Memo to Fox News: While your outreach to African Americans on the issues surrounding the Trayvon Martin case is laudable in principle, you might want to avoid insulting them at the same time. Last night, you presented a debate about racial profiling in the Trayvon Martin verdict on the Hannity show. It was "fair and balanced" Fox-News style with the white host ganging up with the white, Republican Congressman Steve King against the African American Congressman Bobby Rush. And even if Rush were not a venerable member of the Civil Rights Movement and the Congressional Black Caucus, the sneering and jeering gave the impression of a certain - well, hostility to his perspective.

The sneering began early, as soon as Rush argued, essentially, that common sense and the experiences of many other African Americans indicated that Martin had been racially profiled. But Hannity dismissed that with the following "fair and balanced" question to King:"There was no evidence of racial profiling. As a matter of fact, the FBI looked into it for 16 months. Even the attorney for Trayvon Martin and the family said this case was not about race." OK, fair enough, sort of. But then, instead of asking for a response, Hannity hinted at the delegitimization of Rush's position by "asking" King, "So what do you make of Congressional action on this?"

Sure enough, King took the hint:

Well, I think there's been a lot that's been ginned up here, that's been focused on race. And they held a faux hearing that focused on race back about a year ago, I would guess, trying to gin up prosecution on this. I point out that I know of no federal law against profiling. It needs to be a component of good police work. But the argument has been constantly to try to find a little thread of whatever George Zimmerman might have said or thought in his life that could be used against him in this prosecution. We can't be punishing what goes on in somebody's head.

By the way, there's plenty more than "a little thread" to suggest that Zimmerman was a racist. For starter's there's his old My Space page which reveals violent tendencies in addition to bigotry. And there are the race-baiting tweets of his brother, Robert, who acts as a spokesman for the family. But King's comments about "ginned up" racial concerns, his defense of profiling and calling Zimmerman's questionable racial behavior "a little thread" went completely unchallenged.

Hannity's condescending tone when speaking to Rush spoke volumes as well. Hannity interrupted Rush's response to King by saying, "You keep kind of glossing over (Martin's supposedly unprovoked attack on Zimmerman). Why? Why do you gloss over that?" Again, Hannity could have left it at a comeback regarding Martin's attack. But asking "why?" twice not only delegitimizes Rush's view of the case but his views on the racial aspects in particular.

Sadly, it went downhill from there. Even though Hannity had interrupted Rush earlier to say that "We gotta be accurate, we're giving out the facts of the case," he now disingenuously argued that Martin had been beating "the daylights" out of Zimmerman. This, despite the fact that Hannity's own racist pal and fave Zimmerman-trial analyst, Mark Fuhrman, said otherwise.

Later, Hannity and King all but laughed at Rush in their efforts to dismiss his comments as silly, unfounded and not worth taking seriously.

Just in case that didn't get the hostility across, there was a large graphic on the screen as Rush spoke, saying, "POLITICIZING TRAGEDY?" Just asking? Yeah, right.

This was an appalling display of antagonistic closed-mindedness toward mainstream African American perspectives. In case you don't know, this is far from an anomaly from Hannity. If he and Fox News think this was a genuine nod to inclusiveness, they might want to think again.