people in need. Anxieties about the economy, threats to male breadwinners and the “changing demographics of the American racial landscape” are among the elements that define the tea party movement, Thistlethwaite said.
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