Cable News Discovers Scary Black People! Eeek!

Ellen at News Hounds offers a detailed journey through Sean Hannity's long history of "caring deeply" about race... that is, when he imagines some white person somewhere is being put upon. It's well worth a read...

Apparently, Hannity has concluded that whites are the oppressed people in our country. At the drop of an n-word, Hannity will make a cause celebre of any white person accused of bigotry. Yet Hannity is obsessed with "revealing" racism in African Americans. So it was no surprise that during a discussion about the role of race in the presidential campaign, Hannity wasted no time in accusing Barack Obama of racism. With video.

Hannity is so obsessed with race that he once spent three nights discussing some unknown bookstore owner who had advocated the extermination of whites during a panel discussion about Hurricane Katrina a year earlier. A Hannity & Colmes producer even ambushed the man for a special "H&C Investigates" segment about this non-news event. Similarly, Hannity is almost certainly the only broadcaster on a national news network to present the Jena 6 case as a question about reverse racism.

On the other hand, an accusation of bigotry toward a white person will almost surely trigger a Hannity-to-the-rescue response. Don Imus, Mel Gibson, and Duane "Dog" Chapman were all recipients of Hannity rehab.

Pretty much. And this sudden obsession with Rev. Wright is, if you can get through the banging-your-head-against-a-wall part of it, fairly amusing. It's like the American media has just discovered -- OMG! Black people! And with religion!?

Now, none of these pundits gave a flying, candy-coated damn about some of the most influential preachers in America saying vile, despicable things and being continually rewarded for it with political praise and power. Robertson, Falwell, Dobson, Hagee -- there is an entire movement of evangelicals devoted to saying vicious things on national TV under the cloak of religion. Hagee seems to make a special habit of saying loathsome things against others -- blaming Hurricane Katrina on gays, or calling Catholicism "the great whore" and a "cult" -- and there sure haven't been hours and hours of attention devoted to him and his various political connections. No weeklong agonizing on how figures who asininely blamed 9/11 on feminists and abortionists continued to receive the praise and attention of the White House and other prominent politicians -- it was just presumed that they would. It wasn't even a serious question.

Wright, on the other hand, is being treated as zoological specimen. Good gracious -- what is this strange religious creature we have discovered? He talks about religion, and he tells jokes, and speaks angrily about bigotry! Eek! Everybody stand on their chairs!

Wright has said controversial, even ridiculous things -- and glory be, let us all marvel at the notion of a preacher in America saying controversial, even ridiculous things -- but I think it's hard to argue against the notion that he would not be receiving this level of obsessive scrutiny if he were white. I mean, no kidding: as evidence, see the above list of politically entrenched white evangelicals saying worse things to larger audiences with no significant impact whatsoever. Of course, Wright doesn't represent "black" religion any more than Pat Robertson represents "white" religion -- yet another thing I earnestly hope the pundits of America figure out sooner, and not later -- but they're both representative of certain religious movements in the nation, and one wonders what would happen if they received the same amount of scrutiny.

I'm reminded of the comparison by Jon Stewart of the media as preschoolers playing soccer, everyone trundling eagerly after the rolling ball with no gameplan, or goal, or even basic sense of direction. Wright's past link with Obama is I think almost secondary, at this point... certain segments of the media seem absolutely giddy at the idea of being able to hold this guy up and examine him, and the Obama connection has given them an "in" to do it without looking quite as salacious as they would under other circumstances. It's a typical media Shark Attack Week, but with scary black people instead of sharks.

Is it more funny than embarrassing, or more embarrassing than funny? I suppose it's all in how you look at it.

In any event, Obama has now disavowed Wright, and using stronger words than any candidate has ever used against Robertson, Dobson, Hagee, etc. This will likely lead to no public reflection whatsoever about the role of religion in politics, or about the treatment of equally controversial religious figures that get coddled by the press and politicians instead of chastised. So the game continues, and the rules are the same as always.