As Russell Brand so wisely said, the racism on Fox News is "so outrageous, it's nearly art." But in an attempt to bring some "diversity" to its race baiting, Fox News outsources some of its race baiting to conservative African-Americans who, just like the white Fox hosts, disparage blacks and in so doing assure Fox's white racist audience that even black people are in synch with Fox's racist narratives. One of Fox's acceptable blacks is Jason Riley who is also employed by the Wall Street Journal which is, like Fox, part of the Murdoch empire. Riley's views are very conservative and, like so many on Fox, he dismisses poverty and systemic racism in order to blame blacks for the injustices and brutality perpetrated on them.  Last week, Riley appeared on Fox & Friends to discuss the Ferguson situation. He went from trashing Eric Holder, a popular Fox spectator sport, to demeaning blacks for being a bunch of murderous thugs. Steve Doocy smiled. Nuff said...

To Steve Doocy's question of why Eric Holder was going to Ferguson, Riley said that it is "purely for appearances"  Riley explained that "the Feds only get involved if there is some evidence that the local authorities can't get the job done and there is some  history of civil rights violations and neither of those have been alleged." (Fact Check- "The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 authorizes the Civil Rights Division's Special Litigation Section "to review the practices of law enforcement agencies that may be violating people's federal rights." Their investigations can include "excessive us of force" by polic.)

After Doocy said that Holder has a history of making comments about race, he played video of Holder making the accurate statement, played on The Five, that Americans are still "cowards" when it comes to race issues. Riley's response to the video: "It's not that far from what Al Sharpton is saying, going for racial solidarity instead of condemning black behavior." He accused Holder of not wanting to talk about black crime rates and cited stats which show that "blacks commit more than half of all murders." And that's when he launched his attack on his fellow black Americans while continuing to attack Holder. Despite the reality that the majority of the protestors were peaceful, the inflammatory Fox chyron told a different story: "Riots Rage On, POTUS, Poverty Part of Ongoing Challenge."

"Before we talk about how cops value black lives, America values black lives shouldn't we be talking about whether blacks in these communities perpetrating these crimes value black lives? But Eric Holder doesn't want to have that conversation, he doesn't want to talk about personal behavior he wants to talk about racism the legacy of this the legacy of that poverty...but until we address black criminality we're not having an honest conversation."

He laughed as he recommended that Holder tell the Ferguson "law breakers" to "stop breaking the law" and "not equivocate between the police behavior and the behavior of the rioters" because the police are "doing their job. He later said that "the police are doing their jobs" because "that's where emergency calls come from and the law abiding residents of these communities want them there and I want them there to protect the law abiding residents of these communities. That's where our sympathies should lie." (The law abiding residents also don't want to be targeted by cops.) As he spoke, Fox framed its racist message that all that talk about institutional racism and poor community policing is just a bunch of hooey:  "Economics Excuse, President Blames Violence on Poverty." (Actually, Ferguson's white residents cite poverty as a main driver for the discontent. And while the violence has been linked to poverty, Obama's comments have been very measured and didn't, as far as I can determine, include any mention of violence and poverty.)

While Riley was keen on using statistics to promote the popular Fox meme of blacks as violent thugs meme, he avoided mention of the relevant data about how the majority of Ferguson's residents are African-American while only 3 out of 53 cops are black. He didn't mention that the preponderance of traffic stops and searches are done to blacks. Riley avoided the real issues surrounding racial inequities in Ferguson, the militarized response to peaceful protestors, and the lack of transparency surrounding the death of Brown whose body lay on the ground for four hours after he was killed. So while he talked about having an "honest conversation," he did nothing of the sort. But he served his rightwing paymasters very, very well.

In an excellent profile of Riley, Salon's Ian Blair says this about Riley's denial of racism: "This is history. And the Jason Rileys of the world can try to ignore it all they want. But they can only obfuscate what we feel all around us, that which we cannot separate ourselves from, that which we carry with us each day." Ain't that the truth