There are only whites, commented CNN's Tony Harris

[question everything]

this morning while more reports came about town hall meetings. As an African American, he added, I don't see any African Americans or Asians or Latinos in these meetings.

BINGO! These are the whites who "want their America back." America where whites rules, and minorities know their places.

[RagAss]

1. Nostalgia ... that's all the future holds for them.

[muntrv]

2. In related news, water is wet.

[bkkyosemite]

8. THEIR America is a White Republican President, Congress and Senate.

[Tim01]

3. There is a big fence around the meetings. And a "whites only" sign. nt

[NYC_SKP]

7. Or. "I'm with Stupid."

:P

[question everything]

17. LOL, this is great!

Never seen this before.

[JI7]

4. of course, it is mostly about anger over a black president

that's why you hear things about wanting "their america" back rather than debating health care.

[DBoon]

5. So we need more nonwhites

With big signs saying' "WE ARE AMERICA"

because this country belongs to everyone

[dkf]

13. This crew doesn't even know that Hawaii is a state.

I guess it doesn't help that we are majority minority and that the indigenous people are brown.

[Blue For You]

6. That's the GOP, the New Klux Klan. They're wearing teabags

now, got rid of the pointy-headed sheets.

[JDPriestly]

9. I was thinking about this today, and I rather understand where their

frustration originates.

America has always had lots of immigrants. Until maybe 30 or 40 years ago, maybe even less, the immigrants were mostly white. That was not an accident. There were quotas for some of the non-European nations of origin.

Coincidentally, the influx of non-white immigrants and the movement toward equal rights for all people regardless of race have coincided with tax policy changes that have caused the concentration of wealth and power in an ever smaller upper class. The middle class, regardless of race or national origin is being squeezed, sharing less and less of the national wealth.

White middle and working class people associate their declining wealth not with changed tax structures that favor the rich but with the immigration of people of color and with the equal rights movement. They assume that there is a cause and effect. In fact, there is no relationship between the economic decline of the middle and working classes and the fact that immigration is now from a wider variety of countries or that the civil rights movement took place.

These white people long for the America that existed before the Reagan and conservative movements changed the tax structure and for the economic opportunities that existed before President Reagan (and President Nixon before him) introduced "free market" economics and "free trade."

(President Nixon opened up relations with China. I recall hearing debates in Congress in 1985 (fall, maybe September or October) about freeing trade. Along with the application of Reagan's "Me, me, me" philosophy on taxes, the middle and working classes were dealt a double whammy.)

So, this is why white Americans in the middle and working classes are so angry. I understand how they feel. They are blaming the wrong factors for the changes. Of course, nobody out there is correcting their misunderstanding in a way that speaks to them.

[EFerrari]

10. A lot of those people forget that when their own families came here

they were not considered "white". :shrug:

[JDPriestly]

11. True. Irish and Italian immigrants suffered from discrimination for example.

[cui bono]

14. I don't understand why people don't hit them with the fact that Reagan raised

taxes substantially. If everyone would speak the truth about taxes maybe the Republicans wouldn't be able to keep using that as a wedge issue. And keep talking about voodoo economics too.

[question everything]

18. Or, with the change from a manufacturing economy to a service one

It used to be that even a high school dropout could get a job at the floor of a manufacturing company and make a decent living.

Many of these young men - mostly - decided to start their own business which may succeed, or not.

Earlier there was a thread about the H1-B Visas and the reason for this is that Americans choose not to go to engineering schools and employers have to bring them from overseas.

And in time of economic slow downs, these small businesses - roofers and remodelers etc. find themselves without jobs. Or, perhaps, the only one that can afford to hire them are the immigrants from India or from Taiwan who have worked their butt off to start their own businesses.

[krabigirl]

12. I noticed that, too. I did see one African-American, but (more)

what I noticed is that these "protestors" didn't look like today's America to me at all. They were all white....

[Chulanowa]

15. And middle-aged

Basically if the silver spoon were any deeper into their mouth, they'd be gagging on it.

[Mythsaje]

16. Saw a few pics here yesterday with African Americans protesting...

So, not QUITE accurate. But I'd go so far as to say "Mostly" white.

[loyalkydem]

19. In related news

West Wing: The Next Generation will address the Real america problem (LOL)

[PVnRT]

20. I would say that's mostly true

I have seen footage showing some African-Americans protesting with the teabaggers. However, it is, undoubtedly, vastly a white movement.