In the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson or the suspicious death of Victor White III while in the back seat of a police car here in Acadiana, the typical response from the Fox News crowd is to deny and deflect the fact that racism is still alive and well in America.
Instead of acknowledging the fact that a disproportionate number of black men make up the prison population in the United States, they blame groups like the NAACP for stirring up racial tensions. Rather than accepting that “stop and frisk” police activity was heavily targeting minorities, they pretend it’s necessary to prevent crime – all while claiming that President Obama is trying to take away their freedoms.
Yes, grasp the utter hypocrisy for a moment; they’re complaining about violations (real or imagined) of their 2nd and 4th Amendment rights. At the same time, you have right-wing pundits and politicians advocating for unconstitutional violations of the 4th Amendment and heavy-handed police tactics, just so long as they’re aimed at minorities. Here’s what the 4th Amendment says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. (Source)
Remember how all of those people who supported Cliven Bundy in his defiance of the federal government showed up in Ferguson to protest the excessive force used against protesters? Oh yeah, that’s right – they didn’t.
As I said before, it’s proof positive to the likes of Sean Hannity that Obama is a ruthless (and at the same time utterly incompetent) dictator who hates America and white people when the Bureau of Land Management tries to kick a rich squatter off federal land. To hear the conservative media tell it, those who joined Bundy and even threatened to shoot federal agents are heroes and American patriots. You know, because there is a war on conservative values and against white people. On the other hand, when the death of an unarmed black teenager is protested, you’ll actually see comments on conservative websites and Facebook pages wishing the police would massacre the crowd and that a black teenager deserved to die for alleged shoplifting and jaywalking.
