Beck's statement that Obama is a “racist” brews controversy

Beck claims Obama is a “racist.” Discussing Obama's response to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Beck asserts that Obama has “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.” After being reminded that Obama has numerous white staffers, Beck contradicted himself, stating, “I'm not saying that he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem,” before going on to state, “this guy is, I believe, a racist.” [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 7/28/09]

Fox News VP responds, saying Beck expressed “his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel.” Bill Shine, Fox News' senior vice president of programming, responded to Beck's statement, telling TVNewser, “Glenn Beck expressed a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel. And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions.” [TVNewser, 7/28/09]

NAACP releases statement on Beck's comments. On the July 29 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-host Willie Geist read the following statement from the NAACP: “How could the president be a racist, a man of both African-American and white heritage, a man who inspired millions of Americans to unite across the divide of race, religion, class, and age in his historic run for the presidency? We commend President Obama for having the courage to discuss an issue that all too many Americans consider a third rail.” [Morning Joe, 7/29/09]

Other media figures blast Beck's comments. Beck's remarks have been criticized by, among others, Joe Scarborough, Ron Christie, Jonathan Capehart, Donny Deutsch, Joan Walsh, Lois Romano, Chris Matthews, Mika Brzezinski, Mike Barnicle, Ed Schultz, Stephen A. Smith, Rachel Maddow, Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg.

Beck stands by his comments. On his radio show, Beck stated that he “stands by” his comments that Obama is a “racist,” adding, “I deem him a racist by his own standard, the standard of the left.” [Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program, 7/29/09]

Beck's “racist” comment topped a week of racially inflammatory commentary

July 27

• Beck: Obama “has real issues with race.” Beck discussed Obama's policies with Fox News contributor Keith Ablow and said of Obama, “I just see this ACORN thing and also the thing at the White House as a sign -- this guy has real issues with race, real issues.” Ablow responded, in part, “I think we get a transparent president in this case whose feelings about white America are coming forward again.” Beck then commented, “I think he's one of the more arrogant people I have ever witnessed in the office.” [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 7/27/09]

• Beck: Obama satisfying his “desire for racial justice” though “intimidation, vilification, bullying.” Beck said, “We have demonstrated President Obama's desire for racial justice, but how is he setting out to achieve it? Exactly the way a community organizer would: through intimidation, vilification, bullying, a system, an underground shell game.” Beck continued, “Look how he has handled different things. Gates -- he calls the cops stupid and racist before he admits, he says, 'I don't know all of the facts.' But he jumps to the conclusion that the cops are racist.” [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 7/27/09]

July 24

• Beck “theory”: Obama planted Gates question because it “helps” him rally “hardcore supporters.” Beck said of Obama's response to Gates' arrest, “Now, I have this from insiders at ACORN. This is a bonus for them when we go on the air and I, you know, rip apart the guy from ACORN, especially if he's black, they allow -- it allows them to take that videotape and say, 'See? It's the white man against the black man.' It helps them. Is it possible, that in this emergency or in this crisis with his friend -- his friend is in crisis -- legitimate thing going on. He's in a crisis because health care is bad. His poll numbers are slipping. Is it just possible that he's using this question to be able to rally support of his hardcore supporters?” [The Glenn Beck Program, 7/24/09]

July 23

• Beck points to health care bill provision as evidence that Obama supports reform as a form of “reparations.” Beck pointed to a component of the House Democrats' health care bill to buttress his claim that Obama supports health insurance reform as a form of “reparations,” asserting:

BECK: Written in the first 1,000-plus-page bill -- that nobody's going to read before they vote on it -- is a provision in this health care bill that says a medical school or other health-related institution pursued a grant or other contract from the government, they would have to prove their inclusiveness to minorities.

On Page 881 and 882 of this bill, it states, quote, “The secretary of Health and Human Services shall give preference to those entities that have demonstrated a record of the following: One, training individuals who are underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds. Two, a high rate of placing graduates in practice settings having the principal focus of serving in underserved areas or populations experiencing health disparities. And three, supporting teaching programs that address the health care needs of vulnerable populations.

After reading from the provision, Beck concluded, ”So. You got it? This isn't preference to the best institutions that are going to be churning out our doctors, but the institutions with the most diversity. We shouldn't be dishing out grants based on what hospital looks, you know, the most like an Old Navy commercial." [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 7/23/09]

• Beck repeatedly referred to “reparations” while discussing Obama's “universal program.” Beck stated that “just in case the universalness of the program doesn't somehow or another quench his reparation appetite, he's making sure to do his part to pay the debt in the other areas. Written in the first 1,000-plus-page bill -- that nobody's going to read before they vote on it -- is a provision in this health care bill that says a medical school or other health-related institution pursued a grant or other contract from the government, they would have to prove their inclusiveness to minorities.” [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 7/23/09]

• Beck: Obama agenda driven by “reparations” and desire to “settle old racial scores.” Beck said of Obama's agenda, including the distribution of stimulus funds and selection of advisers, “His goal is creating a new America, a new model, a model that will settle old racial scores through new social justice.” Beck also commented, “Obama is no dummy. He knows that you would never pass reparations. He knows you would never pass any of this stuff. This is all affirmative action.” Earlier, he said, "[T]his is what he said on the campaign trail -- he's not for reparations because they don't go far enough. We need health care. We need everybody to go to college, et cetera, et cetera. So, we have no reparations. We also have no capitalism, which leads him, in his mind, to justice -- to justice. That is what we're changing to." [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 7/23/09]

• Beck: "Office of Minority Health" could allow for “litigation against Doritos” since “minorities” may “eat more Doritos.” Beck suggested that the Office of Minority Health could allow for “litigation against Doritos” since “minorities” may “eat more Doritos.” The Office of Minority Health's stated mission “is to improve and protect the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will eliminate health disparities.” During a discussion about the office with Fox News contributor Linda Chavez, Beck said:

[H]ere's what I was worried about, because the Office of Minority Health -- I guess you could say, you know -- and I don't know the stats, but let's just say minorities eat more Doritos, so there's more heart disease. Well, wouldn't that lead towards lawsuits and litigation about -- against Doritos or whatever it is? Doesn't this just open up all kinds of things, when instead, what we should be saying is, “Stop eating so many Doritos”?

Chavez responded, “Well, that's true, by the way, for all Americans. I mean, a lot of our unequal health outcomes have to do with not just income but behavior.” Beck then said, “But there is no 'Office for Majority Health.' ” [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 7/23/09]

• Beck suggested that Democrats want patients and doctors to be of the same race. On Beck, Chavez said that under the Democrats' health care plan, “we're also going to try to make sure that if you go to a doctor and you're black or Latino I guess that you're going to have to be treated by a black or Latino doctor. And that's what all of the preferences are in terms of medical school admissions that are in this bill.” Beck responded, “You know, I really don't care what color of the doctor is. I don't care. Man, woman -- I mean, I don't care. I just want to make sure they're the right person to do it. But apparently, I'm alone in that, Linda?” Chavez answered, “Well, apparently a lot of medical schools -- and there're going to be more if this bill passes -- admit students not so much based on whether they did well on the tests or in their science courses as undergraduates, but to try to satisfy this whole notion of diversity. And that's a very, very bad bargain, because it produces bad doctors.” [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 7/23/09]

• Beck guest: “What happens to a black man in America? Well, you slit your wife's throat from ear to ear, and you get acquitted by a jury.” Beck hosted conservative author David Horowitz, who said of the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., “It's Harvard arrogance. The guy went into a panic mode. And then he reached for the race card. And in America -- you know, what happens to a black man in America? Well, you slit your wife's throat from ear to ear, and you get acquitted by a jury when the whole nation knows that you're guilty.” Beck invited two African-American crew members from the program to respond to Horowitz's comments, one of whom said that the police had searched his car without reason. Horowitz responded, “And the gentleman is concerned because the cops are searching his car. If he's on the New Jersey Turnpike or in that area, 70 percent of the drug dealers are black. And who do you think they're dealing the drugs to? Poor blacks in the -- in Newark and the inner cities there.” Horowitz also said of the Harvard black studies department, "[I]t's almost the only black studies department in the country that isn't about racial huckstering." [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 7/23/09]

• Beck on reparations: “The 360,000 in the Civil War, that wasn't enough?” Beck said on his Fox News show, “As I warned before the election, [Obama] doesn't think that reparations would go far enough. Quote, 'I fear that reparations would be an excuse for some to say, ”We've paid our debt," and to avoid the much harder work.' You've got to be kidding me. So we can never pay the debt? The 360,000 in the Civil War, that wasn't enough?" Beck made a similar claim on his radio show, saying, “But none of that enters into Obama's thinking. He doesn't even consider the 360,000 Union troops killed in the Civil War as debt paid.” [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 7/23/09, The Glenn Beck Program, 7/23/09]

• Beck: Obama “is putting through reparations times 10.” Beck mentioned reparations many other times on his radio show, at one point saying, “This man [Obama] is putting through reparations times 10.” Beck also asked, “Who'd receive the money? All blacks, or just those directly descended from slaves? Would Barack Obama?” Beck later added, “Wait a minute. His father was not a descendent of slaves, and his mother was white. So maybe Michelle Obama would be the only one that should be able to get the cash. Since Obama is half white and half black, would he pay and receive? See, these are the tricky questions, but then again, they have nothing to do with Obama's objection to reparations. Obama is against direct reparations for one reason: He doesn't ever want the victim card to be lost.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 7/23/09]

• Beck: “How about the Irish? Does Ted Kennedy's family need reparations?” Beck said that Obama is not “concerned about repairing other wrongs done to other groups of people.” He continued:

For instance, I think the Jews could make a pretty strong case against Germany for the whole World War II thing, you know? Not to mention Egypt -- 400 years of bondage. But wasn't Barack Obama over there just now in Egypt blaming Egypt's problems on the Jews? What about reparations for slavery of the Egyptians enslaving the Jews? And on top of that, they've had to deal with Barbra Streisand -- can't we leave these people alone?

Beck later added, “How about the Irish? Does Ted Kennedy's family need reparations?” [The Glenn Beck Program, 7/23/09]

• Beck's health care fix: "[L]et's weed out the illegal aliens that are here." Beck described a recent trip to the emergency room, saying, “Nobody spoke English in the waiting room. And I waited two hours to get into the -- to see the doctor at the emergency room. Two hours. OK, I have no problem. But are these people who are here legally or illegally?” In the context of fixing the health care system, Beck later proposed: "[L]et's weed out the illegal aliens that are here. Stop illegal aliens from coming in. Protect the border -- it kills several birds with one stone." [The Glenn Beck Program, 7/23/09]

• Beck: "[M]odern day slave state" being constructed out of government programs. Beck said of the purported involvement of ACORN and the SEIU in the collection of information for the Office of Minority Health and the Office of Civil Rights, “So, now, inside the health care bill is an organization where your tax dollars are going to go to go find information out about minority health. It creates a group of slaves to the government -- a group of people working for the government -- most likely minorities, working for the government, under the auspices of community organizers, going door to door to find out information about people's health. This is a modern-day slave state that is being created.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 7/23/09]

• Beck promo: “Is massive Health Care bill reparations?” In an online message promoting the July 23 broadcast of his Fox News program, titled “Is massive Health Care bill reparations?” Beck stated:

President Obama has long said he's not for reparations. Of course, the media leaves it at that -- because that's the mainstream view so they want him to look good. But, the real reason Obama is not for reparations is because he feels the [sic] don't go far enough. He actually 'fears' them because he thinks the public would assume the score is settled. He's for reparations all right -- he's just going about getting them in a much scarier way.

From the July 28 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

STEVE DOOCY (co-host): On Thursday night, 6 o'clock at the White House --

BECK: That --

DOOCY: -- they're gonna have a beer fest.

BECK: -- is unbelievable.

BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host): Why?

BECK: That is unbe-- why?

KILMEADE: Yeah, why?

BECK: For a teaching lesson? Some sort of a -- who needs to learn what here? This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy -- over and over and over again -- who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture -- I don't know what it is. But you can't sit in a pew with Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and not hear some of that stuff and not have it wash over.

What kind of president of the United States immediately jumps on the police, just like, what kind of president would ever say, “Oh, well, yeah. Well, he's black. Of course he was breaking into the house.” You'd never do that.

From the July 27 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas. That's what the Contract with America was -- I mean, that's what it was about? Really? Hmm. I completely missed that.

Now, he's got friends that say things like that. There's his friend. There's Barack Obama's good friend that says things like that, and he has some really, really extra special friends, also.

MICHELLE OBAMA [video clip]: For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.

BECK: We have demonstrated President Obama's desire for racial justice. But how is he setting out to achieve it? Exactly the way a community organizer would: through intimidation, vilification, bullying, a system, an underground shell game.

Look how he has handled different things. Gates -- he calls the cops stupid and racist before he admits, he says, “I don't know all of the facts.” But he jumps to the conclusion that the cops are racist.

Health care -- oh, those evil, greedy doctors that are ripping tonsils out at will. And it's also no longer about access -- universal access. It's about preferential access.

His green policies -- it's easy to say he wants to bankrupt the evil, earth-killing coal industry. But now he's got a czar who's a self-avowed communist to make sure that it happens. Our president is not just bankrupting our country; he is fundamentally transforming it as he promised, and he is doing it to the core.

In the next few years, I promise you, America will look more like ACORN in structure and less than anything that our founders had in mind. Obama handles every issue like a community organizer would, and he wants to create a civilian army.

Anybody remember this from the campaign? A civilian army in the form of community organizers, more well -- I'm quoting him -- “more well- funded than the military.” Last year, he said, and I quote, “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we have set. We have got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, and just as well-funded.”

You gotta be kidding me. If you want a government-funded civilian army of ACORNs, well, you're gonna be a happy camper very soon if America keeps sleeping.

Keith Ablow is here. He is a psychiatrist and Fox News contributor.

Keith, am I jumping the gun here? I just see this ACORN thing and also the thing at the White House as a sign. This guy has real issues with race, real issues.

ABLOW: Unfortunately -- and I really mean it, Glenn -- unfortunately, I have to agree with you. I don't think you're jumping the gun. Americans had as their fondest hope and prayer, I think, that they were electing a colorblind president who could embrace everyone equally. I think that was the hope. I think it was the hope -- more than some of his policies -- that here was a man who could treat everyone equally.

Instead, I think we get a transparent president, in this case, whose feelings about white America are coming forward again.

BECK: Yeah.

ABLOW: And I don't know -- listen. As a psychiatrist, I'm trained to look at facts and say what fits and what doesn't, what's a theory that can hold water as to someone's personality and nature. You have someone who sat in a church with a pastor who called white people the devil, whose wife has not been proud of this country in her adult life until quite recently, who calls a Cambridge police sergeant stupid without knowing the facts, and whose friends are community organizers with questionable pasts.

And so, you add all that up, and say, look --

BECK: Questionable pasts?

ABLOW: -- there's more than an apology necessary here. This is a question of introspection. The president needs to look at himself and say, “Do I have prejudice that I wasn't even aware of, perhaps, toward white people?”

BECK: Well, he's not -- you know what? He's not going to do that. I think he's one of the more arrogant people I have ever witnessed in the office. I mean, I -- I don't think he is -- this man has absolutely no fear, and no fear of the American people -- no fear in a good way, like as in fear God. No fear for the office of the presidency of the United States.

From the July 23 edition of Glenn Beck:

BECK: Here's “The One Thing” tonight: Everything that is getting pushed through Congress, including this health care bill, are transforming America. And they are all driven by President Obama's thinking on one idea: reparations. You crazy right-wing extremist!

Before you say anything, President Obama is against reparations. He himself said so. He said that, but what the media didn't report on conveniently during the election ignores the reason why he's against reparations. As I warned before the election, he doesn't think that reparations would go far enough. Quote, “I fear that reparations would be an excuse for some to say, 'We've paid our debt,' and to avoid the much harder work.”

You've got to be kidding me. So we can never pay the debt? The 360,000 in the Civil War, that wasn't enough?

I had forgotten about this position on reparations until a couple of days ago. We were talking about some story on this program. And it was -- I think it was about school or something, and it reminded me, and I was like -- wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. It ties everything together.

Now, let's just go back and find out -- he said it doesn't pay the debt; besides, we have to do much harder work. What is that harder work?

OBAMA [video clip]: If we have a program, for example, of universal health care, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because they're disproportionately uninsured. If we've got an agenda that says every child in America should be get -- should be able to go to college regardless of income, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because it's oftentimes our children who can't afford to go to college.

BECK: OK. So, he believes in the, you know, universal program because they disproportionately affect people of color, and that's the way he feels is the best way to right the wrongs of the past. These massive programs are Obama-brand reparations -- or in presidential speak, leveling out the playing field.

But, just in case the universalness of the program doesn't somehow or another quench his reparation appetite, he's making sure to do his part to pay the debt in the other areas. Written in the first 1,000-plus-page bill -- that nobody's going to read before they vote on it -- is a provision in this health care bill that says a medical school or other health-related institution pursued a grant or other contract from the government, they would have to prove their inclusiveness to minorities.

On Page 881 and 882 of this bill, it states, quote, “The secretary of Health and Human Services shall give preference to those entities that have demonstrated a record of the following: One, training individuals who are underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds. Two, a high rate of placing graduates in practice settings having the principal focus of serving in underserved areas or populations experiencing health disparities. And three, supporting teaching programs that address the health care needs of vulnerable populations.

Vulnerable populations. Wow. This whole thing could have been written by ACORN, who, by the way, on a side note -- CNS News reports today they might get cash earmarked for the health care bill for community-based organizations. When asked about it, Chris Dodd said, ”I don't know if ACORN's going to get the money or not."

So. You got it? This isn't preference to the best institutions that are going to be churning out our doctors, but the institutions with the most diversity. We shouldn't be dishing out grants based on what hospital looks, you know, the most like an Old Navy commercial.

Also in this bill, the Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Minority Health -- remember I said to you, what kind of health care bill has -- what is that? Well, they're going to be maintaining, collecting, and presenting federal data on race and ethnicity to see if they can identify gaps.

When Obama's economic team was dreaming up the stimulus package, his former adviser Secretary of Labor Robert Reich said, quote.

REICH [video clip]: I am concerned, as I'm sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high-skilled people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers. I have nothing against white male construction workers. I'm just saying that there are a lot of other people who have needs as well.

BECK: Yeah, let's not give them to the high-skilled or people who have experience. Let's just -- let's make this a job-training program.

Obama's new green czar, Van Jones -- this is a guy who is a self-avowed communist, and he is in the Obama administration. He says in his book that has been out now for about four months, The Green Collar Economy -- subtitle How One Solution Can Fix Two Big Problems -- that the best way to fight global warming and urban poverty is by creating millions of green jobs.

This guy wasn't a radical, then was arrested. Spent six months in jails. Came out a communist. Then he was a communist-anarchist radical. And then he decided -- he found the eco-movement and decided green is the new red. He then went on to become a green expert.

A percentage of these jobs, he says, should go to the disadvantaged and to the chronically unemployed. Well, why are they chronically unemployed? “The green economy should not just be about reclaiming thrown-away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities.”

Obama is no dummy. He knows that you would never pass reparations. He knows you would never pass any of this stuff. This is all affirmative action.

He also knows we can't afford health care. He knows we can't afford cap-and-trade and more stimulus bills.

But, see, that's assuming that he wants to take care of somebody's health. It's assuming that he wants unemployment numbers the way we all understand unemployment numbers, and it's that he wants to take care of the environment.

But I don't think those are his goals. That's a nice bonus.

His goal is creating a new America, a new model, a model that will settle old racial scores through new social justice.

[...]

BECK: Well, here's what -- here's what I was worried about, because the Office of Minority Health -- I guess you could say, you know -- and I don't know the stats, but let's just say minorities eat more Doritos, so there's more heart disease. Well, wouldn't that lead towards lawsuits and litigation about -- against Doritos or whatever it is? Doesn't this just open up all kinds of things, when instead, what we should be saying is, “Stop eating so many Doritos”?

CHAVEZ: Well, that's true, by the way, for all Americans. I mean, a lot of our unequal health outcomes have to do with not just income but behavior.

BECK: Yeah, but there's --

CHAVEZ: And what they are gonna --

BECK: -- no “Office for Majority Health.”

CHAVEZ: -- they're gonna try and turn it into a race issue.

BECK: But there is no --

CHAVEZ: Well, that's right.

BECK: -- “Office of Majority Health.” So, we're only looking at the -- you know, we can eat Doritos, be white, Asian, black -- it doesn't matter. But we're not studying that. We're just studying the minority health. So, again --

CHAVEZ: And we're also going to try to make sure that if you go to a doctor and you're black or Latino I guess that you're going to have to be treated by a black or Latino doctor. And that's what all of the preferences are in terms of medical school admissions that are in this bill.

BECK: You know, I really don't care what color of the doctor is. I don't care. Man, woman -- I mean, I don't care. I just want to make sure they're the right person to do it. But apparently, I'm alone in that, Linda?

CHAVEZ: Well, apparently a lot of medical schools -- and there're going to be more if this bill passes -- admit students not so much based on whether they did well on the tests or in their science courses as undergraduates, but to try to satisfy this whole notion of diversity. And that's a very, very bad bargain, because it produces bad doctors.

BECK: Yep.

CHAVEZ:. And it gets --

BECK: Bad everything.

CHAVEZ: -- people who would otherwise have been good doctors -- they don't get a chance.

[...]

BECK: You know what? I started in a -- I started into break over here -- I started into a break yester-- here just a second ago, and we'll get into this more tomorrow. But what I just said to you about this whole reparations thing -- I know this is what we're on to here. I know.

This -- we said to you, he -- if you understand that Barack Obama is a community organizer, you'll understand what he's doing. OK. Community organizer -- he's building a new framework to our country. He nominates a Supreme Court justice that is into social justice. That's leveling the playing field beyond the law, which leads us to socialized everything, AKA, socialism.

In the end, he says -- this is what he said on the campaign trail -- he's not for reparations because they don't go far enough. We need health care. We need everybody to go to college, et cetera, et cetera.

So, we have no reparations. We also have no capitalism, which leads him, in his mind, to justice -- to justice. That is what we're changing to.

And do you know who's really helping him? ACORN.

[...]

BECK: What do you think this is about? Because this guy is known as a fairly rational guy. What happened here?

HOROWITZ: Yeah. Henry Louis Gates is one of the more thoughtful professors. Certainly, he has built an impressive -- it's almost the only black studies department in the country that isn't about racial huckstering. But he behaved here. He fell into this mode.

In fact, what happened was that there was a perceived break-in. A neighbor had seen two black men breaking in. It happened to be Gates and his driver, and they were breaking in because he forgot his key. He was returning from a trip. And the officer then went up --

BECK: After being called by a neighbor?

HOROWITZ: -- and asked him to step out --

BECK: After being called by a neighbor?

HOROWITZ: Yeah. Right. He's investigating a crime scene, and his life is in jeopardy, because you don't know what's happening. He asked Gates to step outside, and Gates, instead of that, said, “You're just doing this because I'm a black man in America,” and called his police chief, saying, “You don't you know who you're messing with,” and started calling him, the officer, a racist over the phone. So this is, you know --

BECK: Why would you --

HOROWITZ: -- obstructing an investigation. It's arrogance. It's Harvard arrogance. The guy went into a panic mode. And then he reached for the race card.

And in America -- you know, what happens to a black man in America? Well, you slit your wife's throat from ear to ear, and you get acquitted by a jury when the whole nation knows that you're guilty. That's --

BECK: OK. Hang on. David, David. Hang on, hang on just a second. I want to play the other side of this here in a second. I've got to take a break. I'm going to play the other side of it, because I grew up in the whitest white town in America in Washington state.

But I have to tell you something. When I moved to Kentucky, I understood the relationship with African-Americans and the police in a different way. It doesn't excuse bad behavior. But I want to share that and get your thoughts on this. We'll do that coming up in just a second.

[...]

BECK: David Horowitz is back with us. He's founder of FrontPage Magazine and the author of One-Party Classroom. I've got to tell you, David. When we went into the break, Jack and Oscar -- and Jack is a sound guy. Oscar is -- runs Camera 3 here. They both said to me, “He doesn't know what the hell he's even talking about.” And -- well, first of all, Jack, you tell me. Why does he have it wrong?

JACK: You have it wrong for a simple reason. I borrowed my friend's truck. I was pulled over because of a brake light. I said, “Fine. Just give me the ticket, and I'll take care of it.”

In two seconds, they told me to get out of the truck. They're patting me down. Two cops are digging in the truck, OK? Two of the cops don't even have their badges. And I said, “Look, just give me the ticket for the brake light.” “No, we're looking for drugs and guns.” They stood me out last winter in the sleet and the snow for 20 minutes.

BECK: Oscar --

JACK: For nothing.

BECK: -- you've had a similar experience?

OSCAR: Well, I have, but I personally think, first of all, the O.J. thing doesn't have anything to do with Henry Gates. And I think what Bill Cosby said is probably the most prevalent to the situation, where we should kind of look at what -- how this is going to pan out on both sides before we really make --

BECK: Yeah, well, I don't want to think -- you know what here? I think the guy got off a plane. He was coming from China. He was tired. He was grumpy, et cetera, et cetera. And then he's probably a little bit of an elitist -- “Don't you know who I am?” That's not a race thing. I know elitist white people that do that. And he went and he played the race card.

But I have to tell you -- David, when I -- I grew up in Washington State, in a little town named Mount Vernon. There weren't any minorities in the area.

And when I first moved to Kentucky in the 1980s -- I go into Kentucky, and I see the news -- and I didn't understand how people wouldn't open the door for a cop, et cetera, et cetera, until I saw that they were just on an investigation where they were arresting these -- a couple of these cops that had KKK outfits in the trunk of their squad car. And I went, “Wow, that's a different world. I -- yeah, I don't think I'd open my door for a cop, either.”

HOROWITZ: It's a totally different world.

BECK: It is a totally different world.

HOROWITZ: It is a totally different --

BECK: Right.

HOROWITZ: It's a totally different world. There were three police officers here. One was Hispanic, one was black, and the white cop had been teaching officers how not to racially profile for 10 years and was selected for the job by his superior, who was black.

And the gentleman is concerned because the cops are searching his car. If he's on the New Jersey Turnpike or in that area, 70 percent of the drug dealers are black. And who do you think they're dealing the drugs to? Poor blacks in the -- in Newark and the inner cities there.

BECK: All right.

HOROWITZ: So, the fact that they stopped him --

BECK: David --

HOROWITZ: -- I mean, it's an inconvenience.

BECK: All right.

HOROWITZ: I have an inconvenience.

BECK: No, it wasn't an inconvenience. I've -- Jack has talked to me about this --

HOROWITZ: I get searched every single time I jump a plane -- I take a plane --

BECK: I've got to go.

HOROWITZ: -- because I have an artificial hip.

BECK: I've got to cut.

HOROWITZ: But I put up with it.

BECK: I've got to cut. I've got to go. We're up against a break. Right back.

From the July 23 broadcast of Premiere Radio Network's The Glenn Beck Show:

BECK: Let me just point out -- I think we should just start taxing white people. Can we just start taxing --

[cheers]

UNKNOWN MAN: Finally.

BECK: Thank you.

UNKNOWN MAN: Finally, someone has said it.

BECK: Yes. Let's just start taxing white people. Let's start taxing white people, cops that, you know, stop black people from just breaking into their own house, and making stupid moves, and doctors that are just motivated by greed and profit that are just ripping tonsils out of people for no apparent reason. Let's just tax them. Let's imprison them. You know what? Let's gas them. We should just gas them. And I think --

[applause]

BURGUIERE: Woo! Yeah, whitey!

[...]

BECK: Has anybody been to the hospital lately? I was just at the hospital just over vacation, I was at the hospital. And I know the first thing that came to mind waiting in the waiting room. Anybody?

UNKNOWN MAN: Illegal aliens?

BECK: Illegal aliens.

UNKNOWN MAN: Yeah, yeah.

BECK: Illegal aliens.

UNKNOWN MAN: Wild stab in the dark there.

BECK: OK? Nobody spoke English in the waiting room. And I waited two hours to get into the -- to see the doctor at the emergency room. Two hours. OK, I have no problem. But are these people who are here legally or illegally?

Stu, you were just at the hospital with your wife the other day.

BURGUIERE: Yes.

BECK: What was their reaction when you came in and you had health insurance?

BURGUIERE: I said to -- they asked me who my normal doctor was, and I said, “Actually, I don't know. We just changed insurance.” And they said, “You have insurance?” It was, like, a shocking -- like they were --

BECK: OK.

BURGUIERE: -- they were amazed at this possibility.

BECK: So, here's the two things: One, let's weed out the illegal aliens that are here. Stop illegal aliens from coming in. Protect the border -- it kills several birds with one stone.

Two, if you want to make sure that people have access to health care, the worst thing you can do to have people who don't have insurance give -- have access to health care is to have them get their daily health care at the hospital, at the emergency room. That's not the place -- that's an emergency room.

[...]

BECK: So I'm guessing that's not why Obama says he opposes reparations. Neither is he concerned about repairing other wrongs done to other groups of people. For instance, I think the Jews could make a pretty strong case against Germany for the whole World War II thing, you know? Not to mention Egypt -- 400 years of bondage. But wasn't Barack Obama over there just now in Egypt blaming Egypt's problems on the Jews? What about reparations for slavery of the Egyptians enslaving the Jews? And on top of that, they've had to deal with Barbra Streisand -- can't we leave these people alone?

Then there's the ethnic Albanians, the Kurds, Tutsis, the Hutus, the non-majority population of Darfur, the Cambodians, nearly every other ethnicity that has ever arrived on the shores of this country has been at first beaten down. How about the Irish? Does Ted Kennedy's family need reparations? How about the Asians that built the railroads in slavelike conditions? Do they need reparations?

How about faiths? How about the Jews? How about the Mormons? Does Mitt Romney -- does he need reparations? He seemed to do pretty well for himself, even though his faith -- the people in his faith in the 1850s -- same time as slavery -- killed, tarred, feathered, dragged from their homes, beaten. Their homes, their places of worship -- burned to the ground. Chased by mobs out of every town in which they settled, starting in New York, all the way across the country. The U.S. Army was sent in to attack them after they arrived in a city they called home. They decided not to when they got there. In Missouri, the governor of the state issued an extermination order against them in 1838. An extermination order -- it is the only one in the history of the country where it was legal to kill a group of people. And it wasn't rescinded until 1976. Did they receive reparations? No. All they got was Donny and Marie, and Harry Reid. These people can't even drink their way into drunken stupors to forget their troubles. They moved on.

But none of that enters into Obama's thinking. He doesn't even consider the 360,000 Union troops killed in the Civil War as debt paid. And don't even think about asking him about affirmative action. That wasn't any kind of reparation. Neither was Black Entertainment Television, Black History Month, the United Negro College Fund, the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, RainbowPUSH Collation, 100 Black Men of America. None of these things could exist for whites, and Obama couldn't care less. It's not about doing the right thing and uniting.

[...]

BECK: Then there's this question: Who'd receive the money? All blacks, or just those directly descended from slaves? Would Barack Obama, whose white mother was from Kansas and black father from Kenya -- I know the story; I've only heard it more than I have heard about John McCain's war stories.

Wait a minute. His father was not a descendent of slaves, and his mother was white. So maybe Michelle Obama would be the only one that should be able to get the cash. Since Obama is half white and half black, would he pay and receive? See, these are the tricky questions, but then again, they have nothing to do with Obama's objection to reparations. Obama is against direct reparations for one reason: He doesn't ever want the victim card to be lost.

[...]

BECK: Remember, ACORN and SEIU, the union -- same thing. Same thing. Same people, same street address, same everything. SEIU, the union, and ACORN -- same thing.

Those people are the ones that are leading -- they were the ones that held the conference with all the pharmaceutical companies. “How can we reduce the cost of health” -- it's ACORN-slash-SEIU. So, now, inside the health care bill is an organization where your tax dollars are going to go to go find information out about minority health. It creates a group of slaves to the government -- a group of people working for the government -- most likely minorities, working for the government, under the auspices of community organizers, going door to door to find out information about people's health.

This is a modern-day slave state that is being created. It is quite an ingenious organization. It is an exoskeleton that is using our republic as a host. It is feasting on it. And when the host dies, it won't care. It won't care. Because the new system that replaces it is already there. Don't worry. We took out the inefficiencies of Congress. Congress is irrelevant, and you know it and I know it. It hasn't been -- it hasn't even been reading the bills. Well, don't even worry about it. We've taken out all the inefficiencies. All of the rich people were the problem; all of the businesses were the problem.

[...]

BECK: This man is putting through reparations times 10. This guy is not a guy who didn't listen in the pew of Jeremiah Wright. He is just -- he's putting these things in.