Instead of responsibly discussing the consequential situation of racial unrest at the University of Missouri and elsewhere, Megyn Kelly prodded Dr. Ben Carson – who clearly had no idea what the facts are – to demonize the students and faculty trying to resolve the conflicts.

Right in her introduction, Kelly suggested that minorities are getting too many privileges:

MEGYN KELLY: Breaking tonight, new evidence that what started with a campus protest in Missouri may be spreading to more colleges and universities as small groups of students use complaints about race and diversity in a big play to rewrite the rules for everyone. And now this is becoming an issue for the 2016 race for the White House.

[...]

It started with a remarkable series of events at the University of Missouri. In a period of roughly 72 hours, a small group of angry black students managed to force the resignation of the two highest ranking officials at that school, complaining they did not show enough concern about racial issues at the school, including the self defense shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson last winter.

When Carson came on, he announced, “It’s part of the problem we have in our country right now. We have people who get in their respective corners and demonize each other. But there’s no conversation.”

Somehow, Carson has not noticed how demonizing the left and minorities is Fox News’ specialty. Instead, Carson engaged in his own demonizing: “This is just raw emotion and people being manipulated, I think, in many of these cases, by outside forces who wish to create disturbances.”

Kelly prodded Carson to be a little more condemning. “What do you make of these students who are with the dean of Yale saying you can’t wear offensive Halloween costumes. Offensive in the mind of whom? Who’s to decide? I mean, anything could be potentially offensive. And so the message was just don’t do it.”

Now, I personally find the Yale decision troubling but “straight news anchor” Kelly’s own question all but fed an answer to Carson. And sure enough, he bit.

CARSON: This is a very dangerous trend when we get to a point where a majority can say, “I don’t like what you’re doing. That’s offensive, and therefore I have a right to be violent toward you or to deprive you of rights, because I don’t like what you’re doing.” You know, that really goes against the grain of our constitutional rights. And if we don’t see that, we’re in really big trouble right now.

Kelly pushed for more.

KELLY: What they’re telling these students right now, on the Missouri campus is, if you hear speech that you find insulting, call the cops. You are now supposed to call the campus cops if you hear something offensive. What are we doing to tomorrow’s generation?

Oh, yeah, that’s a real “straight news anchor” for you. Even if you didn’t notice the disdain dripping from Kelly’s mouth. What’s even more straight-news-anchor-y, Fox News style, is what Kelly left out: that the directive was a reaction to accusations that the university was not responsive to significant problems of racism on campus. Also, the campus police made it clear they were not planning to arrest anyone for saying something hurtful but to turn over the information to the Office of Student Conduct for possible disciplinary action.

Whether you agree with the school’s plan or not, it’s part of a serious issue that deserves more than this kind of knee-jerk ridicule and dismissiveness coming from Kelly.

The same is true for “we need to have a conversation and stop demonizing each other” Carson. “We’re being a little bit too tolerant I guess you might say, accepting infantile behavior,” he said, “and I don’t care which side it comes from.” But, predictably, he only targeted the black students.

CARSON: To say that I have the right to violate your civil rights, because you’re offending me is un-American. It is unconstitutional. And the officials at these places must recognize that and have the moral courage to stand up to it. Because if they don’t, it will grow, it will exacerbate the situation, and we will move much further toward anarchy than anybody can imagine and much more quickly. We simply can’t allow those kinds of things to happen.

Watch the fear mongering above, from the November 11 The Kelly File. Kelly’s inflammatory introduction is first followed by the Carson interview.

Crossposted at News Hounds.
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