Geraldo Rivera visited Fox & Friends this morning where he once again demonstrated his version of promoting race relations, this time by continuing to blame Trayvon Martin for his own death, saying, "You dress like a thug, people are going to treat you like a thug." Rivera also again suggested that President Obama’s pandering to the black community brought about the wrongful prosecution of George Zimmerman – once again presented as the real victim in this tragedy.
Rivera first dismissed the feelings of those who are horrified that a man who shot and killed an unarmed teenager had just beat the rap: “This case was just one of those things.”
Then Rivera again suggested that the whole tragedy was really Trayvon Martin’s fault – at the same time making racial innuendoes that President Obama was the other culprit.
This was bold-faced race politics. The president gave the signal. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton two men I hold in very high regard. But when they stirred things up, they did it in a way that I think was way over the top. …You dress like a thug, people are going to treat you like a thug. That’s true, I stand by that even in my own family. …That’s the reality. You don’t send your kids into the rainy night and then have them walk in back alleys in troubled neighborhoods and expect that a good result.
Well, Geraldo, you don't go around blaming the dead, unarmed teen shooting victim for his own death and expect a good result, either. That is, unless your idea of a good result are props from the higher ups at Fox News.
Meanwhile, co-host Tucker Carlson used the moment to take some racial swipes at Jackson and Sharpton: "They are hustlers and pimps who make a living off inflaming racial tensions… The only reason they are allowed to do this is because we in the press enable them by calling them civil rights leaders."
Yeah, that’s enhancing race relations just the way Rivera claims to want to promote.
Video below via Media Matters.