We don’t want to get all political.  Yet, we feel obligated to raise issues important to our community.  Our country has recently made history by nominating the first Black candidate for President in our history.  Unfortunately, there are those who will oppose Barack Obama with everything including the kitchen sink.  Whether they think he’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to this country or a Black Messiah, we expect “news” organizations to report the news and not to race bait and feed the xenophobia that we already have enough trouble with in America.

Right now, Fox News is trying to paint Barack Obama as foreign, un-American, suspicious, and scary. They’re trying to send Americans he message that our country’s first viable Black candidate for President is not “one of us.”

I signed this petition to be sent to the head of Fox News. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll go to their advertisers and the FCC.  We wanted to invite you to sign on as well.  It takes only a moment:

http://www.colorofchange.org/foxobama/?id=2030-528653

Here’s what happened recently:

After Senator Obama won the nomination, he and his wife gave each other a “pound” in front of the cameras. Fox anchor E.D. Hill called he act of celebration a “terrorist fist jab.” Then last week, a Fox News on-screen graphic referred to Michelle Obama as “Obama’s baby mama”–slang used to describe the unmarried mother of a man’s child.
It was a clear attempt to associate the Obamas with negative cultural stereotypes about Black people, an insult not only to Michelle Obama but to women and Black people everywhere.

After each of the incidents mentioned, Fox issued some form of weak apology. But what does it mean when you slap someone in the face, apologize the next day, then slap them again on the third? It means the apology is meaningless.

These aren’t one-time incidents–they’re part of a pattern that continues no matter how often Fox is forced to apologize.   Fox has a clear record of attacking and undermining Black institutions, Black leaders, and Black people in general.  f we don’t push back now, we will see more of the same from now until November.  Please join us in helping to bring an end to Fox’s behavior.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 10:38 am and is filed under Our Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.