Didn’t you just know that Fox News would turn Beyoncé’s Super Bowl Performance into another in its Blacks Behaving Badly series? The only real question is whether they’ll figure out a way to blame President Obama.
The Fox & Friends show trotted out #BlackLivesMatter-hating Rudy Giuliani to lecture us with dos and don’ts for African Americans. It was a “fair and balanced” Fox News discussion from one (white) perspective, only.
Cohost Brian Kilmeade sneered, “I couldn’t really make out what Beyoncé was saying, but in the end, we find out Beyoncé dressed up in a tribute to the Black Panthers, went to a Malcolm X formation. And the song, the lyrics, which I couldn’t make out a syllable, were basically telling cops to stop shooting blacks!”
As if telling cops to stop shooting blacks is contemptible.
Cohost Anna Kooiman played a brief clip of the performance before adding, with obvious disapproval, “Beyoncé got a police escort there and then she gives a salute to the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Kooiman added, “DeRay Mckesson tweeted out, ‘#Formation shout-outs to Malcolm X & MJ were excellent.’ It was a nod to 1966 founding of the Black Panther Party.” Then, having set the “black radical” meme, Kooiman asked Giuliani, “What did you think of that?”
Giuliani all but yelled that Beyoncé and her “kind” should stay off the Super Bowl lawn.
GIULIANI: I think it was outrageous. The halftime show, I thought it was ridiculous anyway. I don’t know what the heck it was. A bunch of people, like, bouncing around and all strange things. It was terrible.
…This is football, not Hollywood, and I thought it was really outrageous that she used it as a platform to attack police officers who are the people who protect her and protect us, and keep us alive. And what we should be doing in the African-American community, and all communities, is build up respect for police officers. And focus on the fact that when something does go wrong, okay. We’ll work on that. But the vast majority of police officers risk their lives to keep us safe.
Kilmeade bashed the NFL for hosting Beyoncé in the first place. “Didn’t they go and review this and say, 'Wait a second, why are you…?'”
Giuliani interrupted.
GIULIANI: Can’t you figure out who you’re putting on? I mean, this is a political position, she’s probably going to take advantage of it. You’re talking to middle America when you have the Super Bowl, so you can have entertainment. Let’s have, you know, decent wholesome entertainment, and not use it as a platform to attack the people who, you know, put their lives at risk to save us.
As Media Matters pointed out, this was only one part of a right-wing media onslaught against Beyoncé that also included Fox Business Network's Stuart Varney and FNC's Heather Nauert. There's every reason to expect more to come.
Watch Fox & Friends make Beyoncé the villainess of the day, below, from the February 8 show, via Raw Story.