Fox News Channel has crossed the racist line

The famed comedian D.J. Hughley has stated that whenever he accidentally rests his television dial on the Fox News station it will automatically start tilting to the right.

That's funny, but it also illustrates the dogma and mantra that comes from this station that claims to be "fair and balanced".

That claim is indeed untrue. In fact, there has never been a cable channel so devoted to one area of political debate. Fox News is not extremely committed to the right wing dogma of the political debate it is pro ultra conservative awash with neo conservative views which are not compatible with traditional or progressive Black views.

Anti-democratic, anti-liberal but also anti-Black and this is what sickens me and should cause great concern for the free nation known as America.

The Obama run for the presidency has turned this station into a bastion for hate, propaganda and sick satire. Mahatma Gandhi once stated that when you start a movement "they will first ignore you; then they will laugh at you; then they will fight you; finally you will win".

Fox News is engrossed in the third stage with Senator Obama and the entire Black race in general. It appears to them that the Senator and the entire Black race are one and the same and must be stopped at all costs. The level of hate and racism from the Rupert Murdock station is turning up to a very serious level.

It has decided to demonize the entire Black church. Since the tape and follow up of Rev. Wright, Senator Obama's former minister, the television station has repeatedly blamed this on typical Black church rhetoric coming out every Sunday from typical Black churches and their ministers throughout the land.

They have even brought on their dependable colored buffoons who claim, "This is what's wrong with Black people. They have stupid, hate mongering preachers telling them what to do."

Someone needs to tell this medium that it is the Black church that has gotten our race through the Jim Crow apartheid era of the United States and that it is the Black church that has spawned great leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who have led us to victory in the great Civil Rights Struggle.

I guess that's it. They despise the Black church for what it has done - delivering us from oppression through faith and courage. Apparently, this station hates what the Black church stands for and is.

It was not funny at all when one of the paid pundits on Fox News made a Freudian slip by saying, "it would be nice to stop Al Qaeda and kill Obama", when checked by another pundit she continued, "Osama/Obama, let's knock off both of them."

This is intolerable! They tried to cover themselves with a mild jovial apology the next day. This was nothing to joke about and based on the history of this nation it was clearly a threat that should not be taken lightly. How can a "news show" carry on in such a dangerous and sick manner? If the Ku Klux Klan has an endorsed television channel, this is it.

Racists can clearly be illustrated with the hatred of the Black female. Their fear of the Black male causes them to hate the one who loves him - the Black female. The personal mean spirited attacks against the Honorable Michelle Obama are terribly sad. Another Fox News pundit referred to her as "Obama's baby mama". This is reducing the most celebrated Black family today to an unholy affair replete with illegitimate children. This is more than mean; this is pure hate. You have to be pretty sick to think this stuff up.

It gets worse. Bill O'Reilly has stated on his nightly show on Fox News that he wants to organize a "lynching party to go after Michelle Obama". This is 2008 and we are on the verge of breaking a long cycle of exclusivity. However, there is a news medium that is hell bent on preventing that. Issuing a statement like this is truly indicative that something very wrong is still amiss amongst us. We need to call it out.

I gave up watching Fox News long ago. I just could no longer stomach the mess that was being presented before me. No African-American or any human being with racial tolerance can watch this program on a consistent basis. Bad taste is one thing but racial animus becomes something more sinister.

It is time for us to start officially complaining to the Federal Communications Commission about the antics this channel is perpetrating. Let's stop this monster.

Alford is the co-founder, president/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, Inc.

Source: The Louisiana Weekly

Related: Fox Attacks: Black America

Fear and Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News

Fear and Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News: A Media Matters Action Network Report - May 21, 2008 (En Español)

There are many problems facing the United States today -- a faltering economy, a health-care crisis, and the continuing war in Iraq, to name a few. But viewers of some of the most prominent cable news programs are presented a different reality in which one issue stands above all others: illegal immigration.

While hosts on other cable programs regularly discuss illegal immigration, Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck serve up a steady diet of fear, anger, and resentment on the topic of illegal immigration.

Media Matters Action Network

Geraldo Rivera On Anti-Immigrant Nativism

Olberman: Dobbs is a hypocrite, racist and a drunk!

Keith Olberman nails Lou Dobbs as a hypocrite, a racist, and...a drunk? True.

Ya Basta! Time to hit back against anti-Latino bigotry

Time to hit back against anti-Latino bigotry (by Andres Oppenheimer, Miami Herald - 7.22.07)

Here is what the National Council of La Raza -- the biggest U.S. Hispanic organization -- should do at its annual meeting in Miami this week: draw from the experience of African Americans and Jewish Americans by launching an all-out campaign to expose anti-Latino bigots in the media, entertainment and politics.

The recent immigration debate in the Senate, which ended with the defeat of a bill that would have given a path to citizenship to many of the 12 million undocumented workers, has given way to the biggest explosion of antiHispanic sentiment I have seen since I arrived in this country three decades ago.

Most Hispanics feel the same way. A new nationwide poll by Bendixen and Associates says 76 percent of U.S. Hispanics agree with the statement that ''anti-immigrant sentiment is growing in the United States,'' and 62 percent say this phenomenon has directly affected them or their families.

Few Hispanics believe statements by rabid antiimmigration radio and television hosts who say they only oppose ''illegal immigration.'' When asked what fuels the current anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, 64 percent of Hispanics in the poll mentioned one factor: ``racism against immigrants from Latin America.''

Indeed, in recent times we have heard statements on radio and television that go far beyond the boundaries of fair debate over the need to fix the U.S. immigration system, and that twist the facts in ways that make it difficult to believe in the good faith of those who make them.

It's not just what fearmongers such as CNN's Lou Dobbs or radio talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage allow to be said in their shows, which systematically blame Hispanics for many of America's ills. Prominent academics such as Harvard University political scientist Samuel Huntington are getting away with sweeping statements such as ``America's Latino immigration deluge . . . constitutes a major potential threat to the cultural and possibly political integrity of the United States.''

While the 44 million Hispanics are the biggest minority in America, you don't see the kind of nationwide protests, legal actions or calls for boycotts on a scale that you would probably see if these statement were directed against African Americans or Jewish Americans.

When you visit the website of the NAACP, one of the first things you see is an 'NAACP `Stop' Campaign'' headline, which is a call to action against racism in the media.

The NAACP and other African American groups regularly launch name-and-shame campaigns, and most recently forced the firing of radio host Don Imus over an April comment calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team ``nappy-headed hos.''

The Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has been exposing racism in the media since 1913.

But when you go to The National Council of La Raza's website, you don't find a similar emphasis on fighting bigotry. The group's main theme is ''Ya es hora!,'' a voter registration drive conducted alongside the Spanish-language Univisión network and other Latino organizations aimed at adding two million new Hispanic votes for the 2008 election.

La Raza President Janet Murguia conceded in an interview Friday that Hispanics need to do more to fight back against bigotry in the media.

''We do need to rethink our strategy; there is no question about it,'' Murguia told me.

``But the key change that we need to focus on is to make sure that we can influence the outcome of elections. Getting madder doesn't necessarily help, but getting smarter will help.''

My opinion: The National Council of La Raza and its sister institutions are doing the right thing with their ''Ya es hora!'' citizenship drive. But they should also launch a nationwide ''Ya basta!'' campaign to identify, name and shame those who systematically bash Hispanics.

If anti-Hispanic sentiment is allowed to keep growing, we will soon have an underclass of 12 million immigrants that will feel not only frustrated by not having a legal path to citizenship but increasingly insulted by the mainstream media.

And social exclusion mixed with frustration can be a dangerous cocktail, as we've seen in the violent 2005 riots by Muslim youths in the suburbs of Paris.

The time for Hispanics to say ''Ya basta!'' is now, before it's too late.