Media Call Out "Racial Double Standard" In Coverage Of Oregon Militia https://t.co/25OxAR2z0s #p2 #tcot pic.twitter.com/N83hPiGP4G
— Zaibatsu News Ⓜ️ (@ZaibatsuNews) January 6, 2016JON SCOTT (HOST): Double standard, Alan?
ALAN COLMES: Yes, absolutely. You’ve got black people with Black Lives Matter. You actually had an analyst on CNN say that it’s more of a danger when it’s black people because it’s the threat of looting versus people like this. That’s kind of a racist statement, as far as I’m concerned…But to me that’s a racist statement. If you had Muslims here, it would be called domestic terrorism. But these are white people who call themselves patriots, been referred to as militia, they’re not called domestic terrorists but that’s exactly what they are. We have a tremendous double standard in the media about this. It would be referred to, the language would be very different if these were not so-called white militia people.
If you think the idea of “White privilege” is a sham, you really should take a good, long look at the way the mainstream media is covering the militia takeover over of a federal wildlife refuge in southeastern Oregon. How else would you explain the White occupiers being referred to by the Washington Post, as “a group of armed anti-government activists?” And this is hardly an isolated example of the media’s double standard when it comes to race.
It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to imagine how the media would cover this event if the occupiers were, say, Black Lives Matters protesters or armed Muslims. They’d undoubtedly be referred to as “thugs” and “terrorists”…and while those descriptors might not be incorrect, they’re not applied to “armed anti-government activists” blessed with the great good fortune of having been born White.
If the occupiers were non-White, the Right-wing media would be demanding IMMEDIATE action to reclaim federal property from “thugs” and “terrorists.” Instead, the media are treating Ammon Bundy and his Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight If Their Lives Depended On It as if their grievances are legitimate and worthy of consideration.
So much for our “post-racial” America, eh?
The armed protesters who seized remote federal property in Oregon should leave, the Burns Paiute Tribal Council urged Wednesday. The occupiers claim the federal land rightfully belongs to the mostly white population of eastern Oregon, but Harney County was largely Paiute territory prior to white settlement.
On a foggy Wednesday morning, some of the tribe’s nearly 420 members gathered at the top of a snow-packed hill on the Paiute reservation to discuss their concerns about the outsiders. The doors of the meeting center were plastered with signs warning people not to bring firearms inside.
“As a Native, if we were to go out there and fight back like they are, we would have been dead by now,” said Carla Teeman, a social services assistant at the tribe.
What’s currently being left out of the conversation is that the Paiutes claim the wildlife refuge as part of their ancestral homeland. White people, of course, stole the land “fair and square,” and so the media largely ignore this aspect of the occupation. The occupiers are demanding that the federal land on which the preserve is located be “returned” to ranchers, miners, and loggers…while ignoring the fact that the land was stolen in the first place.
Ah, but I digress….
Ms. Teeman is correct in her assertion, of course. If the Paiutes had occupied the wildlife refuge, the response from the media and law enforcement would have been very, very different. The media would be collectively apoplectic and demanding immediate decisive action, and law enforcement would be getting all hands on deck as soon as they possibly could.
As any good, God-fearing American patriot knows, White folks by definition can’t be terrorists…and so they’re charitably described as “a group of armed anti-government activists.” This should be a “WTF???” moment if ever there was one. The Bundy family, f’rinstance, has benefited substantially from government largesse…but what they see as “giveaways” or “handouts” when given to others (e.g.- non-Whites) they take as their due.
Move along, sheeple; no double standard here….
What Ammon Bundy and his merry band of self-described patriots fail to recognize, much less understand, is that we live in a country held together by the rule of law. This means you don’t get to violate the law and take over federal property simply because you resent a government you see as “tyrannical.” Like anything else in America, if you don’t like the way things work, there’s a way to effect change. Vote. Run for office. Work to change the hearts and minds of others. You don’t take up arms and occupy federal property and demand that land belonging to the American people be given to loggers, ranchers, and miners. For people who don’t believe in “handouts,” the hypocrisy inherent in this belief is astonishing.
Then again, it’s only a “handout” when someone else gets it. When you get it, it’s merely you receiving your due as a patriotic American.
