Pandering to division, fear and hate to obtain ratings.

by Glenn Littrell

In spite of FOX News attempt to link Black Lives Matter’s origination to the Ferguson shooting, it has been around since the Trayvon Martin’s death, but since there were no ‘riots’ associated with Trayvon Martin protest it better serves the FOXNews narrative to link it to the violence in Ferguson.

After 90 days of relatively peaceful demonstration in Ferguson, and over 1000 peaceful protest by Black Lives Matter, FoxNews continues to focus on only the negative aspects of any story that would put people of color in the negative light. From their emphasis on a storyline that whites don’t riot (see examples to the contrary), to the ‘pigs in a blanket’ rants at an otherwise peaceful protest.

Guaranteed, at every Ferguson, Baltimore, NYC, and Black Lives Matter event there have been media, personal and police cameras recording the events. Yet, we see the same file footage from Ferguson to pigs in a blanket looped and played repeatedly, ad nauseam.

I have no love with modern media journalism across the board, but when I here people complain about media coverage I have to wonder if they understand what media is. You always have to view media coverage with a skeptical eye. Unfortunately,

• those who have bought into the mantra of ‘liberal media bias’ is bad, and all media is liberal, so all media is bad,
• then turn around and have the naiveté to turn to conservative media, proclaim it is not bias and say its good.

Hello! Conservative media is bias, therefore it is just as bad. 

Anytime nearly every spoken or written paragraph is either conveying the message that one end of the spectrum (liberal) is bad, or that the other end of the spectrum (conservative) is good… that is biased. That’s the figurative definition of bias,
…and that is FOXNews. Most definitely not fair and balanced.

Let’s understand that no news agency has done more to promote:

• the knew Black Panther party
• the career of Al Sharpton
• black animosity towards police
• the ‘pigs in a blanket’ chant as a call for violence against police

than FOXNews has.

FOXNews Hypocrisy:

1. The insidiousness of calls to violence and its impact on violence.  (Click here to view advocacy for violence against other Americans defended by FOXNews)

2. Critical of months of non-violent protest, and occasional short period of violence, and continued portrayals of victims of police shootings (and their families) as thugs who need to realize that actions have consequence, FOXNEWS referred to Clive Bundy as a patriot and hero after he and hundreds of ARMED protesters defied a court order and faced down law enforcement officers.

   
   
3. For years FOXNews has repeated the same trope to criticize moderate Muslims for not standing up to radical Muslims and calling them out as being anti-Muslim, and has criticized African-America protestors, and African-Americans in general, for not dealing with the issues of black-on-black crime. Both arguments are false though, moderate Muslims and African-Americans are proactive… you just won’t see it on the evening news unless someone gets shot.
   The hypocrisy though is that FOXNews fails to even suggest that Police Officers should also take a position of condemning and rooting out the bad cops among them, advocate for better policies, or advocate for better training and hiring.

Even if such a movement was to gain momentum among good cops it would be surprising to see FOXNews give it any attention as it does not create the necessary tension and division for them to cover it.

FOXNews specifically and the media in general are continually contributing to the hysteria by promoting the more newsworthy (but unproductive) storyline of the entire issue being an ‘us versus them’ conflict. Rogue Cops versus the criminal element of the African American Community.  And therefore all cops versus all African-Americans.

Most police officers are good people, so are most African-Americans, but there are rotten apples in every demographic.

For over a century there has been a code of silence within the Police community in regards to wrongdoing among Police Officers. This code of silence has fostered an us against them mentality that, among other factors, eroded public confidence in all communities, but especially ethnic communities. This us against them mentality is being used by the media and less than stellar police officers to divide us.
It is time that good police officers standup and more publicly call for reforms and better policies, and call out and weed out those unfit to be police officers.

It is incorrect to say that there are no elements in the African-American Community working towards resolving problems within the community. It is wrong to say that there isn’t dissatisfaction in the African-American community with some elements in the community. Because you don’t see it on the news, or you don’t recognize it when you see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Perhaps those voices need to be raised a notch also, maybe to the same extent and volume used by the protestors, but you must realize that there is a fundamental difference between the function and capabilities of the police community and the African-American community:

• A police force is a defined community, entity. It is regimented, authoritative and empowered with a chain of command, and within that chain of command lies the ability to control, not just the actions of its ranks, but also the makeup of its ranks.
• The African-American community, like most communities or neighborhoods are loosely defined by geographical boundaries, are not regimented, have only self-imposed authority, are empowered only through political unity (sometime insufficiently) or civil demonstration and lack a workable chain of command.

Improvement and reconciliation, resolving the problem, cannot happen without the good cops standing up and being counted.

by Glenn Littrell

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Here's the Conservative Playbook for Tearing Down Black Lives Matter

In the wake of last Friday's murder of a Harris County, Texas, police deputy, Fox News pundits have bent over backward to find a way to connect the killing to the Black Lives Matter movement. A guest on the Fox talk show The Five on Monday called the movement a "criminal organization," and several hosts, including Bill O'Reilly, described it as a "hate group."

Harris County law enforcement officials have yet to determine a motive for the shooting, and suspect Shannon Miles had been found mentally incompetent to stand trial on a felony assault charge in 2012. But that hasn't stopped Fox News from showing a recent clip of protesters at the Minnesota State Fair chanting, "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon," as pundits discussed the Texas killing, or from running inflammatory on-screen banners that read "Murder Movement" and "Black Lives Matter Taunts Cop Killings."

But this is not a new tactic from the right. Conservatives have long attempted to discredit black social movements by casting them as criminal. In fact, the law-and-order rhetoric they've espoused since the civil rights movement was invented to do just that… read more

from Mother Jones