It was billed as the most diverse tea party rally ever. For three hours Saturday afternoon, we waited for the diversity to show up. Was Saturday’s Uni-Tea rally in Philadelphia a success? Well, it depends on your definition of "epic fail." If you’re more on the defensive end of the tea party spectrum, you would have left the rally this afternoon even more convinced that the movement is not now about race and never has been. If you’re the kind of tea partier who’d like to see that abounding not-racism result in some actual demographic diversity in the movement, the Uni-Tea rally appeared to be a borderline disaster.
For three hours, a small crowd drifted in and out of Independence Park as speakers and musicians regaled them with paranoia about Democratic politicians and policies and reassurances that no matter what anyone says, there’s no racism in the tea party.
Even as just a regular old tea party rally, the event fell flat. Though organizers said the event’s website had been visited more than 2 million times in the days leading up to today’s rally outside Independence Hall, for most of the afternoon there were fewer than 500 in attendance. It was clear from the large numbers of volunteers and the 1,500 bottles the organizers put on ice that they expected a big crowd to turn out. They did not get it by a long shot. They blamed a traffic jam on I-95 for keeping people away (for the record one organizer said that she counted 1,500 on the high end of attendance, but that appeared a bit generous to us).
Among those who did make it, for most of the time the numbers of non-white faces could be counted on two hands, and maybe a foot.
Diversity Is In The Eye Of The Beholder: A Day At Uni-Tea | TPMDC