Like the satiric Steven Colbert character, the very real Laura Ingraham doesn't see color. Despite the very real evidence of systemic racism in our society, Ingraham, who exudes white privilege, thinks that racial relations are just dandy - and if they're not it's because of Obama and, of course, black people who don't know their place because they are still enslaved by Democrats. On Tuesday's Fox & Friends, Ingraham, along with her friends, played the Fox racist dog whistle loud and clear in blaming minorities for their problems and, for added racist pleasure, attacking the president for not blaming them! Funny, when Christians complain about alleged mistreatment, Fox & Friends has a totally different take on who's being victimized!
Hasselbeck began by asking Ingraham if she approved of Obama's proposal to use "taxpayer money" to provide cameras for cops. Before addressing the question, Ingraham needed to set a race/Obama baiting them. Ingraham, in her patented mocking tone, mocked Obama's Monday meeting with minority activists regarding Ferguson and its national implications. In dismissing the racial concerns of many Americans, she claimed that these types of meeting always conclude that "the system is rigged [true], minorities can't get ahead [true], and that we need to spend more money [true] and indeed [she almost laughed] this is what happened yesterday." Not surprisingly, Ingraham advanced the right wing talking point that Obama believes that throwing money at a problem will fix it. When she asked where the money will come from, Brian Kilmeade interjected "let's take if from the military, that's what we're good at."
Ingraham acknowledged that body cameras might be a good idea and then asked why Obama isn't wearing a body camera (everybody giggled) because people need to know "how much time does he spend during the day on jobs...vs doing the community organizing around the table." (Steve Doocy: "sure") Ingraham laughed loudly when Doocy "joked" that the golf channel would run the video because Obama does a lot of golfing. (Funny, Doocy never joked about GW Bush's golfing during the Iraq War)
Doocy segued into the patented racist Fox message about how African-Americans are really to blame for their problems. Ingraham smirked as Doocy referenced how Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter, in an earlier Fox & Friends segment, talked about how the police need retraining "so they know how to deal with the community; but what about the community and their dealings with the police." He played part of the video in which Nutter talked about "treating people with dignity and respect" and the "disconnect" between police and residents of a city.
Ingraham got down and dirty in advancing ugly, right wing racist talking points: "How bout self reliance vs. self-pity. How bout conforming our behavior to the law instead of bitterness. How bout principals of truth vs. the principals of rabble rousing instead of spreading mistrust which, I believe, this administration has done. To actually speak in basic truths..." Ingraham smeared Michael Brown when she said that "if you punch a cop, if you try to get into his car, if you walk down the middle of the street, if you rob a store, it's not gonna end well." (Right, you will be executed) Doocy added "if you take his gun" - a right wing talking point not conclusively born out by evidence.
She said that "it would be nice" if Obama "spoke truths to people." She noted that not one Ferguson police official was present at Obama's meeting. In talking about what Obama can really do to help minority communities, she advanced another right wing talking point: "Stop giving jobs away to illegal immigrants." After Hasselbeck quoted black athlete Charles Barkley, who praised the police and blamed blacks for their problems, Ingraham asserted that state and local police care more about minority communities than Obama.
To Kilmeade's question of ending, as Eric Holder has proposed, racial profiling, Ingraham did more race/Obama baiting: "This is the way they view the world, the racial prism is how the world at the very beginning of this administration and apparently it's worked so well for them, not, they're gonna keep doing it." She then complained about how parents are afraid to shop at malls because of the "selfish," "anti-capitalist" protestors and chided the president for not speaking out about this. (The president urged peaceful protesting.)
Welcome to the alternate reality of Fox News where structural American racism is ignored because blacks (and Barack Obama) are really to blame for unarmed black men getting profiled and killed. Right, the police who gunned down a 12 year old Cleveland kid really care about the community. Wow, just wow.