"Here is how racism finds expression in the United States in the
21st century. You can tell it is racism because the only thing that has
changed between that period when there was no protest and the current
one is the anxiety of a segment of the population because of race."
—Vernon Windsor blog post March 16, 20010
Fox News' Bret Baier
interrupted President Obama so many times during Wednesday's interview
that Newsweek described the enounter as a "interrupt-a-thon."
Baier
acknowledged his repeated interjections at the end of the interview, by
interrupting the president once more to apologize. Baier told Obama "I
apologize for interrupting you, sir. I tried to get the most for our
buck here."
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell said that he could not
recall a reporter ever questioning or interrupting an American president
in such an aggressive way. Certainly, O'Donnell argued, Fox News never
took that approach with former President George W. Bush.
(Full
article)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/obama-fox-news-interview_n...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22887392#35922807You
have to know how many people of color (black people in particular) will
view this exchange. This is another example of how people of color are
slighted in ways that diminish the respect they have should be accorded
due to their office, their titles, or their accomplishments. All you
have to do is to look at how this same interviewer treated George W.
Bush to understand what is really going on here.
We have seen
this kind of thing for years in both the South and the North. White
doctors are introduced as Dr. Smith, Dr. Bannock, and Dr. Taylor, while
the black doctor is introduced as "John," stripped of both his title and
the formality of his last name. This is no different. Nor can one
compare European style interviews with those in this country. They are
two separate traditions. The overall message is "you can be interrupted
because of who you are as opposed to who I am, and furthermore, I owe
you absolutely none of the deference normally afforded this office for
exactly the same reason."