Fox News Attacks Black America

You're Damn Right They Do!             Shamontiel,

My grandfather (and one of my favorite people on the planet) and I recently had a discussion about watching the news. He gets frustrated with me sometimes because I avoid watching it. He always asks me "Don't you want to know what's going on in the world so you can have an opportunity of avoiding things going wrong?" or other quotes similar to that. Then he goes off on a tangent about who has been shot, killed, robbed, bombed, and so forth. Make no mistake about it. I am not unsympathetic to issues like this, but I grew up in an area where it was uncomfortably common for people to be shot and killed daily. I don't need to turn on the news to find out who died. All I have to do is go to my old neighborhood and listen to some of the brothas talk. In defense of the area, it has grown much better because most of the people I grew up with are either in jail, dead, or moved away to get away from that lifestyle. Some of them, especially one particular person who was my best male friend ever, was shot unnecessarily and I can't stand to look at the house next door to my parent's house too long because I still can't stomach that. But besides being drained of hearing so much bad news during my childhood years, I also cannot tolerate some of the slanted views on certain news stations, namely Fox news. When I go to my grandfather's house, he usually has this station on, and every single time I watch it, I leave his house frustrated. I always ask him why does he watch this station, and he explains that if you want to fight the enemy, you must always know how they think.

By now, you've probably all seen the video entitled "Fox Attacks Black America." I've never heard so much nonsense in three plus minutes in my life. The folks on that station sound about as intelligent as the Ku Klux Klan, and for the KKK members who might be reading this, that was not meant to be a compliment.

Let's start on a case-by-case basis:

Mary Matalin says that Civil Rights leaders are racist and keeping racism alive. Had she done her history, she would understand that Civil Rights leaders were created to stop racism from happening in the black community during the Jim Crow era, and if she's taken the time to look around, racism hasn't stopped. Ask Sean Bell's family!

Bill O'Reilly says that white people can't even say that black people are articulate without starting an argument. O'Reilly does not take into account that most black people have been put into situations where their race automatically targeted them as a source for belittlement. Black people can tell a genuine compliment from a condescending comment. Comments like "and he speaks so well," as if it's shocking that a black person could not automatically do so puts a person on the defense.

John Gibson says that in order for white people to maintain being the majority population, they'd need more babies. First of all, minorities are not having children just to beat the odds of being minorities. Although I don't think it's a good idea to have children when you cannot afford to support them and I am a firm believer in contraception, Gibson trying to make a point about how whites will be the minority, as if somehow that's a bad thing, tell me just how terrified racist people are. What difference does it make who is the majority and minority? If people would take the time to try to treat every culture fairly, this whole debate would be pointless. However, I will agree with Bennett's comments about "black people having babies is out of control." I've watched too many times that black people have indeed had children that they could not support from carelessness. That's not to say that other races have not, but it's more personal to me when I see a woman on the el train, who can barely take care of herself, yelling about how she's going to send her kids to jail if they don't act right. (True story.)

But, Bennett's comment about the Superior Dome during Hurricane Katrina was mind-boggling stupidity. Just like in an impoverished community, when you put a bunch of people together who are seeking no help monetarily, have scarce food, no facilities to help sick or elderly family members, and in nonworking bathrooms, do you expect them to act like they won the lottery? Now add to that that it took almost a week for Bush to do his job as a president and Condoleeza Rice to finish her shoe shopping before they actually tried to help this community. How high does the stress level have to be before the average human being snaps?

Mark Furhman says that he's dealt with people like O.J. Simpson for twenty years, who supposedly kill people and go have some chicken at KFC. If I ignore his tacky comment about black people and chicken (by the way, I'm unapologetically Black and a vegetarian so all black people do not eat chicken), and move on to the "people like this" comment, once again, Fox news encourages small-minded views. Who are "people like this?" Although the prison system shows more black men in jail than anybody else, none of them look alike. In addition, there are other extremely violent killers in the prison system who look nothing like O.J. (assuming he's guilty, but let's leave that debate for another article, okay?). There is no hard and fast rule about how a killer must walk, talk, speak, and what complexion he or she is. Amadou Diallo's killers didn't look like O.J. Simpson, now did they?

Barack Obama being compared to mammy blew my mind. People are not supporting Obama just because he's a black man taking care of his family. Hell, Bill Cosby had a sitcom and Reverend Run (of Run DMC) has a reality program showcasing that, and that doesn't mean we'd automatically want those two to run for president. There is a large amount of nonblack people who also support him because they believe in his views. I didn't support the man until I read both of his books and listened to his views. Just because someone is black does not mean that black people will automatically support him. I could care less about Condoleeza Rice and listening to her interview in Essence magazine made me not like her more, and she's as brown as me.

Bennett's comments about using the word nigger bother me to no end, but I'm going to leave that issue alone considering there are so many black people who are brainwashed into thinking that offensive word is a compliment. Kramer not only used the word, he also talked about lynching. Freedom of expression still has a limit before it's become attacking.

Trinity United Church being called a cult struck a personal chord with me though. My father is a deacon at that church and, although I'm not religious and do not attend church regularly anymore, for someone like me to defend Trinity, that's big. There is nothing wrong with a black community church trying to uplift its own people. Black churches were a way for slaves to communicate and express their grief without being killed or raped. It is almost a given that black churches would continue to grow and express their views through the year. Every organization has the right to share its point of view, and as long as they are not expressing hate, what is wrong with a church that wants to improve the black community? Fox finds so many things wrong with black people. Let the church take that on! Every person should have the opportunity to join any organization that helps them to live a more positive life, and if they want to help black people in the process, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, Mr. Eric Rush! I've listened to Reverend Jeremiah Wright speak and he's floored me every single time. That brotha has a strong mind and an even stronger heart. I back up Obama being apart of that church and listening to Reverend Wright with the utmost gratitude.

James Myart needs to get his head out of the clouds if he honestly thinks that most cops are "good, honest, hard-working men and women." You've got to be kidding me. Besides the obvious cases of racial profiling, the beating of Rodney King, the murders of Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo, the broomstick shoved up Abner Louima's butt, I'll talk about a personal experience I had. I remember heading to school one day later than others because my grades were so high that I did not have to take a standardized test. Students who did not have to take the test were permitted to come an hour later. The police station next door to my high school, Morgan Park, was forever harassing young black students. They stopped me and made me give them my height, weight, name, age, address, and so forth. When I gave them my address, one cop remarked "rough neighborhood." A white girl my age walked by, also headed to MPHS, and I asked them were they going to stop her. They ignored my comment and continued to question me for the next five minutes. Officers not only harass black men, they harass young, black teenage women too. I have no sympathy whatsoever for cops. I've made that point quite clear in my first novel, Change for a Twenty, and in the second one, Round Trip, I'll be targeting that too. Prison guards don't even stop jail raping and gang raping. How am I supposed to believe that they're "good, honest, hard-working men and women" when they prove otherwise on a repeated basis?

I watched a YouTube rebuttal to this video, and the guy stated that the video about Fox was unfair because it was shown in clips. Regardless of being snippets or not, they said what they said. Fox News needs to get it together and open their eyes to the fact that they are the exact people who keep racism alive. Bigotry and racism are never necessary, but they are indeed prevalent in this melting pot of a country!

Published by Shamontiel

Shamontiel is the author of Round Trip and Change for a Twenty, and in mid-October became the Chicago Tribune s Digital News Editor. She works on National Travel, Health and occasionally Breaking News, and w...  View profile