Bill O’Reilly and his two willing Fox accomplices concern trolled the contest for Democratic Party leadership and suggested that white people are at great risk of being oppressed by the Democrats.
Fox never seems to miss an opportunity to suggest whites are the real victims of racism and that blacks are the real racists in America. The excuse for this particular round was last night’s “Unresolved Problems” segment on The O’Reilly Factor. In his introduction, O’Reilly feigned neutrality as he “asked” if the Democratic Party can “rise again” and, as a large graphic over his shoulder announced, “DEMOCRATS AND RACE,” he catalogued the number of federal and state seats lost by the Democrats during Barack Obama’s presidency.
“Some believe it’s because the Democrats played the race card all the time. People are fed up with it,” O’Reilly said. He offered no actual evidence for such a conclusion.
Yet O’Reilly’s obviously not “fed up with” playing the race card on behalf of white people. Immediately thereafter, he introduced the subject of Sally Boynton Brown. She’s a candidate to chair the Democratic National Committee who spoke rather poignantly at a recent DNC debate about the need for white people to listen to people of color. But O’Reilly cherry picked a sound bite from her lengthy answer about her support for Black Lives Matter in order to play that race card he’s so fed up with.
BOYNTON BROWN: My job is to listen and be a voice and my job is to shut other white people down when they want to interrupt. My job is to shut other white people down when they want to say, “Oh, no, I’m not prejudiced. I’m a Democrat. I’m accepting.” My job is to make sure that they get that they have privilege.
O’Reilly offered no context of her remarks. Instead, he sneered, “Now, that wasn’t Saturday Night Live, that was an actual Democratic confab.”
Then he brought on the ubiquitous Fox conservative Lisa Boothe and black Fox Democrat Juan Williams. Each helped validate O’Reilly’s race baiting.
Williams and Boothe chuckled appreciatively as O’Reilly said, “If I, your humble correspondent said, ‘You know, I really – I don’t think I’m biased. I think I treat everybody the same –‘” O’Reilly began furiously pointing in a mocking imitation of Boynton Brown. “'You shut up, O’Reilly! You’re not allowed to say that, you white person!’ And this is what the Democratic Party is considering?”
In the first place, Boynton Brown was not saying all white people should shut up no matter what. She was saying that white people should shut up those trying to shut up or shut down Black Lives Matter and/or black people when they try to talk about their experiences as black Americans. Secondly, O’Reilly is one of the most blatantly racist people on television.
Sadly, Williams did not note any of that. He said Democrats “need to listen to white, working class voters.” So Williams not only went along with the Fox message that Democrats don’t care about white people but also went along with the distortion of Boynton Brown’s comments. Later, Williams did get around to saying that minorities often feel they are not being listened to despite being the base of the Democratic Party.
But instead of enjoying the comity, Boothe grabbed the chance to do some extracurricular hate mongering. She said smugly, “I applaud” Boynton Brown “because I applaud the implosion of the Democratic Party.”
And then, for extra “we’re totally not racist” points, Boothe said – with more vicious smugness, “Representative Keith Ellison, another candidate for the DNC chair, has also made and written very racially charged, racist remarks.”
It was not clear what she was referring to because O’Reilly interrupted to say that Ellison will be on The Factor tonight or tomorrow. Then O’Reilly said condescendingly, “I don’t think he’s learned his lesson about this racial politics business either. But we’ll talk to him.”
Watch the race baiting above, from the January 24, 2017 The O’Reilly Factor.
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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