While those on Fox News frequently accuse those who speak up for minority rights as being "race hustlers" who "play the race card," it appears that if you're talking about race hustling and playing the race card, you're talking about Fox News. America's "fair & balanced" newsroom brought us the "scary black man." The narrative of blacks as criminals who prey on innocent whites was advanced, on Fox, in stories about black on white crime which, according to Greg Gutfeld, reflected "irresponsible" black culture. As Newshounds Ellen reported, Fox News celebrated Martin Luther King Day by race baiting the President. In addition to black "thug" culture, Fox defines African-Americans as part of the "taker" class - as seen in its promotion of the "Obama phone" as a hand-out, like food stamps, to the black community. And while you would expect the racist "Fox Nation" website to feature race baiting photos, you might not think that the "fair & balanced" Fox News website would do the same. Today, they went there!
The racist propaganda message, accompanying the lede story, couldn't be any more in-your-face. Our first African-American president is pictured next to a photo of several African-American men who are carrying signs with the iconic Shepard Fairey photo of Obama. As one of the signs has what looks like the first part of the word "living", it appears that they participating in a march for raising the minimum wage to a "living wage." This fits in with the article titled "Obama to Use Executive Power to Raise Minimum Wage for Federal Contractors." It's not clear if these men are supposed to represent the federal workers or just those who are advocating a raise in the minimum wage.
But what really gets the readers attention is that the black men, in the forefront of the photo, are carrying food stamps coupons which, in the world of minimum wage, is what those workers need in order to feed themselves and their children. But on Fox, which is waging a deliberately biased ongoing attack on food stamps, those who get the benefit are part of the lazy, thug, black community. And in addition to reinforcing this meme, the photo conveys the Fox/ right wing message that Obama is a "food stamp president." All the propaganda bases are covered.
But while the photo has "AP" (Associated Press) in the lower right corner, there is no AP article with this combo photo. Rather, the Fox article credits Fox's Ed Henry and the AP for contributing to the story. So where did the photo come from? A search of Google images takes you to, of all places, the website for MSNBC's Chris Hayes. The photo is next to the title for his piece on on "The Fight for Fair Wages" during which he interviews Columbia professor Dorian Warren about "the need to increase minimum wage and how Congress's inaction is hurting Americans." (Not a popular message on Fox News!)
The photo also shows up, on a web page, hosted by HubPages, "an online space to share your advice, reviews, useful tips, opinions and insights with hundreds of other authors." The hosted site belong to (Tyrone) Tbland, a conservative, Christian who believes, as does Fox News, that those on minimum wage should be grateful because - ready for it - it's not supposed to be a living wage but a starter wage. In comparing low wage workers to children, who spend all their allowance and want more, he denigrates those on minimum wage as irresponsible spenders. His article is accompanied by several photos of fast food workers who staged walk-outs and protests on December 5th, 2013 - one of which is the photo used on the Fox lede article.
So I can't say, for sure, exactly when and where this photo was taken. But what I do know is that Fox News is using the photo to promote some of their patented memes - and doing it in an inflammatory, race baiting way.
And Ann Coulter thinks that there's more cholera than racism? Seriously?