Race Issues

The major left-right disagreement regarding President Obama as a speechmaker hasn’t been over whether he’s talented (most conservatives concede he’s got a flair) but over whether he’s effective. Now, however, Ezra Klein thinks that a certain key group of liberals has lost confidence that Obama speeches in general, and specifically one about the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, would bring about…

Time magazine used one of the biggest basketball stars of all time to fan the flames of Ferguson. It posted an op-ed titled “The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race: Ferguson is not just about systemic racism — it's about class warfare and how America's poor are held back, says Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.” “Race war”? Is Time borrowing from conspiratorial ranters like Alex Jones? Abdul-Jabbar began…

Like what?  Seriously, Mika Brzezinski, when you claim as you did on today's Morning Joe that Barack Obama has done "great things" on race, precisely what do you have in mind? H/t NB reader Ray R. Was it choosing to make the racist Reverend Wright his personal pastor?  Appointing Eric Holder as Attorney General?  Accusing the Cambridge police of acting "stupidly" in the arrest of a black man…

In the wake of the “big three” networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) devoting 25 minutes to the indictment of Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) in the story’s first two days, ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer continued the network obsession with the potential 2016 presidential candidate.  On Monday, August 18, anchor Diane Sawyer introduced a report on Perry by proclaiming “back here at home to Texas and a kind…

Wesley Lowery was catapulted from relative obscurity to household-name status last week, at least for obsessive viewers of the MSNBC network, thanks to his arrest and brief detention by authorities in Ferguson, Missouri, last week. So perhaps it's not all too surprising that the Washington Post reporter -- whose beat usually is "Congress and national politics" -- used his Twitter account this…

Appearing on the Steve Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV, Reverend Jesse Jackson maintained that regardless of the events prior to Michael Brown’s death, there was no instance in which the Ferguson police officer should have shot the unarmed teen. During the contentious interview on Monday, August 18, Malzberg highlighted details in which Michael Brown allegedly attacked officer Darren Wilson,…

Following the death of Michael Brown and the ensuing protests in Ferguson, Missouri, one topic of conversation that has drawn a lot of attention is whether or not Al Sharpton can serve as both an activist and be the host of a daily MSNBC program. Appearing on CNN’s Reliable Sources, Marc Lamont Hill, CNN contributor and HuffPost Live host, defended Sharpton’s dual roles and argued that “Al…

Filling in as host on NBC’s Meet the Press, Andrea Mitchell, NBC's Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and host of MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, rushed to defend her colleague Al Sharpton for his involvement in the Ferguson protests. During a discussion with the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley, Mitchell declared that Sharpton was in Ferguson “on a peace mission” and not in the words of…

Smartphones and social media are enabling African-Americans all over the country to join in on peaceful, digital protests of the fatal shooting of unarmed Ferguson, Mo., teenager Michael Brown, CBS's Jim Axelrod reported on the August 14 Evening News. Axelrod turned to one such Twitter user, "Andre Fields... a 27-year-old political aide" from New York. But while Axelrod presented Fields as…

In the wake of Ferguson, Missouri teen Michael Brown’s shooting death following a confrontation with local police, two reporters, one with the Washington Post and another with the Huffington Post, were arrested by officials for failing to follow police orders as the town continues to deal with ongoing violence and looting. Following the arrest of Wesley Lowery, an African American reporter…

On the August 11 edition of CNN Newsroom, Brooke Baldwin invited fellow CNN host Don Lemon and former NYPD detective Gil Alba on the show to discuss the latest reports of unrest in Ferguson, Mo., following the shooting of an unarmed African-American teen. While the policeman bluntly stated that “there should never be rioting,” Lemon seemed to excuse the behavior, arguing that “when people are…

A brief report at the neighborhood web site DNAinfo in New York City, which describes itself as "New York's leading neighborhood news source" with "award-winning journalists" on staff, exemplifies how weak and negligent reporting on urban crime can be. A video capture of an assault in the City's West Greewich Village area shows a young black man first punching and knocking to the pavement a…

In a discussion about the recent unresolved shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow Daily touted the idea that there is a war on black men in America. Host Ronan Farrow cited a piece from Jonathan Capehart in the Washington Post that discussed the circumstances surrounding the deaths of African-Americans, specifically Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, and…

To read the Associated Press's Friday evening coverage of a federal judge's refusal to block North Carolina's election law reforms from taking effect in the upcoming general election, you'd think it was an unsuccessful effort on the part of a group of poor Davids to defeat the Tar Heel State's government Goliath. As J. Christian Adams at PJ Media noted shortly after the decision, it was…