Fox is doing its best to ensure that the mass shooting by a white guy in a historic black church in Charleston, SC is not considered racial. To that end, they called on conservative Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, to help promote that theory.
Of course, nobody mentioned that the Glenn Beck-loving Alveda King is out of step with the rest of the MLK family. Instead, Fox & Friends exploited King's family history to help their pro-white agenda.
Right off the bat, cohost Steve Doocy let King know why she was there and what they wanted her to say: “You reminded us that you are familiar with church shootings and it wasn’t a hate crime in what we think of it this, these days as,” he prompted.
King, a Fox News contributor, promptly complied.
KING: Let’s define hate. Hate does not have a color. It could be a white killing black people, it could be blacks killing whites, it could be whites killing each other, blacks killing each other. So this is not just a racial hate crime.
…Race can be behind it. I’m not gonna deny that, but the man who shot my grandmother and killed her in 1974 – in Ebenezer Baptist Church – the mother of Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down by a black man.
…So now, this disturbed young man – I understand he’s Caucasian and he shot black people and that’s not good but evil is not just limited to color.
Had the killer been a Muslim, Fox would have no such caution. In fact, they’d almost surely be complaining if anyone waited too long before calling the attack “terrorism.”
Watch the racial preference below, from today’s Fox & Friends.
Yeah, when I watched F&F this morning, it was pretty clear that they were not interested in the idea that the murders could have been about race. They seemed more interested in the idea that it really might have been about killing Christians.
In a segment with E.W. Jackson (who has said that Obama is a "radical anti-American” and “anti-Christian), the F&F producers ran a chyron that read “Attack on Faith” to reinforce the idea with the viewers. Daddy Douchey said, "Extraordinarily they called it a hate crime,” and he made a point to reiterate what Jackson said about there being a “hostility toward Christians”. When guest Rod Wheeler said that it may be a hate crime “because of where it occurred”, Kilmeade was quick to say, “ah, that’s a great point.” Hasselback even tried to tie the idea that this might be a hate crime based on “faith” when she opened her segment with a sheriff who is in some hot water because he preached from a church pulpit in his sheriff’s uniform. The 3 stooges of the curvy couch had no problem suggesting that it was a hate crime against Christianity but they really hesitated when it came to admitting that it might be because of race.
What I found to be rather telling (with regards to the murders being a racially-based hate crime) is that, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”, they were playing a video of a woman (Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of Reverend Pinckney who was murdered at the church) who spoke with 1 of the survivors. As per this survivor, the killer said, “you rape our women and you’re taking over our country.” That’s quite a chilling statement and definitely speaks to motive. I also saw stories online before and during F&F’s time on air that were repeating the killer’s quote.
So why wasn’t F&F also airing this video? If they weren’t cleared to air the NBC video, why weren’t they at the very least reading the killer’s quote to their viewers?
It will also be interesting to see if the killer is ever referred to domestic terrorist or a thug by any of the FOX “news” hosts.
Btw, Kilmeade asked, “so if you’re not safe in church, where are you safe?” Good question – I’m sure Dr. Tiller’s family and church congregation have wondered the same thing. Did you ask that same question on F&F back then, Kilmeade? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
It sure would simplify things if they would just admit there are some things that we can’t defend and just report on the facts instead of playing this game.
