During
yesterday’s segment of The O’Reilly
Factor Bill O’Reilly laid down the gauntlet. He’s calling out the “Christmas
haters,” the all-purpose haters, and the race baiters. O’Reilly expressed
strong concern about what he sees as a dangerous trend of the “secular progressive
media”—the propensity to stifle those with differing points of view by calling
them names like “homophobe,” “racist,” and so forth. “What ever happened to
good old-fashioned, honest debate?” O’Reilly seemed to be asking.
I'd written earlier about how O’Reilly took
some heat for his statements about the recent Presidential election and how annoyed
he was about that. But that was nothing compared to last night, ‘cause last
night O’Reilly got to talking about Jason Whitlock, with whom he is not happy
at all.
Remember
those comments Whitlock made about the “gun culture” being a factor in the Jovan Belcher Perkins
tragedy?
Well, those weren’t Whitlock’s last words on the subject. Later, in an interview
with Roland Martin, Whitlock stated that "The NRA is the new
KKK."
Clearly the statement has racial overtones, and O’Reilly wanted to talk to
Whitlock about that, so he invited him to the show… and was rejected, big time.
Whitlock wrote in his column “It appears I was
summoned to testify before Speaker of The Big House Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News
entertainer… [but] I’m a grown-ass man and it’s 2012. I don’t have to shuffle
off to the Big House when summoned. O’Reilly is not Boehner, Pelosi or Obama.
He’s a TV entertainer who has spent the weeks after the election crying about
the end of ‘white establishment’ America, the end of the days when an
upstanding white man felt entitled to summon whomever he wanted whenever he
wanted to the Big House to dance. I don’t dance.” Uh oh. You really have to hear
O’Reilly read the statement aloud to appreciate his ire.
Nope, Whitlock doesn't do this. |
O’Reilly
denounced Whitlock’s statement as “pure racism, nothing else, with
Whitlock implying that I’m some kind of slave overlord.”
O’Reilly
went on to call barbs such as this “poisonous stuff” and said that “the Jason
Whitlocks” of the world are “liars” who “abuse freedom of speech.” He encouraged
Americans to declare that enough is enough.
Whitlock’s
statement seemed a bit over the top to me, but then again, I’m not a black man.
Sometimes I can’t help thinking that the entire world hates black men, and that
must feel pretty crummy. Wanna plan the perfect murder? Tell the authorities
two black guys broke into your house. That ought to keep them chasing their
tails for a bit. Group of black guys walking down the street? Uh, I think I’ll
cross over. Black man in your elevator?—wait! I have a story about that.
A
friend of mine, an older white woman who loves to travel and has lived in
several states as well as oversees, told me that when she moved to
Philadelphia, she was absolutely shocked at some of the openly racist comments
she was privy to. She gave me an example. While viewing an expensive condominium
she was considering for purchase, my friend was told by the condo representative, after a black man who’d
entered an elevator with them had stepped out, “Don’t worry. He doesn’t live
here.”
So,
I think about stories like these, and I say to myself, if Whitlock’s sense of
manhood was insulted by O’Reilly, I’m inclined to give Whitlock a break. I know
it’s not fair. I know it’s not right. I know O’Reilly would think my position
is bunk, and Whitlock’s comments are nothing more than a liberal tactic to gain
control of the debate. He may be right. But the racial divide in this country
is getting wider every day, and I can’t tell anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment