Apparently, Fox News thinks that if they attack President Obama for using the N-word while discussing racism, we won’t notice that they’re the ones doing the race baiting.
Fox’s latest excuse to point racial fingers at President Obama is the fact that he used the N-word during an interview where he spoke about racism:
OBAMA: It’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say n----- in public… That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don’t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.
“That has a lot of people talking,” host Bill Hemmer said with hammy astonishment. “Touchy, touchy, touchy deal here.”
Then Hemmer set out to make it even touchier.”
“Was it necessary?” Hemmer “asked” guest Deneen Borelli, a Fox News contributor. Her presence guaranteed not just a negative answer but a race baiting and inflammatory one. Borelli's sole role on Fox News seems to be that of African American black attacker. When last seen, for example, she ambushed the African American president of the National Bar Association and repeatedly accused her of being “part of the (race) problem.”
Borelli got right to it now.
BORELLI: He has really dragged in the gutter-speak of rap music. So now he’s the first President of rap, of street? I mean, come on. He has lowered the stature of the high office of the President of the United States.
But Ms. High-minded didn’t leave it there. She further accused Obama of using the word for the express purpose of racial divisiveness.
BORELLI: The question is, why did he do this? Did you see all of the people coming together in the streets of Charleston, South Carolina? Black, white and otherwise, coming together, praying, supporting each other and here you have the president make this insane, crazy comment of using the n-word to really distract. This is all a grand distraction to take away from the people uniting and then the president-in-chief, the rapper-in chief now, is further dividing our country. I find it outrageous.
What’s really outrageous is that Borelli should be allowed to use such vile rhetoric. And, frankly, while we know why Bill Hemmer didn’t object, it’s almost as outrageous that the other guest, Democrat Basil Smikle, didn’t confront her about it. He gave a wonky, weak tea answer when a smackdown was in order.
Smikle said, “It’s acceptable because he’s making the point that you shouldn’t use the word. Let’s make sure to put this in context. …If it’s cringeworthy to hear it… then clearly you shouldn’t say it, no matter who you are.”
Which, you know, Basil, kind of made Fox’s point for them. And besides, that’s not what Obama was saying. He was saying that racism goes beyond the use of the n-word.
Meanwhile, Hemmer pretended his disapproval came from a place of virtue. “As a white American, my entire life I know that that is an electric word," he said. "This is something that we thought was entirely off limits and now you have the president using it. …I tell you, I’m not going to say it because I respect you as a human being... I’m not going there ever.”
Actually, this very segment made President Obama’s point. Neither Hemmer nor Borelli will probably ever use the N-word themselves. But they might as well have.
Watch it above, from this Monday's America’s Newsroom.
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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