Is Fox News A Member of Ku Klux Klan?

Follow @mducheiney

What Does Fox News Have Against Black People?
An article published on Fox Sports by Clay Travis (Nov 11, 2015) – prefaced with the subtitle: Is the entire Mizzou protest based on lies? – suggests the whole racism problem at Mizzou doesn’t exist. To render his article believable, reliable and legitimate, Clay signed off by saying that “… am a white dude from the South who voted for Obama twice.” Well, that should definitely do it. Although Clay made some good observations in regards to events, incidents and circumstances surrounding the protests, he nevertheless missed a major point in his article, racism is rampant at Mizzou regardless of those particular circumstances; this is not an attempt to discard or ignore them. Lies and falsehoods never serve the purpose for which they are intended. If Clay were to spend just one (1) minute actually talking to a black student at the University, he would have had a deeper understanding of the endemic racism on the college campus; it is nothing short of a systemic problem. Even the University president acknowledged his lack of effort to help curtail the problem.

Fox Is At It Again
In an article published on June 30, 2015 following the church massacre in South Carolina by Dylann Roof, I said the following “The biggest obstacle to race relation (and other important social issues) in America is Fox Opinion Network, known by most as Fox News Network. Any black fallen victim to gun violence, police brutality is explained away by Fox hosts in ways which defy logic. The hosts are usually consistent: the victims are always to blame if they are black”. Immediately after publication, I received correspondences which claimed that my arguments were completely wrong; pure fabrication they said.

Well, there are only two possible explanations for the outrage a) the readers must have never watched Fox b) the readers fall into the very category I described in the article, racist, prejudiced, biased. While proofs of Fox’s prejudiced and racist comments are not lacking, the recent event which took place at the University of Missouri helps illustrate once again how much Fox has been fully engaged to perpetuate racism in America “With Fox Opinion leading the charge against any solution in race relations, it should not be difficult to understand why half the population (Fox’s audience) in the country is not in any hurry to remedy the situation”.

At the University of Missouri, football players – with the support of their coaches – stopped playing for the school, organized protests demanding the departure of the University president; their outrage is the result of months of racism complaints ignored by the president. Under pressure, the president resigned from his post. By any analysis, it is always a good thing when a majority comes together to get something, anything done – that’s how we elect public officials – but for the folks at Fox, the president should not have resigned. Fox’s co-host Eric Bolling of “The Five” thinks the players should have been kicked out of the team, “I would say ‘Fine, goodbye. We’ll find 25 or 30 new ball players to sit in. We may lose the rest of the season,'”

Any intelligent host would have used the opportunity to discuss the racism problem which has plagued the country for so long, would have solicited experts’ opinions to advance the conversation, offer advice, would have applauded the initiative as perhaps a tool which can be used elsewhere to obtain results. Instead, he used it as another opportunity to display and reinforce the racist sentiment at Fox. As I said before, Fox is a major obstacle to race relation in America. Even the president (of the University) admitted fault for not handling the complaints which culminated to the protests. Yes, the president, despite losing his job, confessed to having ignored the complaints but Fox has a very different idea.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Fox is responsible for the lingering prejudice and racism problem in the country. The hosts could have ignored it altogether – although one would expect someone behind a news desk to use it for progress and the advancement of human relations – or better yet, they could participate helping in the eradication of racism, discrimination, prejudice and bias. As much as its hosts like to brag about having the largest audience it is equally painful to realize they are also the number one racist network in the country. Maybe they deserve the position; they serve an audience with similar taste, opinion and sentiment. How else can a network of such vitriolic nature manage to hold the highest rating but for having an audience which shares its taste and preferences? After all, the larger the audience the more advertisers pay for marketing.

It is bad journalism to propagate falsehood; – Fox sees it as good business – it’s worst to incite strong sentiment such as racial hatred; – Fox sees it as tool to increase its audience – . Although it is well documented that Fox airs opinions instead of news, it is however unacceptable to continue to support a network with an objective as low as to incite racial clashes. But who is going to help change all that? Fox’s audience enjoys every bit of it; thus lies the biggest conundrum of our time. We can only take comfort that Fox’s audience is aging and dying; its largest audience belongs to a generation which is growing old, hopefully fast enough.

Although we understand that Fox has always been about business and to lie to an audience which demands to be lied to makes good business sense but we have never completely grasped statements such as those which incite racial tensions; then again, we should not be so surprised. The very base of the civil war speaks loudly; a sector of the country did rather go to war with their countrymen than to accept the abolition of slavery. There is no loudest statement than such act. And there is something eerily similar to Fox’s racial sentiment and behavior; slave owners couldn’t justify doing the right thing (free the slaves) because slavery had enriched them. Similarly, Fox cannot part with inciting racial clashes because it enriches Fox. Is there any hope Fox would come to its senses?

If we judge by the behavior of those who fought for the Confederacy in the civil war or those whose lineage is closely related, nothing has changed. The racial bias and prejudice that has still plagued the country is testament to a lingering problem with roots deep in the South. That has not abated; for the past few years, we have had many incidents and tragedies of racial hatred, some of which with fatal outcomes, the latest of which is the South Carolina Church shooting on June 17, 2015 which took the lives of nine individuals and left a score of others injured.

The love of money, the Bible says, is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6: 10). This is the most striking irony and probably the most flagrant hypocrisy for a sector which likes to be called “Christian Conservative”. I will have something to say about that later. Fox’s love for money is no small obstacle to overcome; it has even sacrificed journalism for the sake of money. Is Fox Network a racist institution? Or is it a blind love for money? The line seems very blurred. What then would it take to change that?

Follow me here, subscribe to this blog today and invite your family, friends and acquaintances to do the same. Be the first to know who the next president is. Very soon, we will reveal who the Republican nominee is. Also in a future column, we will discuss why the Republicans have been so fearful of Hillary’s nomination. Is their fear justified?

Follow @mducheiney

Apps Downloads