IWU professor Megan Burke says her study of the Tea Party changed her perceptions of the limited-government movement. (Photo by Tim Pierce/flickr)

By Eric Stock

BLOOMINGTON – An Illinois Wesleyan professor who studies race relations says the Tea Party often gets a bad rap.

Sociology professor Megan Burke based much of her perceptions of the limited-government movement on what she saw in the media – an angy group of mostly white men criticizing President Barack Obama for everything – and sometimes his race, but after talking with Tea Party members for a book, she told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin, that picture is misleading.

“(Racism) was present in the Tea Party but it was also present in these progressive ‘We love diversity’ communities up in Chicago,” Burke said. “I think that’s really revealing about where we are as a nation.”

Burke said racially-charged signs you would often see in media reports about the Tea Party don’t paint an accurate picture.

“Our entertainment media system – and his happens on the left and the right – are going to go to those as a way to magnify those things,” Burke said. “The thinking and the talking about race that I saw among movement members was in some ways very ordinary.”

Burke said coded-racism, what she calls a niave belief that colorblindness equals progress, has no political affilitation. She says Tea Partiers generally feel they are not represented by their elected officials, a sentiment felt by people of all political stripes.

Burke said her study also revealed there are far more women in the Tea Party movement than is often portrayd. She said it was revealing to her that so many women are becoming politically conscious, confident and active in their communities, often for their first time in their lives.

Burke’s book is entitled Race, Gender and Class in the Tea Party: What the Movement Reflets about Mainstream Ideologies.

PODCAST: Listen to Scott’s interview with Burke on WJBC.

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].