If you think that’s funny, you should hear the remarks made by Tim Graham, the Director of Media Analysis for the uber-conservative Media Research Center. In an interview with NRA News, Graham was curious as to why the press refrained from reporting a particular aspect of President Obama’s past:
“…they talked about his white girlfriends in college. Which again you would think that would be a story that a news media that is so conscious about race seemed to not think that was an interesting development, that Obama had these white girlfriends.”
Really? Why exactly would that be an “interesting development?” Is there something wrong with interracial relationships? Was Graham disturbed that the purity of his white sisters was being defiled by a young black man? How would he have the media report this scandalous revelation? And what relevance does he think it has to the presidential election today?
Graham has outted himself as a most vile bigot. He pretends that there is some social significance to the fact that Obama had white girlfriends, but the reality of it is that he’s just plain racist. And this is a theme that right-wingers have attempted to sneak into the campaign ever since Obama emerged as a national figure. Last year Fox Nation posted this thinly disguised racial attack on Obama.
It’s five months before the election and already the conservative haters are loading their attacks with overtly racist themes. And then they complain when people correctly point out their flaming prejudice. Well I have one message for them: If you don’t like being called racist, stop being racist.
Despite the seemingly constant stream of racist propaganda and rhetoric emanating from Fox News, they still manage to exceed their own repulsive standards with ever more dishonest and hateful distortions of the news. After publishing stories that blame Trayvon Martin’s demise on his clothing, and pictures that deliberately seek to put Trayvon in a negative light, Fox has rocketed to new heights of blatant prejudice and painfully perverse journalism.
In Mobile, Alabama, a white man was hospitalized from a beating by a group of African-Americans after a dispute over the use of the street for a game of basketball. The assault was inexcusably brutal and the police are searching for suspects who deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law. But that would not be a sufficiently sensational reaction for the twisted editors at Fox News. They published their stories on Fox News and Fox Nation this way:
The facts of this crime are fairly clear. It was an extreme overreaction to a neighborhood argument that concerned only the parties involved. It had absolutely nothing to do with the incident in Florida last month where an unarmed teenager was shot to death while walking home from the market. The only connecting factor was the claim by the victim’s sister that she heard one person say “Now that’s justice for Trayvon.” There have been no other witnesses who have corroborated her account, but even if there were the only significance of it would be that one of the perpetrators was a jerk in addition to being a thug.
That’s not how Fox News sees it. Their headline at Fox Nation veritably declares that the hoodlums who committed the assault were a “Justice for Trayvon Mob,” as if it were a political statement emanating from the Florida incident. Nothing in the facts of this crime point to that in even the most remote sense. The headline on Fox News itself states matter-of-factly that the “mob invoked Trayvon.” However there is only one unconfirmed report that a single witness alleged that a single person brought Trayvon’s name into this. That hardly justifies associating the whole mob’s actions with Trayvon. Fox’s headline also implies that this should be designated a hate crime despite any evidence of that being the case.
The entire purpose of these overt distortions is to fuel racial animus directed at Trayvon Martin specifically, and to African-Americans generally. There is a stench of incitement in Fox’s words that suggest their desire to stir up other racially motivated crimes or even full-on race riots. It is horribly irresponsible for a so-called news enterprise to sink to these depths of cynicism and antagonism.
From the very beginning of the Trayvon Martin incident, Fox News has tried to advance the impression that African-Americans are animals on the verge of erupting into violence. Fox has suggested that riots would occur if George Zimmerman were not arrested, or if he were not convicted. The view at Fox is that African-Americans are incapable of respecting the progress of justice. And even when no riots ensue, Fox can sit back smugly and celebrate having created the impression that civil unrest was narrowly averted.
It’s a good thing that African-Americans (and most Americans in general) are far more civilized than the bigoted neanderthals at Fox. These brazen tactics are designed to manufacture potentially dangerous hostilities and are more at home in the quarters of Klans and racist militias. How Fox News gets away with this is unfathomable. Their audience should find it revolting and their peers in the press should speak out against this sort of noxious activism. Although it is unlikely to succeed, it certainly can’t help. This isn’t news, it’s hate speech.
The excerpts below are from an article titled “The Talk: Nonblack Version” by John Derbyshire. It is presented by Derbyshire as a rebuttal to the conversation many African-American parents have with their kids to help them avoid trouble with racist people or institutions they may encounter. However, the only thing that Derbyshire accomplished was to expose his nauseating prejudice and ignorance. Be prepared, as you read this, for some of the most repulsive rhetoric you will ever hear outside of a Klan lynching.
(9) A small cohort of blacks—in my experience, around five percent—is ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us. A much larger cohort of blacks—around half—will go along passively if the five percent take leadership in some event. They will do this out of racial solidarity, the natural willingness of most human beings to be led, and a vague feeling that whites have it coming.
(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.
(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.
(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).
(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.
(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.
(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.
(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.
(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.
(13) In that pool of forty million, there are nonetheless many intelligent and well-socialized blacks. (I’ll use IWSB as an ad hoc abbreviation.) You should consciously seek opportunities to make friends with IWSBs. In addition to the ordinary pleasures of friendship, you will gain an amulet against potentially career-destroying accusations of prejudice.
Derbyshire is a writer for the conservative National Review. It is incomprehensible that they could keep him on the payroll after publishing this disgusting piece of trash. While some of their staff and editors have criticized Derbyshire, there is no indication that he will be terminated, suspended, or otherwise held accountable.
The first consequence for this atrocious column should be for Derbyshire to be forced to forfeit any IWSB’s he may have acquired. Then he should be forever associated with an acronym that better suits him: Ignorant Racist White Fuckwad (IRWF). [Note: African-Americans are not required to collect IRWF’s as amulets or for any other purpose.]
[Update] National Review does the right thing and fires Derbyshire.
This doesn’t need much embellishment. A story on the Fox News web site about an archaeological discovery in China elicited what we now recognize as typical responses from the Fox News community.
The list of brazenly racist comments above was abridged to remove the many duplicates. Apparently the Fox News racists have very limited imaginations and most of them kept posting the same stupid “jokes” repeatedly. In the spirit of the hatred they espouse, I would just like to say that the IQ of the “stone-age” man in the picture is probably two or three times that of the average Fox viewer.
Racism has a home on American television, and that home is Fox News. You might think that they would be embarrassed by this, but it occurs with such frequency that it is clear that they are aiming for this audience.
I guess it had to come to this. The undisguised racism of many pundits on the far right has at least avoided the most vile expressions of their hate when anyone outside of their private circles was listening. Today the hate came bubbling to the surface as Rush Limbaugh said this while mocking the way he thinks liberals view Republicans:
“You notice how everything Republicans do is venal? Everything is calculated for political advantage? Everything is done to try to harm our little boy president, Barack Obama?”
There it is – out in the open. Although this is nothing new for Limbaugh. For three years now he has been referring to Obama as a “man-child.” And what is a “man-child” but a boy. It was his way of calling the President boy without bearing the consequences of being more literal. His listeners knew what he was saying.
This sort of disrespect runs deep through the right-wing media. Fox Nation posted this graphic last year along with a story about Obama:
And even worse, they deliberately mangled the results of a poll in order to run a story with this headline: Obama Has A Big Problem With White Women. Could they have come up with a more racially charged banner with which to introduce a story on a public opinion poll? This framing deliberately recalls the worst of a hate-filled era characterized by irrational fears of marauding black predators stalking innocent and vulnerable Caucasian virgins. I’m just a little surprised that Fox didn’t go with this headline: “Obama Polling: Where Da White Women At?”
Perhaps this is an intentional ploy on Limbaugh’s part. He has been taking considerable heat lately for having insulted Sandra Fluke, a law student who did nothing more than speak her mind on a matter of importance to her and all women. Limbaugh has lost dozens of advertisers. His show airs in some markets with only free PSAs (public service announcements) or even dead air. This may be his way of trying to divert attention from that controversy to something he thinks will be less volatile. Good luck with that, Rush.
Yesterday was the day that the video Andrew Breitbart promised of a racially divisive Barack Obama in his days as a student at Harvard was released. It was almost universally panned as a pathetic and desperate boatload of nothing. After first yammering that the video posted by Buzzfeed (scooping Breitbart) was “selectively edited,” the Breitbartians posted what they said was the “uncut” video. Their version contained about two seconds more that consisted entirely of Obama hugging Prof. Derrick Bell, whom he had just introduced at a rally.
Since the video itself was proven to have no material evidence of anything the least bit detrimental to Obama, much less the cataclysmic data that would doom his career, the Breitbartians resorted to Plan B: Demonize Prof. Bell and tie him around Obama’s neck. This was a coordinated plot that began with Breitbart editor-in-chief Joel Pollak robotically repeating the mantra that “Derrick Bell was the Jeremiah Wright of academia.” Pollak even went on CNN and admitted that the video was irrelevant, and when Soledad O’Brein asked him “Then where’s the bombshell, I don’t see it?” Pollak responded that “The bombshell is the revelation of the relationship between Barack Obama and Derrick Bell.” But that wasn’t any revelation at all.
The argument that the Breitbartians are making rests on their assertion that Bell’s writings on Critical Race Theory define him as a racial radical. In fact, CRT is an aggregation of legal concepts that bring together law, politics, economics, etc., in a broad-based study of race and power in society. It posits that there are institutional barriers to eradicating racism that must be addressed at the root level. Those barriers are evident in things like employment practices and school admissions. Another example is the judicial system that incarcerates a higher percentage of African-Americans than their representation in the population. Affirming that example is the fact that crack cocaine, used by more African-Americans than whites, is punishable by sentences ten times more severe than powder cocaine, for which you find more white offenders.
Nevertheless, the Breitbartians are deliberately misinterpreting the legal theory in order to condemn its proponents, including Bell. In this way they can assert that Obama, as a result of his having studied at Harvard, is also a racial radical. The object is to incite fear among those who are ill-informed that Obama aspires to threaten their status in society. He is coming after your jobs, your schools, your churches, all the trappings of your comfortable, privileged lives.
In the wake of the initial flop of the video’s release, the right-wing media has been redoubling its efforts to stir up a phony controversy. Fox Nation has posted multiple stories on the subject (it has been at the top of their page for two days running). Fox News has featured it on their broadcasts, notably the video “exclusive” presented by Sean Hannity. Ironically, Fox Nation posted a video of a debate about Bell between Michelle Malkin and Juan Williams, but edited out Williams entirely.
Note the edit at about 2:20 where Hannity says that Juan’s gonna disagree, but then fades to Malkin saying “No, no. no.”. What Williams said in between was…
“Well, first of all, I must say, I thought this was going to be so much more. I thought this was going to be the smoking gun, as you describe it. But it really didn’t come too much. I mean, I just don’t think that there is.”
And that’s all that Williams was permitted to say in the entire segment, but they even cut that out when they put it online. And then they have the nerve to complain, falsely, that others “selectively edited” video.
Pollak and his Breitbart colleague Ben Shapiro have been making the rounds on the lamestream media. On CNN they argued with Soledad O’Brien over the meaning of Critical Race Theory, but spoke very little about what any of it had to do with Obama, despite O’Brien’s attempts to steer them back to the topic. That’s a tactic designed to keep the focus off of substance and aimed squarely at innuendo and slander. For good measure they threw in a bashing of the media for trying to suppress the video (for what reason, they never make clear), and to silence them (even while they are speaking on the air).
For its part, the Breitbart web site has been piling on with articles that reek of racism. One article was authored by J. Christian Adams, a notorious race-baiter who has accused Eric Holder’s Justice Department of coddling civil rights violators if they happened to be black. He wrote that…
“Both Obama and Bell demanded that Harvard hire professors on the basis of race. […] The Obama-Bell connection is the latest in a pattern of Barack Obama’s associations with individuals who promoted a racially divisive America.”
That’s an open assault on affirmative action, which was not developed to produce hiring on the basis of race, but to put an end to it. Adams also repeated the lie that Obama had appeared with a member of the New Black Panther Party. In fact, Obama attended a civil rights rally that was attended by thousands of people, one of whom happened to be an NBPP member. Obama had no control over who came to a massive, public rally. Adams also characterized cases of civil rights abuse as “crackpot racial grievances.” That pretty much reveals his personal bias.
Another story posted by the Breitbartians alleged that “Obama Forced His Students To Read Bell at the University of Chicago Law School.” Their evidence was a document describing a course that Obama was teaching. The course was “Current Issues in Racism and the Law.” It would be difficult to teach such a class without the textbook materials by one of this generations most respected scholars on that subject. But the allegation is made even worse by that use of the word “forced” as if it were under duress. By that measure isn’t every student forced to read something? In fact, many of the references to Bell’s writings specifically said that they were optional reading.
Meanwhile, over at NewsBusters, there was an article that alleged that the non-event video was being suppressed as part of a conspiracy orchestrated by George Soros (Isn’t it always?). The evidence of that was that Soros’ foundations had made donations to Harvard (where the video took place) and WGBH (the public TV station that owned the video). Using their logic I can surmise that the Koch brothers are behind this whole phony video scandal because they have made contributions to NewsBusters.
And, believe it or not, they even have a Plan C: It’s a Cover Up! The video was a bust. The racial attacks could backfire. So if all else fails, blame it on a massive cover up. The Breitbartians took on another black Harvard professor, Charles Ogletree, by posting a video wherein he said that “We hid this during the 2008 campaign…” He was referring to the video of Obama at Harvard. Of course there would have been no reason to do that since, if anything, the video shows Obama in a positive light. The truth is that Ogletree was joking. He even laughed immediately after, which proves that he was humorously dismissing the throw-away line. but, not surprisingly, the humor-challenged righties didn’t get, even though Ogletree’s audience did.
The absence of any substance on the video has led to a redirection by the right to their usual stance against Obama – he’s black. His associates are black. And they advocate for radical concepts like equal justice under the law. They support fairness in hiring and other social contracts. They oppose discrimination.
If anyone is advancing a racialist philosophy, it’s the right-wingers who are peddling this repulsive nonsense. And if there is anything positive to take away from this, it is that they have once again shown their true colors. It isn’t about a video of a young future president. It isn’t about health care or oil prices or deficits. It is, and always has been, about one thing for these meatheads. They just can’t accept a black man in their White House.
Here we are on the morning after the Super Tuesday primary that may decide the GOP nominee for president of the United States, and what does Fox Nation regard as the most important story of the day, posted atop their web page?
As usual, some context is necessary to grasp the overt prejudice in the story and headline published by the Fox Nationalists.
The incident occurred at a high school basketball game. Ordinarily the jingoistic chanting of “USA! USA! USA!” is something that occurs when an American team is playing a team from another country. But that’s not the case here. This was a Texas high school team (Alamo Heights) playing another Texas high school team (San Antonio Edison). The difference is that the Alamo Heights team was predominantly white, while the opponents from San Antonio were mostly Latino.
The clear inference was that the other team was not American. The only other explanation was that the chanters were cheering for both teams, which was definitely not the case. An Alamo Heights district official even noted that this isn’t the only time this has happened:
“If this chant was commonplace – chanted at their games with other schools — it would not be a problem. It was targeted at a school that is predominantly Hispanic.”
There is no other interpretation of this behavior than racism. Even the district official from Alamo Heights (the white school) recognizes it. But Fox doesn’t. And they leave their readers with the false impression that the school district has engaged in some sort of rabid political correctness and is opposed to national pride.
Fox News has proven that it will go to any lengths to dismiss allegations of racism in the hopes of making every authentic claim appear to be invalid. That’s the tactic of a propagandist with an agenda to peddle. That’s the tactic of a racist.
Once again Fox News is demonstrating their overt hostility to anything and everything in the Obama administration. It doesn’t matter if unemployment has dropped two points or that Osama Bin Laden is dead, somehow everything this administration does is tantamount to treason.
Case in point: The Department of Justice recently announced that it had promoted Tony West, the head of the Civil Division, to a new post as Associate Attorney General. This promotion was the result of his exemplary performance. In his role as the head of the Civil Division, West “recovered more than $8.8 billion in taxpayer money, the highest three-year total in department history.” Ordinarily that sort of accomplishment would be heralded by a deficit-obsessed right-winger. But we are dealing with an epidemic of Obama Derangement Syndrome, the symptoms of which are all too predictable. Here is how Fox News framed the story:
The headline on the Fox News web site declared “Terrorist Lawyer Gets Influential Justice Post.” On the air Fox News described Mr. West as a “Taliban Defender.” Both of these were deliberately designed to create the impression that West is affiliated with America’s enemies. Even worse, the story is being driven by a former DOJ attorney from the Bush administration, J. Christian Adams, who is defaming West and the entire Justice Department. Adams appeared on Fox & Friends with an all-encompassing allegation that Attorney General Eric Holder is…
“…filling [the Justice Department] with attorneys that, before they came to Justice, took on the most radical causes. And now they’re filling the Justice Department from top to bottom.”
Adams provides no support for his charge. And for someone with a record of dubious accusations that were easily debunked, Adams should be more careful with his unsubstantiated rebukes. He has previously tried to concoct DOJ conspiracies to prosecute civil rights cases against white defendants while letting black defendants off the hook – again, with no evidence to support it.
The characterization of West as a terrorist sympathizer stems from his having worked for a law firm that defended John Lindh, aka the American Taliban. That service is viewed by right-wingers as fraternizing with the enemy. American conservatives have long sought to portray themselves as the defenders of the Constitution despite the fact that they frequently show disdain for its most fundamental principles. For instance, the Sixth Amendment that guarantees a right to an attorney. That is the principle that West was patriotically upholding when he helped to represent an American citizen charged with a serious crime. But Adams expressly believes that respecting the Constitution in this manner disqualifies you from ever serving your government.
The larger condemnation that Fox is attempting to assert is that Obama and his entire administration is in cahoots with Al Qaeda. It is part of their years long effort to paint the President as a foreigner, a Muslim, and an anti-American socialist. That anyone actually believes those allegations is a testament to the success Fox has had in instilling ignorance in their audience. In the three years that Obama has been in office there have been more terrorists brought to justice (captured or killed) than in eight years of the Bush administration – and that includes Osama Bin Laden. So obviously Obama is working with Al Qaeda. It is part of their devious plot to allow him to dispose of their own members to make the American people think he isn’t one of them.
It is also notable to observe just who the right chooses to target when they make nonsense allegations like this one against West. The previous targets have included Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Eric Holder, UN Ambassador Susan Rice – all African American advisers and cabinet members. And let’s throw in Energy Secretary Steven Chu (Asian American) and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (Latina American). But how often do you hear right-winger complaints about Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, Tom Vilsack, Shaun Donovan, Ray LaHood, or Arne Duncan – all white cabinet members? I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
Today America is celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King. It is a fitting tribute to one of the nation’s most revered advocates of freedom and justice for all.
Today is also the day that Fox News has chosen to broadcast a Republican presidential primary debate from the state of South Carolina. The obvious question arises as to whether either the Fox moderators or the candidates will take the opportunity to recognize what this day represents.
Will any of them note that South Carolina was the last state to recognize the day as a national holiday? Prior to May 2, 2000, state employees could choose between celebrating Martin Luther King Day or one of three Confederate holidays.
Will any of them note that the The U.S. Justice Department is currently challenging South Carolina’s voter ID law as being in violation of the 1965 voting rights act, which outlawed discriminatory practices that prevented blacks from voting?
Will any of them note that the Confederate flag still flies over the South Carolina state capital?
These are all matters that Dr. King would have considered significant. If Fox wants to schedule a GOP political event on a day of remembrance for a national hero, they ought to take steps to express respect for the meaning this day holds for all Americans. And that means addressing the still unresolved issues of race that plague our country, particularly in places like South Carolina. Failure to do so would be an egregious insult and an affirmation of the reputation for racial insensitivity for which both Fox News and the GOP are well known.
Continuing their campaign to disparage the Obama family at every opportunity, Fox Nation posted an article this morning that asserts that Michell Obama is engaging in “damage control” because “people try to paint me as some angry black woman.”
Hmm. I wonder who would try to paint Mrs. Obama as an angry black woman. Could it be Fox Nation, who last October published an article calling her “The Very Angry First Lady?”
In that article Mrs. Obama was described as “ready to spew her bilious disgust with America on the campaign trail.” They provided no evidence whatsoever to support that hateful representation. It was just a dangling invective meant to perpetuate a racist stereotype.
Now the Fox Nationalists seem confused as to why the First Lady would be so sensitive about how the media is portraying her. But it is Fox News who is most guilty of those false, insulting, and racist portrayals in the first place.
