Incendiary statement or fact? You decide. Watch the YouTube “Fox Attacks: Black America” prepared by Robert Greenwald and the folks at Fox Attacks. It was prepared at the behest of James Rucker, founder of ColorofChange.org., in order to help him convince the Congressional Black Caucus Institute to reject Fox News’ overtures to partner with the cable network in hosting a Presidential Debate for Democratic candidates. I guess Mr. Rucker and his allies in the netroots were successful, because the CBCI today chose CNN as its partner for its Presidential debate.
Here’s the video compiled from clips of Fox News.
I think any reasonable person would agree that those clips are persuasive evidence that Fox News pushes a racist agenda. And I don’t doubt it is a good marketing strategy for them. There is a continuing undercurrent of racism in White America, and Republicans have long sought to take advantage of that fact for electoral gains.
After the battles for civil rights in the 50’s and 60’s however, for a long time in our society the only treatment of racism and racist attitudes that was broadcast by local and national news media was a bland condemnation of racist incidents (when reported) given in a self congratulatory tone which left no doubt the days of overt racism, at least in the media (if not in the country at large), was over. That began to change in the early 80’s with the election of Ronald Reagan as President. Reagan won in large part because he made whites, whether living in the South or outside its bounds, feel comfortable with their own bigotry.
By popularizing coded language like “reverse racism” “states rights” and telling amusing (and apocryphal) anecdotes about “welfare queens” allegedly driving Cadillacs purchased on the Government’s dime, Reagan brought white prejudice out of the closet and made it semi-respectable again. Just so long as a bigot spoke in code, and didn’t use the “N word” he or she could elide condemnation as a racist in polite white society.
Fox News, however, since its inception, has pushed the envelope on all forms of bigotry and prejudice. Whether it was discussions regarding Gays, Latinos or African Americans, Fox led the pack in attacking what they considered to be the “political correct police” in the so-called “liberal media.” You can see this in how they have covered any number of news stories which involve minority groups and/or minority rights. They constantly attack their own invited “liberal” guests as the people who are really the racist and bigoted ones, and they go out of their way to portray minority communities as being prejudiced against whites.
(cont.)
My first lesson regarding the extent of Fox News’ bias in favor of racism came in the 2000 Presidential election, when John McCain uttered his infamous “gooks” remarks. This was especially poignant for me, since my children are of half Asian/half European descent. I knew from first hand experience that “gooks” was a slur that had migrated to defile all American Asian groups after Vietnam (they all look alike after all, don’t they? [ed. note: that’s intended as sarcasm]). Most respectable news organizations eventually criticized McCain for using a racial slur, and after about a week McCain apologized (sort of).
Before he did, however, Fox News was one of his biggest defenders. I remember watching Bill O’Reilly’s show back then, and he went to great lengths to dismiss McCain’s critics as whiners from the “politically correct” crowd who had no business telling an American hero like John McCain what he could or couldn’t say. By virtue of McCain having been a prisoner of war in Hanoi, O’Reilly claimed that we should all just shut up about McCain’s use of the word “gook.” McCain was entitled, O’Reilly claimed, and anyone who disagreed was imposing their politically correct agenda to suppress McCain’s free speech rights. I was shocked by the arguments he and other Fox pundits advanced to make light of a major presidential candidate using a vicious racial slur.
It was after that that I began to watch Fox News Channel less and less, and when I did, to pay attention to the usually thinly veiled, but often rather overt, racist attitudes that they promoted. Mea culpa, for not realizing sooner how Fox News promoted (and still promotes) racism through its slanted and biased coverage of the “news.”
Unfortunately, as the hate jocks on talk radio have shown, there is a market for racism in White America, and a rather large market at that. Many of the same folks who listen to Limbaugh and Savage during the day, also watch Fox shows anchored by bigots such as Gibson and O’Reilly and Hannity at night.
This is the legacy of eliminating the Fairness Doctrine. Racist, and often violent hate speech, is now acceptable on national television as legitimate commentary. Furthermore, the promotion of conservative and Republican talking points by Fox and others that feed into racist and bigoted attitudes among whites is considered an acceptable use of the airwaves.
So its good to see that liberals and progressives of all races, creeds and sexual orientations are beginning to fight back against this right wing tidal wave of racist propaganda which is epitomized by the Fox News Channel. Thanks to opposition coming from the netroots, Democrats are starting to pay attention to those of us who have long denounced the little games of footsie with the Fox Guys in which so many of them obviously felt compelled to engage. Democrats not named Lieberman have finally realized that Fox is not just another news outlet with a conservative slant, but one of their enemies. Hopefully we will see further “boycotts” of Fox News by prominent and not so prominent Democrats in the coming months. And frankly, it couldn’t happen to a worthier target of our scorn and outrage.
Congressional Black Caucus Institute