Tom Brokaw has gotten a lot of criticism for saying that Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. But to Fox News’ Brit Hume, Brokaw is the victim.
Brokaw apologized for his comments, made yesterday on Meet The Press, last night on Twitter:
my twitter acct failed me at the worst time.
— Tom Brokaw (@tombrokaw) January 28, 2019
i am sorry, truly sorry, my comments were offensive to
many. the great enduring american tradition of diversity is to be celebrated and cherished. yamiche, thank u for your comments.
let’s go forward together.
NBC News aired a report showing that Brokaw was misinformed (video below). But for some reason, the incident got under Brit Hume’s skin – not because he was offended by Brokaw but on behalf of oppressed white people.
Hume had tweeted his racial resentment on Twitter this morning:
Sorry to see @tombrokaw catching hell for saying Hispanics need to do a better job of assimilating. This proves that any criticism of any non-white ethnic group is automatically considered racist and shows how the national consensus against racism has been weaponized.
— Brit Hume (@brithume) January 28, 2019
So Special Report anchor Bret Baier surely knew he was getting when he played the clip of Brokaw for Hume’s response.
HUME: Tom Brokaw is no racist. And what he said, if you think about it, is immigrant-friendly. That is to say he wants to see the immigrants who come into this country become a part of our country, to assimilate into it, to learn the predominant language in America. That’s not a negative wish and it is not racist.
Racism implies, in all definitions, the belief in the superiority of one race over another. It doesn’t have to do with learning a language and it doesn’t have to do really with anything that he said.
Well, besides being ignorant and condescending, Brokaw's remark did smack of bigotry. The fact that Hume missed that speaks volumes. But then Hume let fly his white grievance.
HUME: He was unfairly accused and, but it’s an example, Bret, of the way the word “racist” has been flung around with such abandon. You know, there’s a national consensus in this country against racism. It’s one of the worst things you can say about anybody and my concern is that the term has now become weaponized and is widely used, even in instances where it clearly, in my view, does not apply.
In the next hour, Geraldo Rivera called Brokaw’s comments “shockingly uninformed” but also said he didn’t think Brokaw made the remarks with malice. Host Martha MacCallum, however, complained that unfairly calling Brokaw a racist is “where the discussion instantly goes.”
On Fox News, the only real issue with racism is when it’s against white people and, sometimes, black conservatives.
Watch Hume’s racial grievance below, from the January 28, 2019 Special Report. The part about Brokaw begins at about 2:23.