Fox News voices push idea that systemic racism doesn't exist

As nationwide protests and civil unrest continue over issues of police brutality and the discriminatory treatment of Black Americans and other minority groups in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, many voices of Fox News have doubled down against the fundamental grievances involved.

In their telling: Systemic racism isn’t even a real thing.

On the May 29 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, frequent Fox News guest Heather Mac Donald claimed that the leaders of America’s cities “have bought into the narrative that America is fundamentally racist.”

“They are trying to emasculate the police,” she said. “The police are not systemically biased. We are seeing a revival of the dangerous narrative of the Obama years that policing is shot through with systemic injustice. As awful as this one incident was, that is simply not true, Tucker. Study after study shows that the police do not treat people differently based on their skin color.”

Actual research data shows quite the opposite of Mac Donald’s contention. Black and Hispanic people are more likely than white people to be stopped by police and be subject to physical force or the threat of force.

Video file

Citation

From the May 29, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight

In one remarkable moment, a Black commentator on Fox tried to seriously discuss and explain the issues that Black communities deal with during interactions with police — only to be shouted down by his colleague.

“Remember stop-and-frisk, and people are saying, ‘Why are you stigmatizing these young men?’” Juan Williams said on the June 1 edition of The Five. “Ninety-nine percent of them have nothing on them. But you're stopping them and everyone is — ‘you know, there's a high percentage of crime in those neighborhoods.’ Well, it's damaging to human beings who don't want to be treated as if they are criminals simply on the basis of their skin color.”

Gutfeld cut in, absurdly yelling out, “But Juan, nobody is disagreeing with you.” He continued to repeat himself loudly over Williams’ points, insisting nobody disagreed with him.

Video file

Citation

From the June 1, 2020, edition of Fox News' The Five 

Then on June 2, Carlson dismissed the legitimacy of systemic racism as a concept:

Video file

Citation

From the June 2, 2020, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight

TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): You have heard a lot recently about something called systemic racism. Almost no one ever bothers to explain precisely what systemic racism is but they make it very clear, that you are personally implicated in it. Are you? Well, here's the test. Ask yourself and be honest, have you ever mistreated somebody because of his race? If you have, you should atone for it. You ought to find the person you wronged and do your very best to make it better. But if you haven't done that, if you haven't mistreated an actual person, you should know that none of this applies to you. Being born a certain color does not make you guilty of a crime. In this country, we explicitly reject the idea of collective punishment. We don't believe in blood guilt. We don't hurt people because of what their ancestors did. We don't hold entire racial groups responsible for anything.

On the June 2 edition of The Ingraham Angle, The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro said the country was in “serious trouble” because of “one side that is driving a narrative that America is systematically racist.”

Video file

Citation

From the June 2, 2020, edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle

BEN SHAPIRO (EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE DAILY WIRE): We're in serious trouble. And the reason we're in serious trouble is not because people are protesting police brutality. We all agree, police brutality is bad. We all agree racism is bad. And we should all agree that looting and rioting is bad. The big problem here is that you have one side that is driving a narrative that America is systemically racist, evil, corrupt to its core — the 1619 Project mentality, and that has been writ large for an enormous percentage of the population.

And now it seems that if you say no — America’s actually a wonderful place. And all the flaws in our history, deep as they may be, horrible as they may be, American history is about correcting those laws and returning to a founding philosophy that we strayed from — that's where our sins lie. If you say that, then you are immediately labeled part of the problem, as opposed to part of the solution.

You cannot have a country that is a nation in any way, when people perceive it as a series of self-interested groups attacking one another. And that's exactly the sort of narrative that is being perpetuated by the media and by Democratic politicians and by celebrities — but I repeat myself three times there.

On the June 3 edition of The Five, co-host Jesse Watters responded to recent comments from former President Barack Obama, about the societal issues now at play: “But it was quite jarring to hear the black president talk about how racist the country is that elected him twice. And he was there for the last eight years, and this country is still racist — it's systematically racist. I'm not sure what that means.”

Video file

Citation

From the June 3, 2020, edition of Fox News’ The Five

Just to be clear, Obama had urged young people to “feel hopeful even as you may feel angry,” due to the “sense of urgency” that they had communicated for transformational change. This was far from the sort of condemnation of America that Watters seemed to depict.

On the June 3 edition of The Story with Martha MacCallum, Fox News contributor Bill Bennett insisted: “There is no systemic racism, there are individual racists. But this is a big lie because we refuse to talk about the things that are real like family formation, non-family formation, the fact that there is more crime in the city, the fact that there is other problems.”

Video file

Citation

From the June 3, 2020, edition of Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum

And on the June 3 edition of The Ingraham Angle, frequent Fox News guest Bernie Kerik, a former New York City Police commissioner, declared that contrary to media reports that “the community is sick and tired of police brutality,” in reality “most of those communities have phenomenal relationships with the cops … and, you know, the whole picture of systemic racism is a farce.”

Video file

Citation

From the June 3, 2020, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Later on the same program, Ingraham brought on Georgia Republican congressional candidate Angela Stanton King, to rebut statements by former Attorney General Eric Holder that racial stereotypes from the slavery era are “still are part … of the American psyche.”

Video file

Citation

From the June 3, 202, edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Angela, I mean, again, their argument is America is a horrible, awful, racist country, and it's just completely paralyzed by racism. He was the attorney general of the United States, went to the top schools in America. So many incredible success stories across the country.

Of course there's racism and injustice — there is probably always going to be, sadly. But it seems to just discount all of the wonderful things that our country does and has done for people of all backgrounds. And it's such a negative view. I just —

ANGELA STANTON-KING (GEORGIA REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE): It's such a negative view, and I have to challenge that. Because if America is so bad, why are they fighting so hard to open our borders for all of these illegal immigrants to just flow into our country and have access to opportunity?

So, America isn't as bad as they're trying to proclaim it to be. I think right now what we need to do is get away from this victimhood mentality, and go on to be — making America great, being great, doing all that we can, you know, to fight against injustice, to stand for justice, and do what's right.