As the news network for white identity, Fox News has no qualms about reinforcing their audience's fear and loathing of blacks who, don't ya know, are the real perpetrators of hate crimes. And now that the racist right is claiming that Black Lives Matter "thugs" are responsible for a hate crime, Fox News is on like white on, well, Fox News.

Fox's pandering to the white supremacist meme that the real crime problem is black-on-white is nothing new. In 2013, Greg Gutfeld and his pals on The Five ascribed black racism to an incident in which drugs, not race, were a factor. One month later, Gutfeld blamed "corrosive black culture" for the death of a white man at the hands of a multi-racial group of teens - a death which The Five defined as a "hate crime." White privilege poster boy, Tucker Carlson actually asserted that black on white crime is considered, by the black community, to be "fashionable." Not surprisingly, Fox's resident racist and homophobic Todd Starnes has peddled the black thugs are out to kill us all meme. Part of Fox's coverage of these "hate crimes" is that the mainstream media is ignores it.

So it comes as no surprise that Fox, sourcing from Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller, would report the claims of a former Marine, Christopher Marquez, who alleges that he was assaulted by black youths who asked him if he believes that black lives matter. This question has now been twisted, by various right wing websites, into the declaration, as fact, that he was "mugged by Black Lives Matter group." However, according to the Washington Post, "police could not verify the motive as described by Marquez and said they are continuing to look into the case."

While the police have not mentioned anything about a "hate crime," Marquez told the Daily Caller that he believes that "this was a hate crime and I was targeted because of my skin color." And coincidentally (?) Marquez added something that could have been scripted by Fox: "Too many of these types of attacks have been happening against white people by members of the black community and the majority of the main stream media refuses to report on it." (One assumes that if Marquez is Hispanic, he's really one of those brown folks so reviled by the white, right wing but whatever...)

In addition to its placement as a second tier lede, Fox & Friends featured the story as part of their headline news which began with the breathless commentary: "A decorated marine, bullied, attacked, and robbed." The newsreader, Abby Huntsman, reported that this decorated veteran claims that he was "attacked by five people who asked him about the Black Lives Matter movement." She continued with his account which was heavy on the Black Lives Matter connection. After a clip of Marquez telling part of his story, she noted that an iconic photo of his heroism in Iraq was responsible for a famous "no man left behind" statue.

Obviously, this assault cannot be condoned. But what diminishes it is that Marquez appears to be using it to promote a racist narrative identical to that advanced on Fox News - and in so doing get himself some free publicity on Fox News which, when it comes to Black Lives Matter, is hardly "fair & balanced."