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Bill O’Reilly is Restless
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Many Americans have real issues with Fox “News”, starting with their dubious claim of being “Fair and Balanced”. However, I would not go so far as to assert that this network advances racist views … until now.
First some background. Most of us instinctively know that “The Factor” with Bill O’Reilly, “The Sean Hannity Show”, and their like-thinking regular guests serve to promote the right wing platform and their conservative Republican interests. Also, many are aware that Fox is FIRST a business, SECOND an entertainment platform, and THIRD a public service outlet. What this means is that Fox is wired to make money by entertaining you, plain and simple. However, if you are unaware of their own priorities, you might make the mistake of confusing Fox “News” as a serious news outlet -- instead of merely infotainment. “So,” you may ask, “what has this to do with racism?” Let me explain.
When investigators in the murder of Chandra Levy announced they were about to arrest Salvadorian Ingmar Guandique in the case, Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, on February 23rd, tied this isolated case into an imagined immigrant crime wave, and offered up pseudo statistics to prove his point. Unfortunately, his careless rant failed to take into account multiple studies which concluded that both legal and undocumented immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans.
And, in referring to other less partisan media outlets which compete with Fox for viewers, O’Reilly stated in a recent conversation with John McCain: “They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have.”
By exaggerating immigrant crime and promoting fear and xenophobia, O’Reilly can easily stir up hatred against innocent people. This kind of irresponsible diatribe could and has resulted in hate crimes committed by ignorant Americans against Hispanics and divert us from real issues.
According to U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder in his discussion on racism, “Our national conversation on race is too often simplistic and left to those on the extremes who are not hesitant to use these issues to advance nothing more than their own narrow self-interest.” We at myGreencard.com agree. And all of us need to understand how Bill O’Rielly and other conservative nativist commentators shamelessly use racism as the bait to hook viewers at the expense of truth and accuracy. We deserve better, even from Fox.Labels: Bill O'Reilly, Eric Holder, fair and balanced, Fox News, immigration, Ingmar Guandique, myGreencard.com, nativism, nativist, racism, United States Association of Immigrants, xenophobia
posted by J. Stephen Wilson
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