The Racist Narrative

Here's an interview Chicago TV news had with a young African American. Cute kid, nice conversation. But they edited it to make it appear this black child wants to grow up to be a gang member with a big gun when he actually wants to grow up to be a policeman.

Here's FoxNews editing President Obama’s remarks about Ferguson, MO, taking out the portion where he deplores public violence against police, then accusing him of being anti-police.

There is a narrative which a certain part of our society prefers to hear, one that shows President Obama not being the evenhanded fair-minded leader he is, one that shows African Americans in a negative light to gin up the partisan and irrational feelings of white Americans.

This is racism. As William Faulkner said "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." A determined effort by deep dyed racists and deeply partisan forces in this country has worked very hard (and very profitably) to turn America back into a tribal society, where there is no honest public conversation, only confrontations with two sides screaming their different opinions at each other. Different races, different party affiliations, nativists and immigrants (and all those "nativists" descended from immigrants.)

FoxNews and talk radio prefer conflict, disagreement and hatred more than they have ever been interested in truth. The point isn't to promote honesty and facts, it's to attract viewers to their anger machine, to gin up team spirit.