As Rev. Jesse Jackson tried to discuss the dangers of military-style weapons on the street, Fox host Harris Faulkner repeatedly interrupted to complain about black crime and Black Lives Matter.
Faulkner didn’t bother to hide the animosity in her voice when she “asked” Jackson, “Why has there not been a call for the deaths of blacks at the hands of other blacks in Chicago at the level of Black Lives Matter […] and also at the same time to tell policemen and women that they have their back?”
Did you catch what may be a Freudian slip there? Regardless, I am still wishing and hoping for a guest to ask one of these Fox black-attackers why the “fair and balanced” network only seems to care about black deaths in Chicago when they can be used as cudgels against African Americans with other concerns?
When was the last time Fox delved into actual programs that are trying to address the matter? And when was the last time, anyone on Fox reassured African Americans about their backs regarding police killings of unarmed citizens? Speaking for myself, never.
Jackson, like so many other Fox guests, did not confront this blatant concern trolling designed to camouflage racial dog whistles to Fox’s audience.
Meanwhile, as Jackson began, “When you have access to military weaponry…”
Faulkner interrupted to take an ethnic dig at Muslims: “We do have radical Islamic terrorism!”
“If you were a police person,” Jackson said to Faulkner, “and I were challenged in some way, I could walk right beside you with my AK-47, say, ‘how do you do.’”
Faulkner replied that despite allowing open carry in Ohio, “We just saw peace” at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, so “you can’t paint a broad brush.”
Actually, it was Faulkner painting with a broad brush. The fact is that open carry can complicate police interactions and make mass shootings even more dangerous. More importantly, while Faulkner was holding herself up as a champion for the police, she didn’t seem to care that it was the head of the police union in Cleveland who had requested a suspension of open carry in Cleveland – and discussed it on her own show. There are other police departments opposing it, including the Dallas chief of police who said the law had made it more “challenging” to respond to the shooter who killed five officers this month.
Jackson responded to Faulkner’s “broad brush” complaint by citing the specifics of the Sandy Hook Elementary School and Aurora, Colorado movie theater shootings. “These military weapons and assault rifles are just too dangerous to be in the hands of civilians,” he said.
So Faulkner changed the subject to suggest that Black Lives Matter activists are the real danger.
Still in scold mold, Faulkner said, “Your nominee has hashtagged BLM. Are you comfortable with that?”
“There is no connection between Black Lives Matter and this killing,” Jackson said, presumably meaning the recent deaths of officers in Dallas and/or Baton Rouge. “These soldiers, these veterans, did not get their training nor their inspiration from the civil rights movement.” Then, referring to the recent police killings of African Americans Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Jackson added, “When you look at the killing, the execution of the death in Baton Rouge and in Minnesota and in, across the country, something must be done about this. I am hopeful that we would get beyond the need to have weaponry for which there is no defense in the name of security.”
Faulkner may not have the same fire as some of her colleagues but she is obviously up to the job of race baiting other African Americans over Blacks Behaving Badly, just like so many others at Fox News.
Watch Faulkner strut her racial stuff below, from Fox’s July 24 coverage of the Democratic National Convention.