It might seem a little strange to see Fox News bashed on its Fox broadcast parent network, but that's what you would have witnessed if you tuned into "The Wanda Sykes Show," Saturday night's late-night alternative to NBC's "Saturday Night Live."
On the Dec. 12 broadcast of "The Wanda Sykes Show," Sykes, made famous for her attacks on conservative talker Rush Limbaugh and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at last May's White House Correspondents Dinner, took a shot at the Fox News Channel for her perception that it lacks black correspondents (emphasis added).
"So I've been digging around here and I found some old footage of black reporters on Fox News - you know, back when they were allowed to be on that network," Sykes said. "Fascinating stuff - take a look at this one."
But if Sykes were a regular viewer of the Fox News Channel, she would have realized there are black personalities featured regularly in the network's news reporting, including White House correspondent Wendell Goler, FoxNews.com "Strategy Room" anchor and Fox News Channel newscaster Harris Faulkner, Fox News religion correspondent Lauren Green and "Special Report" and "Fox News Sunday" regular Juan Williams.
Nonetheless, Sykes' comments were a lead-in for a seemingly sophomoric spoof from black newscaster meant to take place at the Hindenburg crash in 1937, making off-color analogies to provide a "Negro perspective." Transcript as follows:
"I'm Frederick R. Cobbs, educated Negro, coming to you from New Jersey's Lakehurst Air Base as we watch the Hindenburg descend. It appears to be a routine landing. But wait, wait a minute. Oh, my God! Fire has burst out of the side of the Hindenburg! Jesus, those flames are more than 200 feet high. To put that in a Negro perspective, those flames are higher than the bonfires that the Klan lit after the Emancipation Proclamation."
Unbelievable! Flaming wreckage as big as fireballs is falling near yards from me. To put this in Negro perspective, I haven't been this close to death since the age of 8 when I beat a 10-year-old white child in a spelling bee by correctly spelling the word "superiority."
And now I see white folk falling out of the sky at a rate of what appears to be at least 10 miles an hour. To put that in a Negro perspective, they are falling faster than a house Negro running from the big house after discovering that the master's new baby has a tan. Thank god the inhumanity of segregation and Jim Crow means no persons of color were allowed on that ship. For the first time in 1937, it is a good day to be a Negro! This is Frederick R. Cobbs, educated Negro, signing off for Negro Newsreel. Let's go!"
