When protests erupted in St. Louis over a judge's acquittal of white police officer Jason Stockley in the shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith, Fox called on Dana Loesch to scold, lecture and whitesplain – with a rather obvious racial tinge.
Fox’s excuse for turning to Loesch was the fact that she is from St. Louis, though she said she no longer lives in the city. But surely Fox knew that she would be inflammatory over a situation that was already inflamed.
When we last saw Loesch, she was baselessly fear mongering that Hurricane Irma survivors in the U.S. Virgin Islands might not have guns to protect themselves from looters. Last night, I all but expected Loesch, an NRA spokeswoman, to announce that Blacks Behaving Badly in St. Louis was another reason everyone should be armed.
First, Loesch and Kilmeade whitesplained the facts of the Stockley case
I don’t know enough about the Stockley case to have an informed opinion as to whether Stockley should have been convicted. But Loesch’s recap of the events leading up to Smith’s death left out a lot of damning evidence against Stockley. For example, the fact that he said to his partner just before killing Smith, “We’re killing this motherfucker, don’t you know.”
Loesch acknowledged “two really good questions” about Stockley’s behavior. One of them was his murderous comment. But rather than tell Fox viewers what that was, she described it as “what he said in the car.”
Substitute host Brian Kilmeade did not elucidate.
But Loesch was very explicit with her dos and don’ts for the black community.
LOESCH: You don’t run down police officers. You don’t sit in the parking lot of a restaurant and deal dope.
Another question about Stockley was whether he had planted a gun on Smith. Slate explains:
The evidence for this is that [Stockley’s] DNA was found on the gun while Smith’s was not, he can be seen rifling through a bag in his police vehicle after the shooting, and he was seen returning to search Smith’s car before the gun appeared to him.
Again, Kilmeade and Loesch mostly ignored these points (though Loesch did say the gun was the other “question” about the verdict). Yet Kilmeade took time to argue that it was “logical” and totally not racist to assume a gun found in Smith’s car was his.
KILMEADE: It’s logical for a guy with heroine who dealt heroine to have a gun. It would be unusual for them not to have a gun and then they cried that’s race related. That’s a racial conclusion. Which I don’t see that being race related.
After re-acquitting Stockley, Kilmeade prodded Loesch to go after the protesters
Even if the acquittal was justified, Loesch’s racially tinged rant, incited by Kilmeade, was not.
It started with Kilmeade suggesting "the worst is yet to come" from the protesters and that the damage and violence could be worse than in nearby Ferguson, after another white police officer was not charged with the shooting death of unarmed black teen, Michael Brown.
Loesch took that opening and ran with it:
LOESCH: It could very well happen.
[…]
If all of these individuals want to claim that there’s something wrong with the system, why don’t they vote? Why was voter turnout so bad in St. Louis? Half the people aren’t even aware of the judges. … Nobody was even aware you can vote for or against these individuals. So don’t claim that there’s something wrong with the system when your lack of a vote shapes that system. You are part of that system. You have to participate in your community. That’s a huge problem here.
I hope there’s peace tomorrow. I hope that people can solve this civilly. I pray for my city.
[…]
Look, sometimes the verdicts don’t go your way. Sometimes people – if you want to talk about justice, let’s talk about the justice of somebody who has been a drug dealer and a prohibited possessor. Don’t run down cops and you don’t have people who lose their lives, period.
[...]
I live blocks from the arch, Brian. I had a drug den open just blocks from me. I had one that opened up at the end of my street before I left the city of St. Louis. You know what the problem in St. Louis is? The problem isn’t racial disparity. The problem is a political party that has ran this city into a hole in the ground, Brian. That’s the problem with St. Louis. The problem is the opportunity that was swindled from St. Louis city residents by these Democrat party leaders, by race baiters, by these hustlers who are bused in from out of town – and look what they do to my city, our city! My hometown. I’m proud of being from St. Louis. It breaks my heart to see this happen. It infuriates me. It needs to stop. They gotta come together and talk.
I’m all for coming together and talking but painting one side as out-of-control ignoramuses is not likely to do anything for that cause. And since Loesch is demanding the protesters do something to change the system, I’d love to know what she’s doing to make things better.
By the way, Fox loved her rant so much, they had Loesch back for another round on the Hannity show.
Watch the whitesplaining below, from the September 15, 2017 Tucker Carlson Tonight.