Fox News Watch is a Fox “News” program that looks at how the media treats certain stories. Oddly enough, it rarely looks at how stories are covered on Fox, which is where NewsHounds comes in. This week Jon Scott waded into the Trayvon Martin killing and came up stupid…twice. Which only proves that Fox “News” has never met a false equivalency it didn’t like. [See: Rush Limbaugh/Bill Maher, et al]
As we all know by now, Spike Lee foolishly tweeted out the address to what he thought was George Zimmerman’s house. While that was unforgivable enough, it turns out Lee had the wrong address besides, which forced an elderly Florida couple to take refuge in a hotel out of concerns for their safety. About this, Scott said:
“In that way, isn’t he [Lee] inciting the same kind of violence that killed Emmett Till decades ago?”
The “same kind of violence?” One only need to read the details of Till’s murder to know that that kind of violence was reserved for Black people. Till was kidnapped in the dead of night and murdered because he allegedly said something out-of-turn to a White woman. The murder of Emmett Till in 1955 was a watershed moment for the Black community in both the south and in the north. Many credit the public outrage following Till’s open casket funeral in Chicago, and the acquittal of his murderers, with creating the unstoppable groundswell that eventually led to the modern Civil Rights Movement. What makes Scott’s question even more outrageous is that when news of Trayvon Martin’s killing started to spread, many in the Black community had already begun to refer to Trayvon Martin as a Modern Day Emmitt Till. What makes Jon Scott think the Spike Lee idiocy is in any way comparable to the murder of 14-year old Emmett Till? The only similarity is that in each a Black boy was killed. Is it impossible for Scott to see past that one interrelated fact in his attempt to muddy the waters?
COMMENT: Many people in the Black community TO THIS DAY teach their children the lessons of Emmett Till. I wouldn’t be surprised if 57 years from now people talk about the Trayvon Martin killing as being a watershed moment in ‘Merkin race relations in this century. I predict the names Emmitt Till and Trayvon Martin will be forever linked.
Another set of bad actors in this tragedy is the New Black Panther Party, which put a “Dead or Alive” bounty on the head of George Zimmerman, like we’re still living in the Wild West. Jon Scott asks, “Should there be the same level of media outrage as there was to the shooting of Trayvon Martin?”
To her credit, Kirstin Powers told Scott exactly why this was a ridiculous question:
“No. I would not say there should be the same level of outrage. First of all the New Black Panthers hardly even exist; I think they have 4 members…maybe. They’ve been condemned by the actual Black Panthers. So, you know, I don’t wanna overstate what they’ve done, but obviously it’s terrible to do that and I think that people—anybody who is trying to incite racial, yannow, uh, problems or racial hatred should be called to account, but I would not compare it to someone else being killed.”
However, to her detriment Powers continues to appear on Fox “News,” even sitting right across the table from Jon Scott, who asked these ridiculous race-baiting, false equivalency questions. Would they qualify as “trying to incite racial problems,” Kirsten?
Videos courtesy of Media Matters below the jump.
(3/29/20 Update: videos are no longer available)
When the 1st police video 1st came out, and people were arguing about the fact that there was no wound visible, I said (at the local coffee shop; you’ll have to trust me on that) that it was meaningless because I worked with video long enough to know that you don’t always see everything. I argued there could be something we didn’t see.
Now that there’s this apparent enhancement which appears to show a wound, I suggest even greater caution.
Arguing evidence should be done in court where it can be adjudicated and deemed admissible. This is rank gossip, which ’Merka loves, of course.
From the beginning I thought all the speculation on both sides was bad for the legal process, however that will eventually shake down. This whole thing may become too tainted for any justice to prevail for either Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman.
With all my love,
Aunty Em
But Fox News doesn’t know what they’re talking about, as usual… they just see a hate crime and want to make it worse. If it wasn’t Martin, it’d be Dedmon. If it wasn’t Dedmon, it’d be Alawardi. If it wasn’t Alawardi, it’d be those neo-nazi nuts in Phoenix.
They don’t care- if they were around during the civil war, they’d be trying to convince us that union soldiers put in Andersonville had it coming.
There is no comparison between Spike Lee’s tweets and what happened to that innocent black child. It’s an insult to his memory that this was said.
