Malik Zulu Shabazz

With recent controversial race topics entering the spotlight, such as the voter intimidation incident and Shirley Sherrod story, the media has been more than willing to open their arms and turn on their cameras to hear the opining of the National Chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Malik Zulu Shabazz.  Shabazz has appeared on Fox News, issued a statement through CNN, and done exclusive interviews for various media outlets.

The Anti-Defamation League has described Shabazz as anti-Semitic and racist, trying "to recast himself as a serious civil rights leader in recent years by cloaking his bigotry and intolerance in religious and civil rights principles and inserting himself in high profile, racially charged issues around the country."  This certainly seems to be the case as he has made an increasing number of appearances in the media, in which the audience is to suspend belief and assume this man is an evenhanded voice on race relations in America.

In fact, Shabazz used his statement at CNN to accuse the ‘Republican or right wing tea party strategists' of ‘stir(ing) up racial fears'.

Surprises come unexpectedly sometimes.

On Fox News Channel's July 11 broadcast of "Geraldo at Large," an aggressive host Geraldo Rivera took on chairman of the New Black Panthers, Malik Zulu Shabazz over his political gestures.

"It is absolutely pathetic, it is so old-fashioned," Rivera said. "What are you trying to do? Are you trying to be the big, bad nightmare?"

Shabazz, leader of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) rattled off one of his causes, Oscar Grant, but he leveraged him to make a case for reparations.

"I'm trying to help Oscar Grant, who was shot down in cold blood by a white cop and I am trying to redeem, I am trying to redeem - put that camera back right over here, I am trying to redeem -- and black people who have been lynched, raped or mobbed and have not been given reparations."

Remember when media liberals were insisting (falsely, by the way) that RedState's Erick Erickson had advocated shooting a census taker? Well imagine that a journalist had approached, say, Dick Armey and the following exchange had ensued. Then try to imagine what the media's response would be.

JOURNO: Obviously you don't believe in killing census workers.

ARMEY: Umm, not in that context, no sir. No, no.

JOURNO: Okay, in what context?

ARMEY: Just for the sake of this interview, no context. I don't believe in that. There are too many other government forces out here that are much more powerful that I as a man would focus on. I wouldn't focus on the census workers, sir, I'd focus on the police.

Replace "census workers" with "babies" and "government" with "white," and you have the exact statement from Malik Zulu Shabazz, leader of the New Black Panther Party, made in an interview with Mediaite's Tommy Christopher (video below the fold).