Posted on 08/08/2019 10:05:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Fox News Primetime host Tucker Carlson has come under considerable fire this week for comments in which he referred to white supremacy in the United States as a “hoax.” The comments came just days after a shooter in El Paso, Texas killed 22 people after publishing a white supremacist manifesto.
Tucker Carlson: White supremacy is "actually not a real problem in America." Calling white supremacy and issue is "a hoax" and "a conspiracy theory used to divide the country" pic.twitter.com/ydzmJ0L7UI
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) August 7, 2019
There can be no doubt that Carlson knew he would be kicking a hornets nest with these remarks, and indeed the reaction was swift and horrified. Some resumed the call for advertisers to abandon his show.
Agree entirely. Next we need to question what responsibility advertisers, shareholders, "real" newspeople at Fox have. I think Warren was correct in not going on. It endures because people treat it as a legit news organ. https://t.co/AtiGLMc5tp
— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) August 7, 2019
Tucker Carlson’s nightly show does a great deal to portray nonwhites as the dangerous “other,” a force to be beaten back to save America.
His denials and rhetoric must be called out for the lies that they are. My column:https://t.co/gZYb6J19N0— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) August 7, 2019
Facts first: An audit by the Anti-Defamation League found white supremacist murders in the US "more than doubled in 2017" https://t.co/SEYxx8kxTq
— CNN (@CNN) August 7, 2019
Oh. My. God.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on Tuesday that white supremacy in the United States is a "hoax" and a "conspiracy theory."
“If you were to assemble a list, a hierarchy of concerns—of problems this country faces—where would white supremacy be on the list?” pic.twitter.com/4KxYJzOccP
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) August 7, 2019
But Carlson had a point here, and it’s an important one. The key line in his monologue is when he asks whether the total number of people in the United States affiliated with white supremacist organizations could fit inside a single football stadium. The answer is almost certainly yes. And in a country of 330 million people, those couple of tens of thousands really are a drop in the bucket.
The hoax, as Carlson put it, is not the claim that white supremacists exist — they clearly do — but the claim that they represent some important threat to the country — they don’t. In a conversation with National Review’s Victor David Hanson on Carlson’s show, Hanson tells Carlson that in almost every measurable way the United States is one of the most diverse and well functioning societies on earth.
Although domestic terrorist incidents in our country are on the rise, in part because of new efforts to police them, they are still a very tiny fraction of crime. According to FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony before Congress, these accounted for something like 100 arrests in the past year or so. Compare that to a Cato Institute study that found in 2017 there were 106,000 illegal immigrants incarcerated in the United States.
While it’s true that illegal immigrants have lower incarceration rates by percentage than native-born Americans, it’s also much higher than that of legal immigrants. However you slice the numbers, the problem of crime committed by those here illegally is vastly larger than that committed by white supremacists.
Two things skew this misperception of the scale of white supremacy and violence associated with it. First is the nature of the violent acts; second is the broadening of the term white supremacist to be a mile wide and an inch deep.
There is no doubt that the most notable recent acts of white supremacist violence were shocking. Whether the church shooting Charleston, S.C., the killing of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Va., or the most recent shooting at a Walmart in Texas, each was chilling. This is, after all, the purpose of terrorism: for a small group of people to exert outsized influence on a society by creating fear of heinous acts. It’s why we should be careful of giving into that fear. Like a fear of flying, fear of being killed by a white supremacist terrorist is not particularly rational.
So if white supremacist terrorists — in fact white supremacists in general — are so rare, why do they and their acts get so much attention? Here we get to the smaller, everyday acts of supposed white supremacy that some on the left argue permeate our country, encouraged by rhetoric from politicians, particularly President Trump. Both claims are dubious.
As far as acts of white supremacy permeating the country, these seem to be backed up loosely by occasional videos of white people acting badly. Again, we are talking about a tiny percentage of people. Perhaps more seriously, good outcomes for some racial groups in our country seem stuck at low levels, but this is not true for all minority groups. This being the case, it is far more likely that legitimate policy disagreements are the catalyst behind disparate outcomes, not some explosion in white supremacy.
As to the president, and what responsibility he may bear, this too tends to go way too far. It requires those making the claim to imbue the president’s words with a malicious intent they can’t prove. Sometimes these efforts reach a level of absurdity.
This happened this week when a former assistant director of the FBI appeared on MSNBC and claimed that by lowering flags to half-mast until August 8, the White House was engaged in white supremacy. How? Well, apparently 88 is a symbolic number in many Nazi subcultures, and August 8th is 8/8, so…you get the picture. Anytime anyone has to appeal to such a bizarre piece of non-evidence to support a claim, it’s very likely the claim is not supportable.
Ultimately, Carlson was pushing back against the idea that the United States is plunging into some dark future where white supremacist violence is everywhere and becomes a staple of most Americans’ lives. He’s absolutely correct to point out that this is not happening, no matter how much play the idea gets in the media.
Was “hoax” the right word to use? Maybe not. Does Carlson’s signature incredulous smirk annoy many on left? Almost certainly. But in this case he wasn’t wrong. We are treating a legitimate, but very small, problem as if it is an existential threat to the country. It just isn’t.
that’;s right. we are not, BUT- the left is gonna make damn sure everyone thinks we are
White supremacy, if it exists at all, is a tiny fraction of what it was 100 or even 50 years ago. These days nobody believes that their skin color is what gives them a leg up.
Those who engage in decrying White Privilege logically have to believe the proposition of White Supremacy.
So the Left is again projecting.
They fundamentally believe in White Supremacy, but have it firmly paved over in their subconscious.
The problems is elite supremacy.
They believe in the divine right to rule over us with their divinity being king Satan.
Their primary instrument of evil is the federal government.
Which is why “they” have altered it to “white nationalist”. So, guess since I am Caucasian and I still love this country, guilty.
There is no white supremacy movement. There is a VERY strong movement to demonize whites and to take his money. They won’t dare trying to kill all whites. Or will they?
Paladin2, you HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD.
Thanks.
America has the closest thing the world has ever seen or will ever see to the unanimous opposition to racial supremacy among white people.
But this isn’t about racial supremacy of white people. This is about introducing a totalitarian Communist regime, the lists of those to be sent to the death camps already being compiled by Twitter, Facebook, and Google.
Not piling on Tucker but that's a silly statement.
Most people with an ideology don't necessarily belong to an organization.
It's like saying we don't have a libertarian strain because there are only 500k members in the Libertarian Party.
But the liberal media told us that?
RE: Most people with an ideology don’t necessarily belong to an organization. It’s like saying we don’t have a libertarian strain because there are only 500k members in the Libertarian Party.
So, what’s your gut feel then? Is the “White Supremacist” strain in America much greater than one football field?
Of course. You could probably find that many just in our prison system.
Do I think it's a huge threat? No.
I’ve seen “White Nationalist” people on the internet. Literally none of them are supremacist, they don’t want to rule over other races. They usually want to live in exclusively white communities and ignore the rest of the world. The idea that anyone today wants to dominate other races is absurd.
If anything America is suffering from an epidemic on “Minority Superiority”.
And clearly “White Privilege” today means that whites are privileged to be openly discriminated against in every aspect of American society.
Aren’t we lucky?
America is not facing a crisis of white supremacy because if there is any it is only a few perhaps similar to the number practicing black, brown, yellow or muslim supremacy.
We are facing a crisis though by the left followers that are being whipped into a frenzy that builds on their hysterical fear of guns and climate change.
The dimrat convention next year should be a barn burner that puts ‘68 in Chicago to shame.
That’s a great meme!
I disagree with Tucker here.
There’s nothing more “white supremacist” than a bunch of pale lefties believing that people of color can’t succeed without their benevolent intervention.
The left is desperate ...... they crave power AND control, and are willing to do anything to get it.
The left knows they can’t gut the 2nd ....so, in their infantile minds, a pile of dead bodies is an opportunity.
Without proof, they keep saying “words”, especially from a president they despise, are violence.....
Notice the weirdo lefties rarely cite the left-wing violence of Antifa.
They will savagely strip innocent patriots of their rights in order “to feel the thrill of controlling people.”
For the left, “a little crotch action” will always supersede the Constitution.
Patriots know these sub-human morons will stoop to any lengths and will regurgitate the most preposterous lies
to advance their pathetic political ambitions.
The left fights hard for “rights” not even mentioned in the Constitution – abortion, health care, a “free” college education –
than those intrinsic rights specifically singled out for protection from government infringement in the Bill of Rights.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.