FOX News Racism
Reported by Ellen - September 20, 2005
I don't like to play the race card but there's just no other word for it once you consider which Katrina stories have been covered and which ones have not on Hannity & Colmes.
Consider, for example, the segment about Louis Farrakhan's charge that the New Orleans levee may have been blown up purposely to destroy the black part of town. Both Hannity and Colmes made no secret of their disdain for guest Nashim Nzinga, from the New Black Panther Party, who supported Mr. Farrakhan's assertion. What was the point of this segment if not to marginalize African-American beliefs about the role of race in the hurricane tragedy? As the previous link shows, the majority of African-Americans believe that race played a role in the disaster response. The issue deserves a fair, serious airing on Hannity & Colmes, as well as elsewhere. Yet, I have seen only one mainstream African-American on H&C discuss that issue from the perspective of the majority of black Americans. But Hannity never let him speak without interruption.
Similarly, what was the point of the discussion about some hurricane victims using their FEMA debit cards to go to strip clubs and purchase Louis Vuitton bags? We never learned how many people have done it but I suspect that even one person mis-spending relief funds is enough to give Hannity nightmares about welfare queens living high on the hog at his expense. Guest Neal Boortz was on hand to compound the worries by adding, with a snicker, that people were also using the money for "emergency lap dances" and "emergency breast implants... But, Sean, you're not surprised by this misuse of these funds, are you?" I am nearly positive I heard Hannity say, "No."
Boortz when on to complain that the City of New Orelans (whose black mayor) wasted FEMA money, too. "We need to know that that that money we donated and that money that's taken from us in taxes is not being used for fake breasts, lap dances, beer, and Louis Vuitton luggage and all manner of things like this... I just want some accountability out of FEMA."
While Boortz and Hannity were worrying about hurricane victims (read black people) mis-spending their money (and, by the way, were there any legal restrictions about how the money was to be spent?), there was absolutely no mention of the rampant cronyism in FEMA that has Bush pals profiting by way more than the cost of a lap dance or a designer bag. Nor have I ever seen any mention on H&C of the missing $1 billion in Iraq, which Truthout calls "The Largest Theft In History."
Are misspent funds only a worry when it's African-Americans doing the squandering? It appears that way.
The next story, was about the latest missing white girl, Taylor Behl. As we have repeatedly noted on this blog, African-Americans are more at risk for disappearing but they are rarely, if ever discussed on H&C. But the focus on missing white girl stories are especially telling now when, as CNN reports, there are still about 2,000 children missing or cut off from their parents as the result of Hurricane Katrina. CNN is working with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to help reunite families. Couldn't FOX News devote some of its time to these missing children, also?
Since Katrina first struck, I have posted about racial insensitivity in the H&C coverage. See, for example:
9/13/05 Hannity Squelches African-American Perspective,
9/1/05 Heartless, Elitist, Racially Insensitive Hurricane Coverage Continues on Hannity & Colmes,
8/31/05 Racial Insensitivity on Hannity & Colmes
As Bush's poll numbers sink ever lower in the wake of Katrina, Sean Hannity's and FOX News' ever more desperate attempts to find a scapegoat is ever more disgraceful.
