The Author Muses on “Black Tea” and Future Stories

When I began researching Black Tea, I feared I would not be able to find enough minority supporters of the tea party to interview. After all, several academics reiterated, there just aren’t any. If I looked hard enough, I might be able to find a few, but they would simply be “surprising supporters,” like nuns at pro-abortion rallies or former soldiers marching for peace. They make for a nice story, a shocking contrast to the sea of white faces at tea party rallies, but they aren’t really central to the movement.

I am so glad I kept digging.

Although time was tight – I had about 6 weeks to complete this project – I managed to secure my first interview with a black tea party member, Kenneth McClenton, after just a few days of scouring the Internet. The remaining four interviews were just as easy to arrange. I would have conducted more interviews had I had additional time to work my expanding networks, but my deadline was fast approaching.

Given the mythology, I was amazed how easy it was to find African American tea party members.

Critics of the piece will undoubtedly stress that I only talked to those African Americans either in leadership positions, such as Lloyd Marcus and the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, or working in alternative media, such as Kira Davis and McClenton. Are these people really representative of minorities in the tea party movement?

Admittedly, these were the easiest people to approach for interviews, as they were used to – and willing – to speak with journalists. Had time allowed, I would have interviewed more small-town activists like Jessica Shorter. I have no doubt that I could have found them.

However, even with the additional interviews, I am not sure I would have had much more to add to this story. To me, their collective message was consistent and clear. For African American tea party members, the movement is not about race, it’s about the issues.

But does anyone really believe them? I don’t think it’s by chance that three of the people I interviewed (McClenton, Peterson, and Davis) have their own Internet radio shows. It would be interesting to do further research on the use of alternative media by black conservatives who feel their views are not represented – and perhaps intentionally distorted – by mainstream media.

“You have to have your own media arm,” McClenton said, “to report exactly what you are doing and saying and thinking.”

And are tea partyers really racist? I can only report what others have told me they experienced at rallies and events. For the African American tea party members interviewed for this story, the answer was definitively “no.” For the white academics, the answer “yes” was somewhat equivocal, couched in vaguely-defined terms (“racist elements”) and – although not discussed in Black Tea – racially-charged frameworks (white privilege, color-blind racism, white politics, etc.).

Several of the academics I interviewed pointed to poll data that suggested tea party supporters are more racist than the general public. I fear many academics (and, unfortunately, many journalists) too eagerly use the results of polling data – data that cannot possibly measure complex concepts like racism – to bolster more subjective, anecdotal results without considering its limitations.

An interesting secondary analysis to Black Tea would be to collect and critically analyze the poll data purported to demonstrate racism in the tea party movement. Minimally, such a story would have to include a discussion of polling methodology (e.g., sampling design, sample size, weighting, coverage, sampling error, response rates, etc.). It would also have to discuss more nefarious issues too-often associated with polling, such as the use of intentionally misleading questions and the political affiliation of the sponsor.

Elizabeth M. Grieco
American University
May 3, 2014