Is Bill O'Reilly Playing The So-Called Race Card?

Once again, Fox News far-right commentator Bill O'Reilly showed his true colors as he used his platform to again demonize and attack NBC and use racial politics to inflame conservative whites who are the Tea Party. Notice how O'Reilly cherry picks an NBC interview asking about that has a question regarding race in the Tea Party movement (a very legitimate issue). O'Reilly takes the question and spins it as NBC using race to strengthen the liberal strength among minority groups. It also plays into that old stereotype that O'Reilly buys into that blacks are not that smart and so easily influenced by white liberal leaders with sinister intentions.

What you will read below also shows that O'Reilly and Fox News clearly are in the corner of the Tea Party movement and are willing to go to great lengths to defend it to anyone who will listen.

Read how O'Reilly starts the segment with his mini soliloquy and then starts with what he sees as an inflammatory question.

Here is an excerpt from a recent O'Reilly Talking Points Memo:

For now, the liberal media and the left-wing establishment in general greatly fear the Tea Party movement. And so, led by NBC News, the media is trying to brand the Tea Party people as racist.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY O'DONNELL, NBC NEWS: There aren't a lot of African-American men at these events.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

O'DONNELL: Have you ever felt uncomfortable?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No. These are my people. Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Now, the NBC News reporter Kelly O'Donnell's question was legitimate. But coming on the heels of NBC's unrelenting racial attacks on the Tea Party, the question also illuminates the left-wing media strategy.

By the way, with 95 percent of African-Americans voting for Barack Obama, you would not expect them to sign up in great numbers for the Tea Party, would you?

Going forward, the Tea Party movement will face some challenges. Will it become a legitimate third party, or will it stay as an anti-Obama protest group? Or will it expand its passion into other areas?

There is no Tea Party leader. Sarah Palin comes closest, but she doesn't want the designation. So it will be interesting to see just how the Tea Party evolves.

But for now, these folks are scaring liberal America big time.

First of all, I find it funny that Fox News would accuse another network of unrelenting racial attacks when it has been doing that against President Obama since he was Sen. Obama, candidate for the presidency. Even in the last few days, Fox News has been working tirelessly to convince white Americans that President Obama is playing racial politics with the immigration legislation in Arizona. How can Fox News legitimately accuse any other network of playing racial politics without cleaning up its own racial backyard? Will Bill O'Reilly condemn his own network for its relentless racial attacks on black people. Why did Bill O'Reilly never speak out about racism on Fox News Web sites?

Next, the Tea Party people are not scaring liberals. To the contrary, I think some on the left are probably quietly liking the Tea Party protests for exposing the extremism in our midst. In fact, part of the reason that liberals are working to expose the Tea Party people is because of the anger of the movement and how the movement really only came to life shortly after President Obama was elected.

Is Bill O'Reilly playing the so-called "race card" when he says that liberals are trying to portray the almost exclusively white tea party people as racist? Is he playing to white racial anxiety?

Now, no one is saying that all tea party people are racist. Some are, but obviously not all are racist. BUT, far too many excuse the racism in their midst and make excuses for it.

Where were the (fiscally-conservative and anti-big government) Tea Party protests when George W. Bush was president?

There is nothing wrong with the angle that the NBC reporter took and it's difficult to tell if it was just one small part of a larger series of interviews that might have been conducted. It's just obvious that the Tea Party protesters are overwhelmingly white (whether that is a good thing or a bad thing). After Bill O'Reilly hosted that Wall Street Journal reporter (James Taranto) on to spew his racial garbage, it hardly seems that Bill O'Reilly can legitimately come back and accuse anyone competitor of launching a racial attack.

Doritos, Single Moms And Racism … Say What??

Leave it to conservatives to take an ad that most normal Americans thought was funny and turn it into some liberal plot to attack black people.

Yes, and many of these same conservatives are apt to accuse black people of playing the so-called race card. For some on the right, the formula is rather simple. Mix a tempting bowl of Doritos, an attractive single mom, an overprotective (albeit funny young son), a would-be date, and the fact that they’re all black, and conservatives see a sinister plot on the part of liberals to reinforce stereotypes of black people. We are in the middle of a discussion on the topic on one of my new favorite blogs, Diversity Ink. I was about ready to go on to the next topic when I became aware of a blog you will see referred to below.

First, however, is the Super Bowl commercial in question.

Some right wingers of color have lost their minds over this commercial.

Here is a fellow blogger’s take on the commercial she found to be far from funny.

I found NOTHING funny about this superbowl commercial for Doritos.

It is white liberal condescension towards black in its most heightened form.It has white liberal disturbing humor written all over it and reinforces its messages loud and clear.

Now if you’ve been reading here long enough, you know I don’t cry racism over racial situations. I see them for the individual events they are, driven by individual idiots, no matter what their color.

However, as a reminder to those who’ve been brainwashed all these long years by liberal and Democratic white ideologies, it behooves me to speak up about this buffoonish commercial.

It goes without saying that I completely disagree with that assessment of the Doritos commercial and the attempt to use it as a weapon against “liberal and Democratic white ideologies” and to advance the tired “brainwashed” theory. This blog I am citing seems less angered by the commercial and more interested in how it can be used as a weapon to attack liberals and Democrats.

The blogger adds:

The little boy’s reaction is instant hostility and violence. When his mother leaves the room he gives this adult male – who he’ll one day grow to be – a warning slap across his face about touching his food and/or his mother.

I don’t care what intentions an adult indicates in front of a child, short of violence, children should respect authority. It is not cute or funny to have them do otherwise.

Further, the message in the (no older than five, this child) boy’s actions suggests, this is a baby-mama, single-parent household, and the boy intends to keep it this way.

These days, we see beer commercial after beer commercial of white guys drinking beer and wanting to push up on white women. Is that indicative of something bad as far as white men and white women are concerned (drinking and potentially hooking up)? I don’t see it that way. I think it was just a funny commercial and I did not see the racism at all. Even more difficult than the racism is seeing the angle about some liberal Democrat plot. That line of thinking is farfetched to say the very least.

The blogger does not see a funny commercial, a young boy protective of his mom or the kind of dating that occurs every day in our society (there are a lot of single moms … whether we like it or not).

This was a cute ad and there was no racism or liberal plot.

Rush Limbaugh Is In Denial

Right-wing nut Rush Limbaugh is in denial about the simmering anger and resentment around this country in regard to the election of the first black president of the United States of America. Obviously, it’s not an across-the-board hatred, but it is present. You can see the growing anti-Muslim hatred, the growing hostility toward Hispanics (read between the lines of the so-called anti-immigration debate). We’ve seen the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, who performed legal abortion procedures for women; the murder of Pvt. William Long, an innocent man; and, most recently, the crazed white supremacist shooting and killing (Stephen T. Johns, a veteran security guard) at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

LIMBAUGH: For liberals to claim that the atmosphere is somehow more violently anti-Obama is simply preposterous.

It was just a matter of time before the attacks on Shepard Smith (who had the courage to stand up and speak out about the growing angry and increasingly violent atmosphere that was described in the Department of Homeland Security report on growing right-wing extremism in the U.S.). That statement just goes to show how biased and dumb Limbaugh sounds.

MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31208188/

Media Matters:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200906110021

Southern Poverty Law Center:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=986
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=997