O’Reilly Instructs An NAACP Director And African-Americans “To Distance Themselves From Black Lives Matter”
Bill O’Reilly: “White Americans Despise” Black Lives Matter And “If Black Americans Don’t Understand That, We’re Just Going To Grow Further Apart”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From the July 8 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
BILL O'REILLY (HOST): So, you know what I think? I think that if you really want, if African-Americans really want to bring the country together and have good racial relations, they have to distance themselves from Black Lives Matter. Am I wrong?
HILARY SHELTON: No, I disagree with you. But let me first offer our thoughts, our prayers, and our condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in Dallas. It was an awful tragedy. It should not have happened. We are all very saddened by it. We have to get to the bottom of that issue as well. The reason I disagree with you is I believe in my conversations with leaders of Black Lives Matter, and even my participation in a demonstration in which we marched from the capitol building here in Washington, D.C., to the front of the White House in a very peaceful demonstration with a number of members of Congress. In much the same way those marched in Dallas, Texas, we saw things very differently. We have to take on those issues in a very significant way. Let us not forget two things, Bill. Number one is that those marches were for good reasons. Indeed, if we look at the disparities and the attacks of African-Americans and the killings of African-Americans by police officers, even unarmed African-Americans, the numbers and the data is important as well. I heard you share a number of very helpful anecdotes, and anecdotes help make the story human. But the breadth and depth of the problem are very well rooted in data, and we look at the data, we see that twice as many African-Americans and unarmed African-Americans are shot by police officers than white Americans in our society. That raises a problem. When we look at the images of those videos that we saw and we see an African-American, though each of them had a gun, neither of them were reaching for the gun and in both cases those guns were quite legal. But I think we're all outraged to see the video on the wall and see what we saw on our television screens.
[...]
O'REILLY: Let's get back to trying to bring the country together. I will submit to you tonight, and there are millions of people watching us right now, that there are very few white Americans who respect Black Lives Matter just because of what they did last night in Oakland. Just because of what they're during right now in front of the White House. There's not one sign up there saying, you know, the Dallas police officers, that shouldn't happen. We're protesting that too. And so white Americans despise this crew. And if black Americans don't understand that, we're just going to grow further apart.
SHELTON: Well first I think you have to look at what's in front of you. If you look at the film clips that you've even shown, what you see is that those Black Lives Matter marches are extremely well integrated. They're well integrated --
O'REILLY: Oh come on. Mr. Shelton, you know who's driving the violence there. You know who it is.
SHELTON: With African-Americans and Latinos. There are plenty of white Americans. Look at the video footage. Watch it. Look at the video footage. It's not the case. When I was at the White House, there was not one incident of violence going on. People were there because they were equally outraged. This is a human, American issue.
Previously: