When you confront a racial-denialist with facts, with truth, they blow their lid. Usually. Just like Bill O'Reilly does here when Kirsten Powers dares to suggest that yes, there are a lot of racists in America.
I find this fight a fascinating case study in well practiced denialism and straw-man building.
“I have to wonder why you can’t see what’s happening, because most Americans are not racist,” the Factor host told her. “They’re not.”
“So how many black friends do you have?” Powers asked. “How many black friends do you have?”
O’Reilly’s hand could be heard slapping the desk before he said, “If you think most Americans are racist, I’m ashamed of you. I’m ashamed of you.”
“I’m asking you a serious question,” Powers said. “I didn’t say most Americans were racist.”
“You just said it,” he shot back.
But what Powers actually told him was, “There are actually a lot of people in this country who are racist.” Both O’Reilly and fellow panelist Monica Crowley of the Washington Times argued that racism had been limited to the “lunatic fringe” of the country.
What we see here is a classic over-reaction. Powers says "a lot", and O'Reilly immediately escalates her comment to "Most" and then attacks what she didn't actually say. He does this repeatedly, but really it's what his other guest Monica Crowley says that's truly shocking and lays out the boiler-plate of how Conservatives will do anything to sweep Racism under the rug, not just from the fringe but from pretty much
anyone and then turn around and accuse the left of Hating America both for daring to point it out or attempting to fix the problem.
See, here in 'Merica - We don't. need. no. stinking. racial. fixes!
Continued over the flip.
First there's O'Reilly's ridiculous insulting straw man argument.
O'Reilly: What it's being sold is that we are as a society are Racist, White Supremacy, White Privilege, if you don't get it then you must be living in a hut somewhere with no electricity.
...
I'm saying that the world is being told by anti-American Haters that we are a rank racist society and that is a lie.
And then Crowley comes in and elaborates on that straw man.
Crowley: Are there individual racists in this country? Sadly, yes. Does institutional racism exist anymore? No, it does not. We've got to understand that when we talk about racists, or racism in America, it is not created by government law, or codified law or social acceptance, ok. But you have people on the far left who believe that America is a nation that was founded on genocide, theft, crimes and lies.
O'Reilly: Slavery
Crowley: Yes, and therefore we are undeserving and unworthy of our power. That's why they constantly seek to degrade America, to take us down in terms of our power, our influence and our status here at home and in the world. They want America taken down. The trouble is that we have enough enemies on the outside, like I.S.I.S. and Russia trying to do it from the outside, these are people on the inside that hate this country so much... they're trying to take us down from within.
That,
that right there is the soundbite that explains the conservative reaction to racism.
"They. Hate. America."
Here's another example of the evil lefty super straw man argument this time from Bill Krystal.
On the MSNBC show, as well as in several tweets the day before, the consistently wrong Kristol accused "the left" of trying to tear down Confederate statues and ban the teaching of speeches by Abraham Lincoln after retailers like Amazon and eBay announced they were pulling Confederate memorabilia.
"Nobody is talking about any of those things," Heilemann shot back. "Literally, I know of no one. This is the classic exercise of straw man building and knocking down.
And then you have this pro-Confederate guy on CNN claiming that taking down the flag from this one spot on the Capitol grounds, just that, is
Cultural Genocide
The flag is where it is as a memorial site,” Hines countered. “The entire site around the flagpole, with the flag is a memorial to, for instance, my ancestors. I had five South Carolina ancestors, then one from North Carolina, who fought in the Civil War.”
...
“What I don’t understand is why the state senator is moving to do cultural genocide on the southern men and women,” Hines said, as Lemon reacted in shock. “ I don’t get that. Maybe he’s not from the South – I don’t really know him.”
All of this why, in the neo-Conservative mind, people who talk about genocide of the Native Americans and the
trail of tears - must Hate America. ["I mean, other countries must have done stuff that heinous too, somewhere, maybe you should go whine about the Khmer Ruge, why ya gotta hate on us? What have we
done to ya, lately?"]
That's why they talk about the Tuskegee Experiments - they Hate America.
That's why they talk about the government sponsoring of Red-Lining, of discriminatory loan practices such as the Pigford Case, of bigoted housing loans which led to minority applications being funneled into hand-grenade sub-prime mortgages, of tax polices that punish the poor and cut their public services they depend on while their blocked from access to educational and job opportunities would allow them to better fend of themselves, and why they talk about systemic police bias in case after case after case.
They Hate America.
Because none of that is institutionalized racism. Nooo....
We only have singular individual racists here and there, just a few, barely a smidge, nothing to write home about - even if Fox News can't seem to find and recognize a single Donald Sterling, a Cliven Bundy, a Ted Nugent, a Phil Roberson, a Dr. Laura, a Paula Deen, a former Tea Party Leader Mark Williams, an Andrew Breitbart who wrongly painted Shirly Sharrod as being anti-White, a James O'Keefe who was doing a minstrel show in his Pimp Suit, an attempted mass murdered like James Von Brunn, an actual mass murdering racial terrorist like Dylann Roof, or the man who wrote the bigoted screeds that inspired Roof who claims he "can't be Racist because he listens to B.B. King and Slash and one other guy...", they can't recognize any of these guys as even being Racist even with a manifesto, a gps, a guide dog and divining rod pointing it out!
So naturally they don't see institutional racism in our schools, or in the way our police do their jobs even when it's just seems so obvious if you compared how they handled the calm serene arrest of Dylann Roof vs how they handled a "violent" teenage pool party. which broke out during the the attack by a pack of bigoted middle-aged white people.
Because anyone who points to any of these things as being just possibly "Racist" doesn't want us all to move forward and fix these problems - they just plain Hate America.
Yeah, that's the ticket. It's just a pack of #Haterz, so there's just nothing that can be do, nothing that can be changed, nothing that can be improved, nothing at all - because America is just perfect, and fine, flossy, just how it is.
So give up. Surrender. We Can't help it.
Fringerz are gonna Fringe and H8terz are just gonna Hate, am I right?
And the President said the "N-word" in the midst of making a profound and salient point about the lack of actual importance of the N-word in and of itself, so whose the "Racist" now, eh? Har-de-har har.
Then again there is that thing about how if you don't admit your mistakes, if you don't take steps to correct them, to avoid them, you're bound to Repeat Them - but obviously that's a lefty idea, like "Learning" and stuff.
Vyan
Thu Jun 25, 2015 at 9:54 PM PT: The original video is down, so I'm including this clip from Young Turks which talks about it and includes most of it.