In playing to the fears of its racist audience, one of Fox's favorite memes is the angry black man. Sunday, Fox upped the ante in reporting on Saturday's really scary 20th anniversary "Million Man March"[read black] Washington rally. Not only did they portray the participants as America haters - but they invoked the message of MLK to validate it!
After a brief report on the rally, Brian Kilmeade introduced Alveda King. As they always do on Fox, he used the honorific, "doctor" before her name (it's an honorary doctorate, from a Christian college, just like Sean Hannity's!) and referenced her relationship to MLK. King said that the march "was a wake up call to me and America, the greatest nation in the world." She acknowledged that "we do have some problems" and that "we can fix what's broken."
When she said that we shouldn't tear down America, Steve Doocy started the attack by alluding to a rally speaker who insulted America. The accompanying banner,"Hateful Rhetoric, Chants of Down USA at Rally," made sure that the audience knew that nasty black people said nasty things at their nasty rally.
Just in case you didn't know about all that black nastiness, Doocy referenced a speaker who used the term "blue, klux, klan." (Nation of Islam speaker who used the term to describe police) King praised police but did acknowledge that they "need sensitivity training." As she spoke, the banner reinforced the fear of black men meme: "Million Man March, Anti-American Rants at 20th anniversary rally."
In setting the stage for the perfunctory white-splaining of the MLK legacy, Kimberly Guilfoyle asked King what her uncle would think about Sunday's march and "some of the vitriol that we're hearing being spewed against the police and against this country." Once again, not a real doctor Alveda King began the whitewash with her now standard Fox comment that MLK said that "we should all learn to live together..." which, ironically, is from MLK's Oberlin speech, "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution," in which MLK talked about the need to abolish segregation and embrace the global community.
Fox & Friends ran another segment about the rally which was just as derogatory. Video of 2008 Fox fave (being facetious here) Rev. Jeremiah Wright, speaking about colonialism, was shown. The friends noted that the original Million Man march had "a different tone" in that it was about civil rights as opposed to Saturday's rally which, according to the pals, was about hating on the police who were described (by one speaker out of many) as the blue, Klux Klan.
Anna Kooiman opined that the rally was "hijacked by hate speech" and that "the problem with it is that it's silencing the grievances that this crowd need to be heard." (As if Fox & Friends cares?) The banner: " 'Million Man' Message, Extreme Rhetoric Blunts Pleas for Justice."
Funny, when the Tea Party "patriots" carried signs that showed Pres. Obama as Hitler and an African "witch doctor," Fox & Friends didn't seem to be concerned about hate speech getting in the way of the message. During the last government shutdown, the chums weren't upset when a guy held a Confederate flag in front of the fence that surrounds the home of the nation's first African-American president.
But when a few unfortunate things are said at an otherwise uneventful rally for minorities, the reaction is, uh, quite different. Go figure!